Saturday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 16:1-10
Today we find ourselves on the second missionary journey of Paul. Just in case we think that quarrels and divisions in our church are something that only happened later in the Church’s history, we need to see how this Second Journey got under way.
Some time after the First Journey, Paul suggested to Barnabas that they should go back and visit the places they had evangelised. However, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark (his cousin, also just called Mark) along with them. But Paul disagreed because he said that Mark had abandoned them early on at Pamphylia on the First Journey and he did not want him along this time.
Their disagreement was so strong that they decided to go their separate ways. Barnabas took Mark and they went off to his native Cyprus. Paul, however, with the blessing of the Antioch community, instead took Silas as his companion. They began by going through Syria and Cilicia, visiting the churches Paul had been to on his First Journey.
It is at that point that our reading begins today. We find Paul back in places where he had proclaimed the gospel before—Derbe and Lystra. As Paul is approaching this time from the east, the order of the towns is reversed.
It was in Lystra that Paul met Timothy, whom he invited to join him in his work. Timothy was to become one of his closest and most loyal companions, and there are two letters of the New Testament dedicated to him. His mother was a Jew, but his father was a gentile Greek and because of that he had never been circumcised (we saw how that could have been an issue during the meeting in Jerusalem). Since Paul addressed him as a young man some 15 years later (see 1 Tim 4:12), he must have been only in his teens at this time.
On the basis of the decision that had been made in Jerusalem, there was now no need for Timothy to be circumcised. But Paul, sensitive to the strong feelings of the Jews to whom they would be preaching, had him circumcised. In general, Paul opposed circumcision for converts from paganism, but because Timothy had a Jewish mother, he was an Israelite according to Jewish law. Conversely, in the case of Titus, Paul refused circumcision because it was being demanded by some people as a condition for salvation. All of this is an indication of how flexible Paul could be on non-essentials and it should not be seen as mere compromising with unreasonable people.
Paul himself was a totally free person, but he was very aware that other people were not so liberated. As he says elsewhere:
…whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)
Here he tolerates the weakness of some people. Circumcision was not necessary for baptism, but if it made some people happy and furthered the growth of the Kingdom, then have at it. As Paul would discuss elsewhere, being circumcised or not makes no difference whatever.
At the same time, we are told today that Paul was disseminating the decisions made at Jerusalem about circumcision and the status of Christian gentiles to all those he met. And the churches in these places were growing in faith and numbers. It was a very encouraging situation.
After visiting these places of the First Journey, Paul now began to tread new ground, visiting new places in Asia Minor (Turkey today). However, when he and his companions tried to go into the Roman province of Asia, they met some unspecified obstacles on the way which were seen as the guiding hand of the Spirit indicating that they should go in a different direction. Asia at this time was a Roman province in what is western Turkey today, and included the districts of Mysia, Lydia and Caria.
After leaving Iconium, it seems they had originally intended going west to Ephesus (on the west coast of Turkey), but instead the Spirit intervened and Paul and his companions turned first north, then in a north-westerly direction. They found themselves going through the territories of Phrygia and Galatia (to the west and north of where they had been). Phrygia formerly had been Hellenistic territory, but more recently had been divided between the Roman provinces of Asia and Galatia. Iconium and Antioch, where Paul had been during his First Journey, were in the Galatian part of Phrygia.
They found themselves headed for the Galatian countryside. Here, where illness kept Paul for a time as we know from the letter to the Galatians (4:13-15), he preached the gospel and later would return to visit the disciples he had evangelised there (Acts 18:23).
When they then tried to enter Bythinia, a province lying along the shores of the Black Sea, through Mysia, they were again blocked by unspecified obstacles (perhaps landslides, floods, earthquakes, civil unrest or the like—it is unclear).
Eventually they found themselves at Troas, which is just at the entrance to the Dardanelles. Troas was located just 16 km (10 miles) from ancient Troy. Alexandria Troas (to give it its full name) was a Roman colony and an important seaport between Macedonia and Greece to the west and Asia Minor. Paul would return there following his work in Ephesus on his Third Journey (see 2 Cor 2:12). At some point—on this journey or on the Third—a church was established there. We know that Paul ministered to believers in Troas when he returned from his Third Journey on his way to Jerusalem (Acts 20:5-12).
