NOTES for Act 15:35-41

In its own way, it is very comforting that the apostles, as it turns out, were living human beings too. Despite the fact that the Lord made them His great servants, they, it appears, also knew how to make mistakes, quarrel, and sometimes fail to get along with one another.

Paul and Barnabas, two men led by the Spirit, still cannot come to an agreement about whether to give a young disciple, who once failed to meet their hopes, a second chance. Their opinions differ so much that they part in different directions, and Paul chooses another helper for himself. It is even a little sad to realize that with them too everything sometimes happened "in a human way"...

But still, later everything will return to where it should be. Evidence that Paul and Mark will eventually be reconciled is at least the fact that they will even be imprisoned together (see Col 4:10).

For us, this story is extremely instructive. On the one hand, it helps us understand that things are not as bad with us as they might be: the saints also sinned. On the other hand, it reminds us that we still have room to grow, because these imperfect people nevertheless became saints.

The whole history of the earliest Christian Church is the history of apostleship. Mission. Witness. The apostles are always on the road. Of course, this reflects the essence of apostolic ministry as such. In the Jewish religious brotherhoods of the Gospel era, a messenger (that is exactly how the Greek word "apostle" is translated) had to be first of all precisely a witness, a witness of certain events that had taken place in a particular community. Jewish brotherhoods, like the earliest Christian Church, were community movements that had a council of elders but neither a single center nor a rigid structure. Under such conditions, the institution of messengers-apostles played the role both of a connecting link between the communities that made up the brotherhood and of a distinctive means for exchanging spiritual experience: after all, among other things, apostles could also tell about important events in the spiritual life of a particular community.

For the Church, of course, the main event was the resurrection of Christ. It made the very existence of the Church possible, and it is no surprise that the community of the apostles, the direct witnesses of this event and of everything connected with it, became the nucleus of the Church. Without apostolic witness, the life of the earliest Christian Church was unthinkable: it was precisely this witness to the reality of the Resurrection that gave meaning to Christianity and gave hope to those newly coming in. Paul's witness had special significance: he met the risen Christ after Pentecost, and he was converted not on the basis of others' testimonies, but on the basis of his own experience.

This meant that meetings with Christ did not remain in the past, that they belonged not only to those forty days that separate the Resurrection from the Ascension, that they are part of Christian history, the history of the Church, the history of the Kingdom entering the world. But apostolic witness also contained something else, something that could not exist in traditional apostleship. This is the Kingdom itself, which a Christian, if of course he is a Christian not only in words, always carries with him. It is the main Christian witness.

Otherwise it will not be possible to bear witness to Christ and to the Kingdom; words alone are not enough here. And if a Christian bears witness to the Kingdom that he carries with him, then through him the Kingdom spreads in the world, taking hold of more and more of it. This is the main task of the Church: to remain in the world while carrying the Kingdom to it. And the word about Christ and about the Kingdom is only a supplement to the main thing. An important supplement, but not an absolutely necessary one: where the power of the Kingdom is manifest and its breath is blowing, words are not needed very much.

The dispute over whether to take John Mark with them could have led to a rupture. But we see that even the division between the brothers proved fruitful: by going to different places, they were able to preach to more people. Even disputes and disagreements caused by human disorder are turned to good by the Lord, who makes up for what we strive to spoil.

It might seem that Paul, who denied that Old Testament rituals were obligatory for non-Jews and who, in general, hardly appears to have supported formal legalism, could have refrained from circumcising Timothy. True, Timothy belonged to the Jewish people through his mother, so circumcision was necessary if Paul and Timothy were to deal with Jews. But Paul departs from his own principles, as it may seem, not merely to yield to public opinion. Paul's actions are twofold: one cannot exercise free choice by destroying the law, and conversely, clear rules can become a support for free action.

What do we look to when we discuss what a person needs or does not need to do for salvation, or when we discuss questions of church order, when we ask questions like: "how and what should we believe?", "what decision will be pleasing to God?", "what does He expect personally from me"?

Usually we recall certain words from Scripture, from church rules, from other people's experience. At worst, we do whatever comes into our head. But the book of Acts opens before us an astonishing example of apostolic faith, when the Holy Spirit clearly lets them see how they must act and where they must go. That is why Luke can say so simply: "the Spirit did not allow them to go there"...

Only one question remains: if the apostles' experience differs greatly from our experience, what does that give us - a reason for gloom and despair, or a reason to plead for the Spirit?

Today's reading helps us better understand how the Kingdom spreads through the world after Pentecost. The account begins with a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over the membership of their future missionary group (Acts, vv. 36–41). The disagreement was serious enough to create tension between them, which is the literal sense of the corresponding Greek word. It was probably connected with Paul's passionate and resolute character: apparently, he did not place much trust in John Mark, who, as the evangelist tells us, had earlier left Paul and Barnabas in Pamphylia. These differences evidently caused the apostles to part company. The episode clearly shows that even people who know the Kingdom are sometimes far from free of disagreements and even quarrels. The only question is how such quarrels end. In our still untransfigured world, they often end, as we know, in enmity. In the Kingdom, things do not reach that point: when a fundamental disagreement arises, those involved usually simply part, generally for a time, and continue separately the work God has entrusted to them, though the work itself remains shared. Of course, a quarrel is not the best form of human relationship. But if it does not lead to enmity and hatred, disagreements do not become insurmountable or destroy the unity without which the Kingdom is impossible. Such a situation does, of course, create obstacles and difficulties, but God's power overcomes them: here there is none of that resistance to His will before which God stops, respecting human freedom of choice. The situation involving Timothy that Luke mentions is also interesting (Acts 16:1–3). Given the Apostolic Council's decisions, one might think circumcision was entirely unnecessary for him. Yet Paul circumcises Timothy, in the evangelist's words, “because of the Jews.” Apparently, the point here is not that “there is no salvation without circumcision,” but that one should not set oneself against a particular church, probably composed entirely or predominantly of Jews. In such a situation, observing Jewish religious norms was entirely natural; ostentatiously rejecting them would have been more likely to unsettle the community. This is how the religious question is resolved in the Kingdom: if religion is an organic part of an individual's or a whole community's life, it has a place in both the Kingdom and the Church. In that case, religion itself becomes one of the forms of the Kingdom, which is as varied as the lives of those who enter it.

