NOTES for Act 15:36-16:15

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.

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.

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 Macedonian who appeared to Paul in a dream was calling him not only to his own country. With the preaching in Philippi, the Gospel message reaches Europe, which from now on is to be a stronghold of Christianity for centuries. It is symbolic that at the founding of the first Christian community in Europe we see a woman, Lydia. From the very beginning, in her person, Europe's openness to the Good News reveals something qualitatively new. Of course, women's souls in the East also opened in love toward God; the Old Testament offers many examples, so Lydia continues a longstanding tradition. And yet, and yet...

Not all the women of Europe are like Lydia, however. Paul has to confront an unfortunate woman possessed by a spirit of divination. There are plenty of such women even now, except that the great income they bring is not for their masters, but for themselves. In casting out the spirit of divination, Paul acts, one might think, against his own advantage: the possessed woman is giving the apostle and his companions free publicity, drawing people to their preaching. Yet Paul has no need of demons' help, however tempting it might be to use it “for good” and “in the name of a higher purpose.” The services of the powers of darkness must be paid for, and the price of their “services” in preaching will inevitably be a distortion of the Gospel's essence. For the second time, after the encounter with Simon the Magician, the Church, in the person of Paul, rejects the temptations to make use of occult powers.

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.