It was in Troas that Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia, a Roman province since 148 BC, calling him to come over and help them. Paul immediately decided to respond to this call.
Macedonia was a province in what is now northern Greece. It was the place where Alexander the Great was king. Alexander’s father was King Philip, after whom the city of Philippi, to whose Christians Paul wrote one of his famous letters, was called. (Also note that Caesarea Philippi, where Peter confessed Jesus as Messiah, was also partly named after this Philip.)
Paul accepted the challenge and prepared to cross the Dardanelles. Christianity was coming to Greece, the hub of Mediterranean culture at that time, and from there to Rome and the world. Incidentally, it is at this point, too, that Luke begins to write in the first person plural. This seems to indicate that he was a member of Paul’s mission from then on.
Probably, without anyone being aware of it at the time, what seemed a minor change of route actually represented a major step in the development and expansion of the young Church, with ramifications which would affect not only the Church itself, but the whole of European history for centuries to come.
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Saturday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:18-21
Jesus has been urging his disciples to love all those around them as a sign of their love of him. Today he warns them that there is no guarantee that they will be loved in return. If people hated such a loving person as Jesus so bitterly, his disciples cannot expect to be treated differently.
And the reason they will be hated is because they will refuse to identify themselves with the values and priorities of the secular world. They will reject materialistic greed and competitiveness, the scramble for status and power, the hatred, anger, violence and revenge which mark so many people’s lives.
The most terrible thing to happen to Christians is for them to be loved by that world; it is a sign they have become part of it. Says Jesus,
I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Once again he reminds them that the servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
In other words, hardly at all.
Some of us may find it difficult to understand this. We feel that the Church should be honoured and respected. We can get upset when we hear ourselves or our leaders rubbished in the media, or hear of Christians languishing in jail or suffering torture simply for living their faith. But we are rightly proud of our martyrs and our courageous witnesses.
But there is a fate we often undergo in modern society which is far worse—when we are simply ignored and go unnoticed altogether. Our local church may be filled every week, but what goes on there may have become completely irrelevant to the surrounding society. It is as if we did not exist.
It is also tragic when we find hate and division within our own community, which can be a major source of scandal to outsiders. And, of course, all through the history of the Church there has been sinful behaviour at all levels. We should not be surprised at that, but it is particularly reprehensible when it goes on behind a veneer of moral superiority—the whited sepulchres that Jesus speaks about (Matt 23:27). All of this compromises our witness to the love of God for his people everywhere. When any of these things happen, then we know we have really failed the gospel.
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Friday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:12-17
Jesus, speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper, continues to talk about the centrality of love. He expresses it in a central commandment—and perhaps surprisingly to some—this commandment is not to love God, or to love Jesus, but to love one another. God does not need to be mentioned because that love is only possible when God is acting in and through us.
That is the touchstone of the genuineness of our love for God. And the measure of that love is that of Jesus for us. If that is not clear enough, he spells it out:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
That may mean dying for others, but it can also mean living for others; in either case, our primary concern is for the needs of the brother or sister. And this is the only path to demonstrate that we love God and that God’s love is in us.
Jesus shows that love by his own death for his friends. And who are his friends?
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
And what he commands is that we love each other to the same degree that he loves us.
Earlier, after washing their feet, Jesus told his disciples that he was their Lord and Master, but now he also calls them his friends and not servants. Jesus is our Lord, but he is also our Brother and our Friend. Because of that he has shared with us all he has received from his Father. Obviously, it is for us to share all we know about Jesus with others too.
Finally, he reminds them that they are his followers, because he has chosen them—they have not chosen him. We do not confer any favour on Jesus by following him. We are only answering a call that has already come from him. And the response to that call is to “bear fruit”, lasting fruit. Our lives must be productive in love, in caring, in justice, in compassion and in building up the world of the Kingdom. And we need have no fear. God is with us and everything we need will be given to us to become fruitful. Finally, once again, he repeats the core commandment:
I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
We need to ask ourselves, how much of all this is descriptive of our own lives?
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Friday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 15:22-31
Having decided that circumcision should no longer be imposed on non-Jewish converts, the community leaders together with the whole church gathered in Jerusalem to promulgate their decision to the wider Church. They sent a delegation to Antioch in Syria, which was effectively the centre of the Greek-speaking Christians (both Jews and Gentiles). Wisely, the delegation included representatives from the Jerusalem community.
