Acts 13:2–3

Do not confuse this ministering to the Lord with serving Him in preaching or teaching. It was no doubt mainly prayer and intercession. The idea that the Lord's Supper was involved is crude and unfounded... The fasting that went with their spiritual action toward the Lord confirms this. Fasting humbles the outward nature, so that the inner man may be before Him with an undivided heart.

We may well ask whether our service for God today is often taken up too easily. Would it not help spiritual power and effectiveness if we were more often found in this attitude before we began anything for God?... Our question is about waiting on God together, with fasting, before we start work in which all the saints have a common interest. The early Church understood this.

Many have thought of the Holy Spirit as only an influence, and not as a Person, equal with the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead. But Scripture shows plainly that He speaks and acts only as a Divine Person can speak and act. The present occasion bears this out. An influence cannot say, "Separate ME Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." This is the language of a Divine Person. It is the speech of sovereignty, and only a Divine Person is qualified to use it, out of a will that is all-powerful and wholly wise.

Whatever the channel, the word was not spoken to the church but to the fellow workers, to separate those two for the special work in front of them. It is the Spirit Who says, "I have called them." This was not the first time either Barnabas or Saul had been called with authority to the service of Christ. Even the younger of the two had worked openly and well for years, both in the gospel and in the church. Men in a hurry to find the rite of ordination in this passage end up with ordination carried out by brothers of lower rank than the two men themselves.

The Holy Spirit commands them to separate to Him Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them... The definite and obvious source of their mission was the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who called them to the work. He sent them out — an all-important principle in the Lord's ways on earth. We come out from Jerusalem, from Judaism, and from the authority of the apostles the Lord chose while He was on earth.

The occasion was momentous. It was the first regular going out from the assembly of messengers who would carry the gospel to Gentiles as well as Jews. Some features here belong to the apostles alone. Yet in the main it is a simple picture of the spirit of prayer, self-denial, dependence and fellowship that should mark the Church of God at all times. There may be no "prophets" now who can put the infallible "thus says the Lord" in front of their own words. But we have the "thus says the Lord" in His all-sufficient and infallible word, and we have the same sovereign Spirit, who can certainly make His will known.

Twice fasting is mentioned, and it must be specially significant. I do not speak of the mere going without food. I mean that spirit of earnest longing, of self-denial, of absorption, which lies behind the actual neglect of food. Fasting is not an end, and hardly a means to an end. It is a sign of the purpose of a soul that has lost its natural inclinations in one mastering desire. It is to such souls, emptied of self, that the Spirit makes known His will.

The assembly identified themselves fully with their mission by fasting, prayer, and laying on of hands. I think when Scripture says a fast, it means a fast. Often one hears it said, "That means a moral state." Do you think it was only a moral state at Antioch? The moral state existed, and it showed itself by an actual, physical fast, which was not commanded, so far as we read.

This was not to confer authority... The end of Acts 14 explains what this action was, and why hands were laid on them. It says there that they sailed to Antioch, the starting-point, from where "they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled." That was the object and meaning of the hands laid on Barnabas and Saul. It was not the presumptuous thought that men who were spiritually below the apostles could give them what they themselves did not have to the same degree. It was simply a brotherly commendation to the grace of God.

Note this, no hypocrisy. If I pray, and put my hands upon a man, I am identified with him. If I put my hand on my brother in prayer, I ought next to put my hand into my pocket, to help him, because "the laborer deserves his wages." They identified themselves with these two men, and no doubt supported them.

Here prophets are together, and the Holy Spirit says, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the work to which I have called them." There was no popular choice of office-bearers, at any rate. And these prophets (not the presbytery, of which there is not a word) laid their hands on them. It was not to ordain them, but to commend them to the grace of God for the work which they then fulfilled. ... If this is ordination, it is ordination of apostles by laymen.

They were all waiting on the Lord in complete seriousness of spirit when the word came. Afterwards, when they laid their hands on them, prayer and fasting went with the action. But those who acted with this true and earnest interest took no authority in it. They "let them go" — not "sent them away." The text says next, in plain words, that the "sending forth" was of the Spirit.

They were sent forth by Him — an all-important principle as to the Lord's ways on earth. We come out from Jerusalem, from Judaism, from the jurisdiction of the apostles named by the Lord while He was on earth. ... A glorious Christ in heaven acknowledges the disciples as members of His body, as Himself on high. The mission comes from the Holy Spirit on earth, and it knows only His energy as the source of action and authority. This is the work which now opens.