Word to the Wise
Friday, May 18, 2007 - Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter
[Acts 18:9-18 and John 16:20-23]"Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city." He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.
It is clear from the letters of St. Paul to the Corinthian community that he put a lot of himself into his ministry there. Some of his best known words, especially the description of love in 1 Cor. 13, are in those letters. It would appear that he maintained his concern for them after he left there. The incident described in the scripture from ACTS today is important because it gives us a way of dating Paul's presence in Corinth. The name of the Roman governor appears in non-biblical sources along with the dates of his term in Achaia (Greece)! It is clear that Gallio was not about to decide a purely religious question that seemed to him to be a matter of Jewish faith. This tolerance made it possible for Paul to spend a long time in Corinth. What strikes me in all this is the relationship that Paul developed with the community. From reading his letters, I see the love and exasperation that pours out when he sees things going on that could undo all his work. It is as if his letters are an extension of what the dream tells him earlier. He continued to speak to the Corinthians long after leaving there. I have to admit that I have had a similar experience with more than one community that I have served. Contemporary pastoral practice says, "You have to let go, etc.etc!" I wonder what St. Paul would have said to that? I urge my readers to pick up the two letters (maybe more than two in some ways) and read them. Perhaps we can be grateful to Lucius Junius Gallio for his tolerance! AMEN
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