Among those from Jerusalem two leaders are mentioned: Judas, also called Barsabbas, and Silas. It is not clear who Barsabbas is, but in the first chapter of Acts we are told that a Joseph Barsabbas was one of the two candidates chosen to replace Judas Iscariot. But as we know, “the lot fell on Matthias”. Silas became a missionary companion of Paul and we will meet him on the Second Missionary Journey. Silas is the same person known as Silvanus in some of the Pauline letters. At this time, he was a leader in the Jerusalem Church and called a ‘prophet’ (Acts 15:32) and, like Paul, was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37).
But with them went Paul and Barnabas, who represented the outer limits of the Church, and who had raised the issue in the first place. Apparently there was unanimous agreement with both the choice of messengers and the contents of the letter which they carried.
The letter comes from the “apostles and the elders [Greek, presbyteroi]….leaders among the brothers” in Jerusalem and is addressed to the “the brothers and sisters of gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia”. Antioch was the leading city of the combined and adjoining provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It is significant that the Jerusalem leaders call themselves “brothers” of the gentile converts, thus identifying all as belonging to the same family.
They speak apologetically of the Jewish Christians who had, apparently on their own initiative, gone to Antioch to complain about the non-circumcision of gentile converts. That is why they are sending a delegation from Jerusalem together with Paul and Barnabas, who have their full endorsement. They are men who:
…have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.
They then make a significant statement:
…it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…
Not only are they speaking unanimously in their own name, but they know they have the full endorsement of the Holy Spirit in their decision. They then list the four exceptions mentioned yesterday (Thursday of Week 5 of Easter)—Jewish practices which were still binding on all.
We should note the interesting process that is being described during the past three days’ readings. The Spirit is with the whole Church and communicates its faith with the centre. The centre then discerns and recognises where the Spirit is working and issues an authoritative statement giving confirmation under the guidance of that Spirit.
The Church still works this way. The Pope is not the one who tells the Church what to believe; he tells the Church what it believes after listening to the faith of the whole Church. This listening process on the part of Rome is crucial for the growth and development of the Church in so many different areas with very different needs and aspirations.
There is another element in today’s reading which at first sight seems to be contradictory. Having ruled out the obligation to be circumcised, they still forbid eating meat sacrificed to idols, and require abstaining from blood, the meat of strangled animals and “sexual immorality”.
Yet this shows the need for a sensitive balance between the feelings of the Gentiles and those of the Jews. Circumcision was a much more sensitive (in every sense!) issue, involving as it did mutilation of the body and in a particularly delicate area, relating to not only the body, but the whole area of sexuality and generation.
The other Jewish traditions which were still being imposed could be lived with without great difficulty. In the course of time they too would fall away. All of these issues concerning inviolable principles and acceptable areas of compromise are just as relevant in our Church today as they were at the beginning.
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Thursday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:9-11
Jesus continues speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper. After giving them the parable of the vine, he now goes on to give its real meaning: the Father, the Son and his followers are all to be united in love. As the Father pours out his love on the Son, so the Son pours out his love on his disciples. They, in turn, are to pour out the same love on their brothers and sisters everywhere. That is how we keep the ‘commandments’ of Jesus; all his commandments can be summarised in that one word ‘love’ (Greek, agape).
As someone once described it, the love of Jesus is like an electric current. If the current does not pass through you, it cannot enter into you. Similarly, if the love of Jesus does not pour through us to others, it is a sign that his love is not really in us. The love of God has to be recognised, responded to and passed on. It is not just a ‘given’.
And the fruit of that love is joy, the same joy that Jesus himself experiences. The normal situation of the Christian disciple should be joy and consolation. After all, as St Teresa of Avila said, “A sad saint is a sorry saint”. It is a contradiction in terms. Some Christians are incredibly ‘serious’ about their faith. One might wonder if they have yet experienced the love of Jesus. If they did, wouldn’t that love be joyfully flowing out to others?
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Thursday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 15:7-21
Today we have the second and final part of the ‘Council of Jerusalem’. The issue at hand (see Acts 15:1-6) has been discussed in depth and we now are given the conclusions of the assembly. We will see the implementation of these conclusions in tomorrow’s reading.
