NOTES for Act 20:7-9

The disciples' meeting in Troas takes place on the first day of the week, and this gathering is spoken of as something customary. Yet before us is important testimony to how early in the Church the day of the Resurrection became the day for prayer and Eucharistic gatherings. Why does the meeting take place at night? Was it only because of persecution? Apparently to some degree it was, but hardly for that reason alone. After all, the new day began in the evening, and one can imagine how impatiently the Christians, burning with the desire to meet Christ as soon as possible in prayer and in the breaking of the Bread, tried to gather as soon as the Sabbath rest observed by the brothers from among the Jews had ended.

In the upper room where the disciples had gathered, there were many lamps, but one of them was sitting off to the side by the window. Because of that, he apparently became detached from the gathering and fell asleep, and as a result fell out of the window. Not everyone who comes to the Church has the necessary reserve of spiritual strength, and yet the Teacher asked His disciples to watch. And for those who do not feel strong enough, it is better not to tuck themselves away in a secluded corner, but to go toward the light, so as not to fall into something worse than the fall Eutychus took.

Today's reading includes a speech in which Paul sums up his missionary work (vv. 17–38). It is both an account and an exhortation. Speaking of his ministry, Paul deliberately mentions that throughout his missionary journeys he was a burden to no one (vv. 33–35). This was apparently a matter of principle for the apostle, and no wonder: it concerned not only material things, but spiritual ones as well. Nor was it merely that charging for preaching would have been strange, to say the least. It concerned one's very attitude toward the ministry entrusted by God. If it is seen as simply an ordinary job like any other, one can, of course, demand payment for it as for any other work. Paul, however, apparently adheres consistently to the instruction Jesus gave His disciples when sending them out to preach during His earthly ministry (Matt. 10:8). His chief concern, it seems, is that those whom God has placed at the head of the churches should preserve everything to which he bore witness in his preaching (vv. 27–32). Paul understands that false teachers and false prophets will appear very soon; their appearance is inevitable, and one must be prepared for it (vv. 29–30). Remaining faithful to what Paul testified means remaining faithful to Christ and the Kingdom. Yet no one can do this alone, so Paul advises the heads of the churches to listen both to themselves and to their church (v. 28). At first sight, this seems merely a matter of what we would now call democracy within the Church. But it concerns more than the organization of church communities. It concerns Paul's understanding of the Church. For him, it is above all the new people of God, created by Christ Himself. No human being can govern any church community in the sense in which we usually speak of governing in our still untransfigured world: if that community remains the Church, by definition only the risen Jesus Himself can govern it. The role of the head of a church is then primarily functional: he can and must lead the community and preside over the assembly, but he cannot give his church anything that any other member could not give it. This is hardly surprising: any church community living a full spiritual life receives everything needed for that life from Christ Himself. There are, and can be, no other sources in the Church. In that case, however, the experience of communion with Christ, and thus the experience of the Kingdom, can be preserved not by individuals, whatever their position in the church community, but only by the whole community together. Yet listening to oneself is also necessary: a church community is not a collective in which the individual is lost, but a community of persons following Christ in all their uniqueness. Each person's experience is exceptionally important here, although it cannot, of course, be regarded as the final word in truth. Apparently, Paul understood that one can guard against false teachers only by living a full spiritual life. No church structures, no theological concepts, not even any creeds can in themselves protect the Church from destruction from without or within. Its only protection can be fidelity to Christ and life according to the laws of the Kingdom.

This conversation of the apostle Paul with the Ephesian presbyters is one of the most dramatic passages in the book of Acts. Paul knows that he is going to meet trials, and that he will no longer see most of his brothers and coworkers. Therefore his words to them are a kind of spiritual testament, the most important thing he can say to the disciples of Christ.

Thus he reminds them that he did not preach a new teaching, a new law, or a new religion to them; he simply became a servant and witness of the beginning of their own direct relationship with God. He does not call them to cling to external authorities, but to pay attention to themselves and to the flock in which the Spirit dwells, the flock that Christ the Savior acquired for Himself. Now God will guide His Church, and the presbyters are only His servants. And finally, let them remember the words of Jesus, words that Paul himself fulfilled to the end: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Paul proved that these words are not so much about money as about everything a person has: soul, time, strength, his whole life.

Paul's path is that of an apostle and a missionary, in the fullest sense. It is not only that, having traveled throughout Asia Minor, he left churches in all its major cities. It is also what he carries with him. It is no accident that the author of Acts mentions the story of the young man who, while listening to the apostle's preaching, fell to his death but was raised by Paul.

This is the only event the sacred writer recounts separately; he describes the rest in outline, without details. It is as though he wants to say: such events are now fairly ordinary. They can happen anywhere and at any time, simply along the way, almost in passing. Not because of any exceptional abilities of Paul or anyone else, but because Paul, like every other true witness, lives the life of the Kingdom of which he speaks and to whose King he bears witness.

The Kingdom accompanies Paul and the other apostles everywhere; they live by it and live within it. Their outward appearance as ordinary people is connected only with their mission. The risen Christ, walking beside the disciples on the road to Emmaus, also seemed to be a person of our untransfigured world—but only for a time, until He vanished from His disciples' sight.

Then it became clear that between His world and the world in which the apostles then lived there was a very definite boundary, though not immediately visible: the Kingdom and the untransfigured world are two distinct realities, even though they touch. Paul, too, while remaining an inhabitant of the Kingdom, nevertheless acts in a world that has not yet become part of it, so that in the end this may indeed happen. His entire journey and ministry are simply a means of fulfilling this central task God has set him.