Acts - episode 4

In everything give thanks

We tell in the present post of Paul’s second missionary journey in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15,36-18,22).
«After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return now and visit our brothers in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, to see how they are doing.” Barnabas planned to take John, who was called Mark, with them also. But Paul did not think that it was a good idea to take with them someone who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia, and did not go with them to do the work [see Acts 13,13]. Then the contention grew so sharp that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him, and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas, and went out, being commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the Churches».
In Lystra Paul takes with him a disciple called Timothy; it is interesting to verify that the mission is not lead by the involved men, but always by Jesus’ Holy Spirit. «When they had gone through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. A vision appeared to Paul in the night. There was a man of Macedonia standing, begging him, and saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we [the subject changes: maybe Luke joined to Paul here] sought to go out to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to proclaim the Gospel to them». In the Macedonian city of Philippi, Paul exorcises a girl from a spirit that makes her able to foresee the future; her masters, who see their gain going away with the unclean spirit, denounce the missionaries to the magistrates of the city. They «commanded them to be beaten with rods. When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and secured their feet in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened».



In the darkest moment of the night (chronologically, but even in the missionaries’ spirit: we can imagine their mood after being unjustly punished for doing a good deed), Paul and Silas pray and sing to God. Their praise in a moment of heavy difficulty (a valid teaching even for today’s Christians) is a very powerful prayer: all the prisoners are instantly freed. Sometime after that, Paul will write to the Thessalonian believers: «Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you» (1Thess 5,16-18). The jailer is so touched by that miracle that he becomes Christian with all his family. The morning after, Paul and Silas are officially freed, with the magistrates’ apologies for having beaten and jailed without a regular process two Roman citizens.
The journey continues in Thessalonica and Beroea, where, together with the joy for the many persons converting to the Faith, the missionaries find the local Jews’ persecution. Paul flees to Athens, where he pronounces the famous speech to the Areopagus (the city board). «You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. He made from one every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said [Aratus of Soli and Cleanthes the Stoic philosopher], ‘For we are also his offspring.’ Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead». Many of the Athenians, hearing about the resurrection from the dead, go away considering it a ridiculous assertion (the Greek culture of the time underestimates the value of the body in favor of the soul); some of them, however, become Christian.
«After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome [in 49 AD]. He came to them, and because he practiced the same trade, he lived with them and worked, for by trade they were tent makers [the Jewish education includes the learning of a manual job, in addition to the studies]. He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks». Paul does not take advantage of his status as an apostle, that would allow him to be fully supported by the communities to which he brings the Faith; on the contrary, he works hard to get what he needs to live: it is his free choice to demonstrate he has as his sole interest the diffusion of the Gospel (see e.g. 1Cor 9). Even in Corinth the Jews rise up against Paul and they bring him before Proconsul Gallio (we have here a precise chronological landmark: according to the historical sources Gallio exercised his functions between 51 and 52 AD), who however refuses to deal with Hebrew religious issues.
From Cenchreae (Eastern port of Corinth) Paul sets sail to Ephesus; from there he goes to Caesarea, to Jerusalem and then to Antioch, finishing his mission. In the next post we will tell Paul’s third missionary journey.