The Council of Jerusalem can be said to be divided into three parts:
- the speech of Peter, head of the Apostles;
- the statement of James, the leader of the Jerusalem church;
- an ‘encyclical’ letter (the first of many!) sent to the churches, which we will see tomorrow.
First, Peter speaks up. This is significant. One would have expected Paul to do so. But Paul has had his say and presented his case. Peter now speaks, primarily as leader of the apostolic college, but also because of his personal experience in this sensitive issue.
It is now for him to make the final decision. He has special credentials for doing so as leader of the Apostles, the inner core of the Church’s leadership. But he was also the one to whom God had explicitly revealed that the Christian community should be opened to the Gentiles, and that many of the ritual obligations of the Jews, such as those involving unclean foods, were no longer relevant. This happened when Peter had the vision about all the different kinds of animals (see Acts 10:9-16). And it was Peter who had played a leading role in the baptism into the community of Cornelius, the first gentile Christian.
Peter now tells the assembly how God had chosen him to be the instrument for bringing Christ’s message to the Gentiles and how they had received the gift of the Spirit, just as the first Christians did. The receiving of the Holy Spirit was always taken as the irrefutable proof of being accepted by God. That was seen clearly in the case of Cornelius and his household. Peter says:
God, who knows the human heart, testified to them [the Gentiles] by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us.
Then, says Peter, isn’t it only provoking God’s anger to place:
…on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
The ‘yoke’ here is the Mosaic law. Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians:
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal 5:1)
Paul has to say this because many Jewish converts were going back to full observance of the Mosaic law.
All that is needed is to “be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus”. Again from Galatians:
…we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ…no one will be justified by the works of the law. (Gal 2:15-16)
This ‘faith’ is not just an intellectual acceptance, but a total commitment of the self to the Way of Christ.
The Jewish way is not, says Peter, a specially privileged one, and circumcision, by itself, means nothing. Of course, for many Jews, circumcision represented their total dedication to God.
The assembly then fell silent after this presentation. Was that because they were overwhelmed by what Peter had said, or was it that there had been some loud disagreement from legalists while he spoke? In any case, Barnabas and Paul, on their part, confirmed all that Peter had said by describing their wonderful experience of evangelising the Gentiles and seeing God working so evidently among them (note that here Barnabas’ name comes before Paul’s, perhaps because he had more status in the Jerusalem community).
We now come to the second part of the Council’s discussions. James, the leader of the Jerusalem community and a relative of Jesus himself, speaks. He clearly represents the Jewish members of the Christian community and so, like Peter, but in a different way, his words carry special weight. He will contradict the demands of some of his fellow-Jews in the community.
He endorses the words of Peter, confirming them with a passage from the prophet Amos:
I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David…so that all other peoples may seek the Lord… (Amos 9:11-12)
The text is quoted according to the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament), and the argument partly depends on variants peculiar to that version. It probably comes from Greek-speaking believers, although here it is ascribed to the leader of the Hebrew Christians.
In view of this statement that God wishes all to belong to him, James goes on to say that no unnecessary burdens should be put on Gentiles who wish to convert.
He does make a few exceptions, however, and says that a letter should be sent out to this effect. Although they are not bound by the Mosaic law in general—and especially circumcision—he lists four things gentile Christians should avoid. These are:
1. Pollution from idols
2. Unlawful marriage
3. Meat of strangled animals
4. Blood
The first point forbids the eating of food which had been offered to idols because it might imply some ambivalence about fidelity to one’s Christian beliefs. However, Paul, in writing to the Romans, says this does not bother him personally, as he does not believe in those idols anyway. Nevertheless, he would not eat such food if he was in the presence of a more scrupulous person who might misunderstand his action.
The second prohibition is given is because many Gentiles—like many people today—took sexual activity rather lightly. Temple worship, too, sometimes involved intimacy with temple prostitutes, male and female. Apart from the immorality involved, this could be a source of scandal.
The third and fourth conditions are presented because Jews only eat the meat of animals from which the blood has been drained and, as we see in the Gospels, contact with blood was seen as a form of religious contamination. This seems to contradict what has been said earlier, but it should really be seen as a plea at this stage in the church’s life to respect the sensitivities of the more traditional Jewish converts. It is a matter of compromise in non-essentials. For us, this would be like agreeing to eat fish on Fridays when with Catholics who cannot bring themselves to change their old ways. Or perhaps like not insisting that people take Communion in the hand.
