NOTES for Act 16:16-40

The history of the first centuries of our era can be imagined as an “ideological confrontation” between Christians and the pagan world. Yet today's reading shows us that this confrontation was of a special kind. The apostles were indeed opposed by Jews and Gentiles, Roman officials and craftsmen from Asia Minor, the authorities and the plebs; a few decades later these persecutions would grow into bloody massacres in Roman arenas and the fires of Nero. But Christians, for their part, never repaid evil with evil. They brought a message of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. They triumphed not by the force of arms but by the power of Christ living in them. We all know how greatly the situation changed a thousand years later: burnings, executions, and pogroms became the work of Christian hands. What happens in our own time depends on us.