NOTES for Act 14:1-28

It takes strength to acknowledge a miracle: the strength to accept a change in the accustomed order of things. For it is easier for us to deny God’s action than to begin examining ourselves and whatever is wrong in our relationship with God and with the world. It is easier to explain what happened as some natural phenomenon than to see the work of God’s hands in that phenomenon. In the same way, it was easier for the pagans of the Lycaonian cities to see in the healing performed by Paul and Barnabas the action of familiar and customary powers—the gods of the Greek pantheon.

The episode in Lystra clearly shows the main danger the Church would have to face when its Jewish component, if it did not disappear entirely, became hardly noticeable. This would happen much later, of course, but the first signs of future problems, as we can see, appeared already in early Christian times. The essence of the problem, to put it briefly, came down to the recent pagans' violation of the second commandment of the Decalogue. Or to constant attempts to violate it, which eventually became an unhealthy spiritual tendency in the Church. And the question is not at all something malicious: the second commandment was violated from the best motives. But a violation remained a violation, and the result was the loss of God, the loss of God's presence in the life of individual people and sometimes of whole communities.

In Lystra everything was still very naive and obvious in its naivete, but the essence of the problem was marked out quite clearly. The logic is simple: they heal, therefore they are gods. Pagans were not entirely without spiritual experience, though it was very specific. They fully allowed for appearances of gods. And the form of these gods during their appearance could be the most unexpected. But most often they appeared in human form. Nothing prevents a pagan from seeing a god in the person through whom God's power acts.

Here it is precisely the logic of a pagan who in principle believes in the One, being sure that all gods and spirits are manifestations of His power. And a person can be a manifestation and embodiment of the power of the One. Or of one of the other gods. In this sense a person can be both Zeus and Hermes. It would seem that this is purely pagan naivete. But then we would have to admit that there was enough of it among the people of God too, certainly before the Babylonian exile. The story with the golden calf can be considered archetypal. And this very calf was not at all considered a pagan god, some Egyptian Apis.

They saw in it the God of Moses, the very God who led the people out of Egypt. A symbol? Yes. But one pointing not to Yahweh, but still to Apis: the image has too many associations with Apis, and none with Yahweh. The symbol screened God from view. A simple symbol. What then can be said about a real theophany? About an appearance of God's power? Such an appearance easily and simply screens God from view. Paradoxically, it turns out that fallen man in the fallen world is most easily led away from God precisely by theophany.

By an appearance of God's power. It is enough merely to tear one's gaze away from God and shift it to the effects caused by the action of this power. From Him Himself to the miracles, healings, and resurrections He performs. It is no accident that Jesus always refused "custom-ordered" miracles. And if God's power acts through a person, then seeing a god in that person is the easiest thing in the world. But this becomes a violation of the second commandment: here there is precisely a sacred image which people begin to worship instead of God. Of course, in the history of the Church all this will not be as naive as it was then in Lystra.

But in essence it is often the same, though outwardly more pious. Which saint helps in this or that case? And which icon heals from illness? We should not deceive ourselves: when we frame the question this way, we differ little from those inhabitants of Lystra who took the apostles for Zeus and Hermes. Because only God helps; who assists Him in this and what He uses for such help is of no significance. Otherwise the world for us will be full of gods, but there will be no place in it for God. Nor in our life either.

"Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God"... What exactly does this mean? Are troubles necessary for salvation, or are they simply inevitable? In other words, where should the emphasis be placed in this phrase?

The emphasis belongs in a place quite different from where we are used to putting it. The main thing in this phrase is not "tribulations," but "enter the Kingdom." There are and will be tribulations for everyone - for Christians and non-Christians alike. Sometimes Christians have far more tribulations than others; sometimes people find themselves in such an unfavorable position not for religious reasons at all, but, for example, because of their nationality...

However, Paul gives us joyful news: these tribulations can and must become our path into the Kingdom of God. And it depends only on us whether we make use of this possibility - to entrust everything into God's hands and receive everything back from Him again, and in this way enter the Kingdom.

How difficult it can sometimes be for us to bear problems, a lack of something, or simply bad weather... Everything is wrong; there is no desire to do anything and no joy. The knowledge that we must thank God for everything only intensifies the irritation that has already poisoned the day... What are we to do? We want to break free from this state, but how? The answer will come as no surprise: only with God's help. Yes, through our discontent and unwillingness to acknowledge our condition as sinful, and through our shame over all of it, we must entrust ourselves to the Lord and to His grace (Acts 14:23). Through the prayers of our brothers and sisters and by standing before Him ourselves, we must come to Him without fearing that He will not receive us (John 6:37).

Paul and his companions no longer strictly followed the rule followed by the first witnesses, who had been forced to leave Jerusalem because of persecution. Those witnesses testified only to Jews; these were ready to testify to anyone ready to listen and accept their witness. In this respect the situation had changed radically. And the point is not simply the widening of the audience. The point is where the boundary of God's people runs. To those first witnesses it seemed self-evident that these boundaries coincided with the boundaries of the Jewish people.

They were, of course, Christians, or more precisely messianists, since messianists from among the Gentiles came to call themselves Christians. They had no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and the Son of God. But they were just as sure that one could follow Him only by being a Jew. And if you were not born a Jew, then first you needed to become one by accepting Judaism, and only then could there be talk about the Messiah.

They saw the Church as a continuation of the Jewish people and as part of it, as its messianic component. Paul and his companions saw the situation quite differently. For them the Church was not a simple continuation of the Jewish people and not its messianic part. For them the Church is the people of God in all its fullness. And belonging to it is not determined by belonging to the Jewish people. Of course, the Church is open to every Jew who accepts Jesus as the Messiah and as the Son of God. But it is just as open to anyone else, even if that person has no connection to Jewishness at all.

Only one thing matters: a person must accept Jesus as the Messiah and as the Son of God. And he must have his own deeply personal relationship with Him. The point here, of course, is not that Paul deliberately revised the traditional norms of the Torah in order to widen the boundaries of the Church. The point is that God opened His Kingdom to the Gentiles, and Paul could not fail to know this. And the boundaries of the Church, the one with a capital letter, coincide with the boundaries of the Kingdom. To cross them, one does not have to be a Jew.

This means that if somewhere in a large, or not very large, city the Jewish community as a whole remains indifferent to the witness about Christ, then one can and must testify to everyone else. Not in spite of the local synagogue, but simply because in that same city there may be people ready to enter the Kingdom and therefore the Church. To make their entrance into the Church depend on the attitude of the Church of the local Jewish quarter would be wrong and unjust toward them. More than that, it would be a direct violation of God's plan and an obstruction of His action in the world. No true witness of Christ would do such a thing, including, of course, Paul and his companions.