Acts 13:4-12
Fighting for the Faith
4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleu′cia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Sal′amis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But El′ymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) withstood them, seeking to turn away the proconsul from the faith. 9 But Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.
We see Paul here in characteristic form (incidentally, Saint Luke from now on will use Paul’s Roman name rather than the Hebrew Saul, coinciding with the beginning of Paul’s missionary journeys to the Gentiles.)
Standing his ground and contending with opponents was a hallmark of Paul’s character. Before his encounter with Christ he zealously opposed the disciples in Jerusalem. After his conversion he didn’t hesitate to go into the synagogues and openly debate with his former co-religionists (the church sent him away to Tarsus for his protection and theirs.) Here he is years later faced with a new opponent, one Elymas, a charismatic Jew who had won the interest of the Roman proconsul, a spiritual seeker, and Paul takes him on with prophetic vigor. Throughout the book of Acts and in his letters we see Paul contending with opposition inside and outside the Church. Nor did he hesitate to stand up to his friends and fellow apostles when he felt they were in the wrong. He split with Barnabas later in a dispute over John Mark (Acts 15:36-41.) And he “opposed Peter to his face” (Galatians 2:11). In both those cases they eventually reconciled, and now Paul is often depicted in icons together with Peter or with Barnabas. Even here with Elymas the strong medicine Paul applies is temporary and meant to bring the man to his senses, as St John Chrysostom underlines.
Paul is the quintessential apologist (contender/defender for the faith). He combines deep humility, born out of the experience of his weakness, with an equally deep sense of the Lord’s mercy and power working through him for the good of others.
Incidentally, this short depiction of the founding of the Church in Cyprus is a reminder that many of the churches planted by Paul and mentioned in the New Testament are still actively functioning as Orthodox Churches.
Archives and Metropolitan Council
On Sunday evening, Metropolitan Tikhon opened the meeting of the Archives Advisory Committee with a short prayer service for evangelization in Saint Sergius chapel. He said that “expanding the mission,” the focus of this year’s 18th All-American Council, is not something most people associate with archives. But care for the archives is more than an antiquarian and academic interest. The letters, reports, newspapers, diaries, photos and artifacts in our archives are records of faith. They show how missionaries, bishops, clergy, and the lay men and women of our church lived out their faith and built church communities, often in the most difficult circumstances. This is a precious treasure that deserves the care and professional attention. The meeting continued yesterday, and committee members will report today to the Metropolitan Council.
Metropolitan Council members are gathering today at the site for this week’s meeting, the former Roman Catholic Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, now transformed into conference center. We met there last fall for the first time and it proved to be better and cheaper than the hotel near the chancery that had been used for many years.