Again, we can learn from this discussion. On the one hand, we have to be careful not to impose on people practices which are not central to our faith and, at the same time, to be willing to bend in areas which are not essential. This is a principle of mutual tolerance which should be observed by both conservatives and progressives alike in the church, and St Paul has many wise things to say about it (see especially his Letter to the Romans, chap 14).
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Wednesday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:1-8
Perhaps there are some of us who have never seen a grapevine (although we may be well versed in our wines!). But what Jesus says about the vine (a plant very common in Palestine) can be said about any fruit-bearing tree that we are familiar with, and the message is clear.
The vine is an image we find elsewhere in the Old Testament. Jesus uses it as a symbol of the Kingdom of God; all who belong to the Kingdom are part of the vine. The fruit of the vine can be understood in the context of the Eucharistic celebration. It also represents a life lived according to the vision of Jesus, a life filled with unconditional love.
Jesus is explaining to us what our relationship with him can be like, and indeed should be like. He compares himself to a tree, basically to the trunk of the tree. The cultivator of the tree, the one who gives it life, is the Father God. Jesus’ disciples are the branches. It is the branches which bear the fruit.
If a branch does not bear fruit, it is simply cut off. It is no good; it is just draining life from the trunk without giving anything in return. It is very easy for us to be that kind of Christian. We come to church in search of ‘handouts’, but give very little back to the community.
But even the branches which do bear fruit are pruned and have parts cut off, so that they will bear even more. Those who cultivate fruit trees or roses are familiar with this process and know how important it is.
What does this pruning consist of? Jesus explains:
You have already been cleansed [or pruned, the same Greek root for both words] by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.
We are pruned, then, by our total identification with everything that Jesus stands for and by constantly cutting out of our lives everything that is contrary to the spirit of Jesus.
This involves a certain kind of asceticism, a denying of some of our natural appetites. This becomes easy as we are more and more overtaken by the vision of life that Jesus offers to us. We give up those non-Christlike things gladly and willingly. It becomes our deepest happiness and even pleasure to be always in Christ.
It is clear from what Jesus says that only those branches which are connected to the trunk can bear fruit:
Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Without fruit we are dead branches, but on the other hand, the fruit is not just of our own making. It is the sign that Christ is working in us and through us.
The most outstanding fruit of all is, of course, the love we reveal in our relationships with God and with people:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Separated from Christ—always the result of our own choice—we are like a branch that has fallen from the tree. We wither:
Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Such separation is not physical. It is a separation of identity. It comes from rejecting or refusing to accept the Way of Jesus as our way of life. It is a rejection of life, and the choice of alternatives which can only lead to decay and death.
Finally, there is the great promise:
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you shall get it.
This is not to be interpreted as some kind of blank cheque, such as asking to win the first prize in a lottery or to have one’s enemy wiped out, or to be cured of a terminal sickness.
The promise is prefaced by an important and essential condition: we need to be in Christ and to have our lives totally guided by his words, that is, his teaching, his vision of life. And if we are with him, our prayer inevitably will be to be more deeply rooted in him—because he is the Source of all life and all Meaning in life.
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Tuesday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 14:27-31
As Jesus prepares to leave his disciples, he knows that they are fearful and upset and they will be all the more so when they see what people will soon be doing to him. His farewell, then, includes a gift of peace. ‘Peace!’ (Shalom) is the normal Jewish greeting and farewell, and Jesus uses it when he appears to his disciples after the Resurrection. Originally it meant soundness of body, but it came to signify perfect happiness and the liberation which the Messiah was expected to bring. This is the very wholeness which is the aim of Jesus’ mission.
But it is not the peace as the ‘world’ understands it. Peace for Jesus is not simply the absence of violence; it is something much more positive, much deeper. Paradoxically, it can exist side by side with times of great turmoil. It is something internal, not external. It comes from an inner sense of security, of a conviction that God is with us and in us and that we are in the right place. It is something which not even the threat of death can take away.
It is something that the going away of Jesus cannot remove. Jesus tells his disciples:
If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father…
It is always a sign of love when our first priority is the well-being of the other person. He says:
…the Father is greater than I.