Apparently, the question of religion was quite acute in the early Christian Church. It was even necessary to convene what Church historians usually call the Apostolic Council: an assembly of apostles and elders, or presbyters. In some instances, the text of Acts also mentions certain “brothers,” but here there is a textual variant: early Greek manuscripts of Acts speak not of “presbyters and brothers” but of “brother-presbyters.” This seems quite logical: organizationally, the Church was then a religious brotherhood, and such brotherhoods were usually led by a council of elders. Yet the ministry of the apostles, witnesses of Christ's death and resurrection, played a special role in the Church, so the apostolic community naturally also took part in decisions of fundamental importance to it.

The heart of the question was to determine the place of religion in the Church's life. Of course, it was formulated differently in the language of that time and tradition: it concerned Jews and Gentiles, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, those who observed all the religious prescriptions of Judaism and those who did not consider them binding upon themselves. It is important to remember, however, that paganism in those days was by no means always a religion anymore. In most cases, it simply meant secular people and secular society. Naturally, there was some religiosity in this secular society, and it had religious communities of its own.

As a whole, however, the Hellenistic society of the Roman Empire in the early Christian period was thoroughly secular: religion was present, but did not determine its life. Jewish society, whether in Judea itself or in the diaspora, was different: it was thoroughly and deeply religious, its life determined and directed by religious norms and prescriptions. Secular Jewry did not exist in those days. Thus, the question of Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised, was a question of secular and religious people in the Church. More precisely, it was whether the Church had to consist exclusively of religious people or whether secular, nonreligious people could enter it too.

Naturally, the only possible form of religiosity in the early Christian Church was Jewish religiosity. Yet the Apostolic Council's decision holds true for any religion that might grow—and indeed did grow—on Christian soil. The Council, or more precisely the council of elders and apostles, made a wise decision fully consistent with the Church's experience at that time, particularly the experience of Gentiles sharing in the life of the Kingdom without adopting Judaism, as happened with Cornelius. Everyone was allowed to remain what they were in religious terms: a religious Jew, a religious Jew; a secular person, a secular person.

The decision was expressed in the language of the Torah, or more precisely of Halakhah, Jewish religious law. Gentiles entering the Church were instructed to observe the commandments known in Jewish tradition as the commandments of the Noahides, the spiritual heirs of Noah, who, though remaining a Gentile, was nevertheless righteous and, as the Torah says of him, “walked before God.”

These commandments required faithfulness to the One God—and therefore renunciation of pagan ritual meals, of “food sacrificed to idols”—a minimum of ritual purity, abstention from strangled meat, abstention from violence, or “blood,” and from sexual immorality, as well as observance of the moral “Golden Rule.” In the language of Halakhah, such a ruling meant that Gentiles could enter the Church while remaining what they were in religious terms. The Church thereby bore witness that it was not a religious community, but a community of people seeking the Kingdom and living in it. As for religion, a Christian is free to choose whether or not to retain their religiosity. What matters is not imposing it on others, and making sure it does not hinder what is central: life in the Kingdom.

What do we use as our guide when we consider what a person should or should not do for salvation, when we discuss questions of Church order, or when we ask such questions as: “How and what should one believe?” “Which decision will be pleasing to God?” “What does He expect from me personally?” We usually recall one passage or another from Scripture, the rules of the Church, or the experience of other people. At worst, we do whatever we please. But the Book of Acts presents us with an astonishing example of apostolic faith, when the Holy Spirit clearly enables the apostles to see whether Gentile believers need to be circumcised (for the apostle Peter the answer is simple: since the Spirit descended upon Cornelius, they are Christians in the full sense). That is why the council of the apostles uses such a candid and bold formula: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us...” Only one question remains. If the apostles' experience differs greatly from ours, what does that give us—a reason for discouragement and despair, or a reason to plead for the Spirit?

On the way to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas, passing through Phoenicia and Samaria, brought great joy by telling the brothers about the conversion of the Gentiles. Those who lived among Gentiles and people of other faiths rejoiced; these brothers, without delving into legalistic subtleties, rejoiced that new people had joined in salvation. But other believers do not rejoice, those who had recently belonged to the Pharisaic sect and were now trying to bring their own familiar notions into the church. Christ warned His disciples in advance: "...beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" (Matt 16:6), and now it had begun to show itself.

Peter gives the Pharisees a rebuff. Some interpreters tried to separate Peter and Paul. For a time there even existed a theory that tried to divide "Petrinism" and "Paulinism" as different and supposedly contradictory currents in the early Church, but here we see that Peter and Paul are united. If there were differences between them, they were in their character, appearance, and certain personal traits that showed themselves in ministry; in the essence of their ministry there were no contradictions between them.

The council of the apostles decided that new converts from the Gentiles were obligated to keep the commandments, but not the entire law obligatory for Jews. In this the apostles did not contradict Jewish law, which did not require Gentiles to observe moral norms beyond the Noahide commandments. Therefore even that in the life of the early Church which many consider a break with the Old Testament corresponds to what is written on its pages.