Main news for 26 June 2026

King James Version (en)

Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 13, verse 47

⁴⁷For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

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13:47 For so hath the Lord commanded us - By sending us forth, and giving us an opportunity of fulfilling what he had foretold.I have set thee - The Father speaks to Christ. Isa 49:6.

NOTES

That the word of God must sound to the ends of the earth was already known from the preaching of the prophets. They were the first to speak of the calling, in the days of the Messiah, of Gentiles who would join the remnant of the Jewish people in order to form with it the new people of God. Only no one expected that the formation of this new people would begin with recent pagans. Logic suggested that the Jews, of course, would be the first to recognize and accept their Messiah, especially since in Gospel times there were many messianic movements among the people, and the question of exactly which of the religious brotherhoods then existing was the true messianic remnant aroused the fiercest disputes. And nevertheless it turned out that it was precisely the Gentiles, those who sought truth in the Synagogue and worshiped the God of Israel, who accepted Him first.

A paradox of spiritual history? Yes, of course, though it had its reasons: unfortunately, religiosity itself turned out to be the heavy burden that made it hard for many Jews to come into the Kingdom. For recent Gentiles who were free from this burden, it was easier, and they overtook many of those who were sure that the Messiah would come to them and for their sake.

But the apostles had no reason to maintain the sequence expected by many of their fellow tribesmen and coreligionists. Of course, in preaching they addressed first of all the Jews, those who should have listened and heard first. But their refusal could not and must not stop the witness to Christ and the Kingdom entrusted to the apostles. For this was not a human matter but God's, and it was not for people to determine the order in which Jews or Gentiles would enter the Kingdom. The apostles' task was to bear witness to what the Savior Himself had already testified: the Kingdom has drawn near, and the way into it is now open to every seeker, whether a Jew or a representative of any other people. And who would go first depended both on God and on the people to whom the Kingdom was offered.

And the apostles were glad to see everyone entering the Kingdom, regardless of nationality or religion. For they were above all people of the Kingdom, and only afterward representatives of their people and their religious community, as witnesses of the Kingdom should be.

At first glance, what is happening here is the birth of a new religion: the Christian proclamation, not being...

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.

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