This is in the sense that as Father, he has a kind of priority and is the ultimate source of all that is, though the Son does share all that with the Father and the Spirit. The full divine glory of the Son in Jesus is also veiled behind his humanity for the time being, but after the Cross he will pass into the full glory of the Father.
It is obvious that Jesus’ place is with his Father. His disciples, if they love him, will know that and not get in his way. Of course, as Jesus points out, it is also in the disciples’ own interest that Jesus go away, for only then will the Spirit come down on all of them.
The end is near:
…for the ruler of this world is coming.
But they are not to worry. The powers of evil are limited in what they can do, and all that happens to Jesus is simply a manifestation of his great love for his Father and his desire to follow his Father’s wishes. That is, by undergoing what faces him, Jesus will be communicating to the world the tremendous love of the Father for each one of us.
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Tuesday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 14:19-28
We come today to the final description of Paul’s and Barnabas’ first missionary journey. In the previous passage, they were in Lystra, and in the embarrassing situation of being taken for gods because of the cure of a paralysed man. But their glory was to be short-lived; their enemies were on their tail.
Those Jews whose hostility they had incurred in the towns of Antioch and Iconium turned up and successfully stirred up the feelings of the people of Lystra against the two Apostles. But it’s important to remember that there were also other Jews in these towns who had become Christian believers.
Reflecting the fickleness of crowds, the people who had just been treating the Apostles as gods now had Paul stoned and left him for dead. It seems this was done within the city rather than at the usual place of execution outside the walls. This could indicate that it was a spontaneous outburst of mob violence rather than a formal execution. But Paul was what we would call a ‘tough cookie’ and, as soon as his disciples gathered around him, he was suddenly back on his feet again (perhaps a hint of a miraculously quick recovery in Luke’s description?). It is also possible that his future companion, Timothy, was present. Timothy, as mentioned earlier, seems to have been a native of Lystra. Paul’s experience might have had the same effect on him as Stephen’s had on Saul (Paul).
With the courage that so often marks his actions, Paul went back into the town the next day with Barnabas on his way to Derbe, their last stop on this journey. Derbe was a border town in the southeastern part of the Lycaonian region of Galatia. An inscription naming the city has been discovered about 50 km (30 miles) east of what was previously thought to be the city site. Here the two missionaries again proclaimed the gospel and “made many disciples”.
Paul must have been quite an impressive preacher, judging by his success in all the towns in which he spoke. One wonders if his being a Pharisee did not have an influence on his Jewish listeners, although it is clear that it also had a negative impact. If a devout Pharisee could be converted to the Way of Jesus, then maybe there was something in it. At the same time, others would see him as a total renegade to his Jewish faith.
Then they began their return journey going through each of the towns they had originally evangelised—Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch—and in which they had met such violent resistance. But one must remember that they had also made many Christian converts among both Jews and Gentiles. These would be the seeds of new churches in each place.
We are told that Paul:
…strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, “It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.”
He preached and warned them of the trials and difficulties that they could expect to face—just as he did. This was a necessary condition to enter the Kingdom.
In each church, a pastoral structure was set up for the first time with the appointing of ‘presbyters’ (Greek, presbyteroi) or elders. With prayers and fasting, they were commended to the Lord. The elders (or presbyters) were community leaders chosen from among the communities by a laying on of hands. In this case, too, the elders were chosen by the Apostles and not by the community. While our modern word ‘priest’ is derived from this word, they were not priests as we know the term now in the Catholic Church.
As the New Testament emphasises, we really have only one Priest, Jesus Christ, who acts as Mediator and Bridge-builder (Greek, Pontifex) between us and God (see Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews).
From Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas retraced their steps through Pisidia, Perga in Pamphylia and down to the coastal town of Attalia, the main port of Pamphylia. From there they went by ship back to Antioch in Syria, the city from which they had originally set out.
On their return to Antioch, the two Apostles gave a complete report of their mission experiences, and told of how God “opened a door of faith for the gentiles” and how well they had accepted the message of the gospel. In fact, Paul and Barnabas had left behind not just individual believers, but functioning communities with their own leadership. After their return, they stayed on in Antioch and “stayed there with the disciples for some time”, probably a year at least. Paul now seems to be fully accepted into the community which had been so suspicious of him earlier.
