Saturday, 5/9/15
The "Acts of the Apostles" tells us little or nothing about
the journeys of the other twelve Apostles. It is a detailed account only of the
activities of St. Paul. The whole of his first missionary journey, and the
first half of his second journey, were confined to the country that we now call Turkey.
The Christians he revisited in the town of Lystra spoke highly of a young convert
called Timothy. Paul had a mind to take Timothy along as his assistant, but
Timothy, the son of a Gentile, had never been circumcised. Now, Paul had been
telling everybody that circumcision is not needed for salvation; but in this
case, so that Timothy might be able to move freely among Jews, Paul had him
circumcised.
So, Paul, for appearances sake, had Timothy circumcised. A
man might contend that fifty dollars for the priest is all the expense that is
absolutely necessary for getting his daughter married; but the girl, referring
to this story of Paul and Timothy, might insist that the Bible backs up her
dream of daddy forking out five thousand dollars for a fancy wedding breakfast
for the sake of appearances.
That daddy
would really like the no-frills way St. Luke slipped his way into Paul’s second
missionary journey. In one sentence Luke, who was the author of the “Acts of
the Apostles,” wrote, “they crossed through Mysia.” Then just two sentences
further on he wrote “we sought passage to Macedonia.”
Luke didn’t make us listen to any details about himself, or
about how he joined Paul. I guess that could be a good lesson for priests whose sermons
have more to say about themselves than about Jesus.
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