NOTES for Act 18:1-23

The word "missionary" has now acquired an ambiguous shade of meaning. It is associated either with treacherous European Christians who contributed to the colonization and enslavement of less developed peoples, although many of them truly served God and not people, or with intrusive street agitators inviting you into yet another sect, although street preaching in itself is no worse than other methods.

Today's passage, however, opens to us the spiritual experience of a true missionary and servant of the Gospel, the apostle Paul. He is not an enthusiast; his preaching is not a self-appointed effort. The Spirit whom he received through faith in Christ impels him to ministry; it is his inner necessity. "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16), he says. And what matters most is that his ministry is not based on his desire or his strength. Paul acts and lives by the presence of Christ, who strengthens him, invisibly or visibly.

Local representatives of Roman authority responded in different ways to accusations against Paul himself and other Christians. Sometimes they took the side of the orthodox Jews, and sometimes they preferred not to get involved in the situation, as happened in Achaia. This is understandable: the authorities had no formal legal grounds for intervention; the grounds could only be political, and this had already become clear in the story of Pilate, who confirmed the death sentence against Jesus for purely political reasons.

In Achaia, however, everything happened differently. The local proconsul, Gallio, chose to remain faithful to Roman laws and Roman ideas of fairness and justice. He told the Jews who had come to him with a complaint directly that their complaint concerned only their internal affairs and disputes, and that Roman law had not been violated in this case. Therefore the authorities had no reason to interfere in this conflict.

The proconsul's mention of some "dispute about names" is interesting. In the diaspora communities, Paul was evidently speaking about the same thing all the apostles spoke about in Judea: the name of Jesus, by calling on which one can be saved. Even then in Judea this preaching caused at least bewilderment and opposition from the Sanhedrin. Now, in the diaspora, disputes about the name had evidently become an echo of those disputes in Judea that had led to sanctions by the local religious authorities. But in any case these disputes did not concern the Roman authorities - that is what the proconsul believed.

This does not mean that the Roman authorities allowed complete freedom of religious life. Any religious communities had to be officially registered, and registration was permitted only for representatives of those religions considered "traditional" in the Roman Empire (properly Roman cults and the traditional cults of peoples conquered by Rome). But the Synagogue was officially registered, Judaism was considered a traditional religion, and the authorities had no legal grounds to interfere in an intra-community dispute. This is the sense in which the proconsul answers the Jews who came to him with a complaint.

It would seem to be a normal answer, but... from that same Pilate, for example, no such normal answer could be heard. Of course, Achaia is not Jerusalem, the situation there was far less tense, and the scale of the conflict was incomparable. But the choice always remains with the person.

Of course, here the issue is not yet the choice of a Christian, not the choice between the Kingdom and the evil in which the world lies. But any choice between truth, as a person understands it, and falsehood either brings a person closer to the Kingdom or moves him away from the Kingdom, regardless of what the person himself thinks about it, and even regardless of whether he knows about the Kingdom or thinks about God. Spiritual laws are the same for everyone, and choice is always a spiritual phenomenon, just like the action that follows it.

In today's reading from Acts, we see calm and sound relationships among believers. Apollos comes to Ephesus, a man who knows Scripture and has clearly been given the gift of speech by the Lord. He preaches what he knows, but so far he knows little, not everything. His preaching is therefore incomplete. There are already Christians in the city who teach somewhat differently. These Christians invite the newcomer to join them. Why? To divide up canonical territories? No, but to tell him what he has not yet heard. Both sides are completely open: Aquila and Priscilla approach Apollos as an equal, and Apollos listens to them with trust. There is no conflict, but a peaceful conversation in which the Holy Spirit can participate and act.

Before us is an example of what the Lord wants from us in our relationships with one another. We see a group of people engaged in a certain work (namely, preaching the Gospel) who find themselves with a “rival” (see Acts 18:24-28). But that is the terminology of today's world. In fact, some people are working, and a person appears who does the same work. He longs for the same thing they do—the glorification of God in the hearts of those around him. Yet even despite this, reactions resembling those of a small child are possible: jealousy and possessiveness. A child has, for example, a flute and plays it, bringing joy to those around him. Suddenly it turns out that another boy has a flute too and also brings joy to others by playing his instrument... But the apostles rise above this. They find one another and other people in the joy of Christ, helping them go to Him by a straight path.