In our work for the Church, we also need to report to the community what we are doing. We need to submit ourselves to their evaluation and their encouragement. The work of the Church is never that of just one person be it pope, bishop, priest, religious or lay person. Still less is the church a ‘service station’ where I just go to fulfil my private needs.
Meanwhile, the way is being prepared for the next great event in the history of the infant Church—the Council of Jerusalem, the Church’s very first Council. It will also be a major turning point in the direction the new community is taking.
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Monday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading
Commentary on Acts 14:5-18
Paul and Barnabas continue their first missionary journey of spreading the gospel. We last saw them in the Galatian town of Iconium. At first, they had great success with their preaching, and we are told (in verses prior to today’s reading) “that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers.” But then, as happened in Antioch, some Jews who refused to accept their message managed to also stir up some Gentiles against the two Apostles. Even so, the disciples persisted and “remained for a long time speaking boldly for the Lord.” Their message was confirmed by signs and wonders being performed by God through their healing hands.
The result was that the people were divided in their opinion—those who, a priori, rejected what Paul and Barnabas had to say, and those who were convinced by the actions which seemed to confirm the missionaries’ message. And that is the situation as we begin our reading today.
Again, as in Antioch, a conspiracy of Jews and Gentiles came together to attack the two Apostles and to stone them to death. Stoning was the Jewish mode of execution for blasphemy. Earlier we saw the fate of Stephen for words that were taken as utterly blasphemous by the Jewish leaders.
When Paul and Barnabas got wind of this they fled from Iconium. They then went to the cities of Lystra and Derbe and the surrounding country in Lycaonia and continued proclaiming the gospel in these places.
Lycaonia was a district east of Pisidia and north of the Taurus Mountains in southeastern Turkey. It was part of the Roman province of Galatia. Lystra was a Roman colony, and apparently the home town of Timothy, whom we will meet on the Second Missionary Journey. Derbe was about 100 km (60 miles) from Lystra. The events of today’s reading take place in Lystra; we will see Paul in Derbe tomorrow.
On arriving in Lystra, Paul saw a man there, who was “lame from birth”, listening to his preaching. Seeing that he was a man of faith, Paul ordered him to stand up, which the man immediately did. He was totally healed of his inability to walk.
The onlookers were utterly astounded and immediately saw the Apostles as gods in human form: Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes (whom the Romans knew as ‘Mercury’), the spokesman of the gods.
The New International Version of the Bible comments:
“Zeus was the patron god of the city, and his temple was there. People who came to bring sacrifices to Zeus apparently decided to make an offering to Paul and Barnabas instead. The identification of Zeus with Barnabas may indicate that his appearance was more imposing and Paul was identified as the god Hermes (the Roman Mercury) because he was the spokesman.”
This incident may have been occasioned by an ancient legend that told of a supposed visit to the same general area by Zeus and Hermes. They were, however, not recognised by anyone except an old couple. So the people of Lystra were determined not to allow such an oversight to happen again.
Even the priest of the local temple of Zeus, located just outside the city gates, was preparing to offer sacrifices in their honour. Horrified, the Apostles tore their garments, a sign of their displeasure and a Jewish way of expressing great anguish. They insisted they were ordinary human beings.
Paul then addresses the crowd and tells them that his mission, along with Barnabas, was precisely to lead the people away from such idolatrous superstitions to a belief in the:
…living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
In preaching against a belief in many gods (held by most Greek-speaking people), it was Paul’s custom to contrast the true God with the false, the living God with impotent idols, and to call for a change of heart.
Paul wants to tell them about the one living God, who is the source of everything in heaven and earth. While allowing Gentiles to go their own way, God gives them abundant witness of his presence—he gives:
…rains from heaven and fruitful seasons and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.
Paul tells them of the true Source of all these good things. But the people were not easily convinced and could barely be prevented from carrying out their plans to offer sacrifice to the two Apostles.
Here we see two more elements in our work for Christ:
- Persecution in one place meant that the message was brought elsewhere. We see this happening frequently in the Acts of the Apostles.
- While persecution often is the lot of the worker for Christ and his gospel, an even more dangerous trap may be people’s adulation.
We see this in the life of Jesus himself, who sometimes fled from such situations (see John 6:15). Here we see Paul and Barnabas firmly rejecting an apparently favourable situation which they could have been tempted to exploit. As we will see tomorrow, it was just as well they did not.
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