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From: Acts 16:1-10

Timothy joins Paul

[1] And he came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timo-
thy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer; but his father was a Greek.
[2] He was well spoken of by the brethren at Lystra and Iconium. [3] Paul wanted
Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and circumcised him because of
the Jews that were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

A Tour of the Churches of Asia Minor

[4] As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for ob-
servance the decisions which had been reached by the Apostles and elders who
were at Jerusalem. [5] So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they
increased in numbers daily.

[6] And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been for-
bidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. [7] And when they had come
opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not
allow them; [8] so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. [9] And a vision
appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him
and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” [10] And when he had seen
the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God
had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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Commentary:

1-3. At Lystra, a city which he evangelized during his first journey (cf. 14:6),
Paul meets a young Christian, Timothy, of whom he had received good reports.
His Jewish mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois were Christians, and Timo-
thy had received the faith from them.

Paul’s apostolic plans for Timothy, and the fact that, despite being Jewish
through his mother, he had not been circumcised, lead him to circumcise him:
everyone in the city knew he was a Jew and those who practised the Mosaic
Law might easily have regarded him as an apostate from Judaism, in which
case he would be unlikely to be an effective preacher of the Gospel to the Jews.

“He took Timothy,” St. Ephraem comments, “and circumcised him. Paul did not
do this without deliberation: he always acted prudently; but given that Timothy
was being trained to preach the Gospel to Jews everywhere, and to avoid their
not giving him a good hearing because he was not circumcised, he decided to
circumcise him. In doing this he was not aiming to show that circumcision was
necessary—he had been the one most instrumental in eliminating it—but to avoid
putting the Gospel at risk” (”Armenian Commentary, ad loc.”).

In the case of Titus, St. Paul did not have him circumcised (cf. Galatians 2:3-5);
which showed that he did not consider circumcision a matter of principle; it is
simply for reasons of pastoral prudence and common sense that he has Timothy
circumcised. Titus was the son of Gentile parents; to have circumcised him — at
a point when Paul was fighting the Judaizers — would have meant Paul giving up
his principles. However, the circumcision of Timothy, which takes place later, is
in itself something that has no relevance from the Christian point of view (cf.
Galatians 5:6, 15).

Timothy became one of Paul’s most faithful disciples, a most valuable associate
in his missionary work (cf. 17:14ff; 18:5; 19:22; 20:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; Ro-
mans 16:21) and the recipient of two of the Apostle’s letters.

4. The text suggests that all Christians accepted the decisions of the Council of
Jerusalem in a spirit of obedience and joy. They saw them as being handed down
by the Church through the Apostles and as providing a satisfactory solution to a
delicate problem. The disciples accept these commandments with internal and
external assent: by putting them into practice they showed their docility. Every-
thing which a lawful council lays down merits and demands acceptance by Chris-
tians, because it reflects, as the Council of Trent teaches, “the true and saving
doctrine which Christ taught, the Apostles then handed on, and the Catholic
Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ever maintains; therefore, no one
should subsequently dare to believe, preach or teach anything different” (”De Ius-
tificatione”, Preface).

Bl. John Paul II called on Christians to adhere sincerely to conciliar directives when
he exhorted them in Mexico City to keep to the letter and the spirit of Vatican II:
“Take in your hands the documents of the Council. Study them with loving atten-
tion, in a spirit of prayer, to discover what the Spirit wished to say about the
Church” (”Homily in Mexico Cathedral”, 26 January 1979).

6. In Galatia Paul had the illness which he refers to in Galatians 4:13: “You
know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the Gospel to you
at first ...”: his apostolic zeal makes him turn his illness, which prevented him
from moving on, to good purpose.

7. We are not told how the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going to Bithynia. It
would have been through an interior voice or through some person sent by God.

Some Greek codices and a few translations say simply “Spirit” instead of “Spi-
rit of Jesus”, but really the two mean the same: cf. Philippians 1:19; Romans 8:
9; 1 Peter 1:11.

9. This vision probably took place in a dream: Acts tells us of a number of ins-
tances where God made His will known in that way (cf. 9:10, 12; 10:3, 17; 18:9;
22:17). Paul and his companions were convinced he had received a message
from God.

The vision is quite right to describe the preaching of the Gospel as help for Mace-
donia: it is the greatest help, the greatest benefit, a person or a country could be
given, an immense grace from God and a great act of charity on the part of the
preacher, preparing his listeners, as he does, for the wonderful gift of faith.

10. The conviction that Paul and his companions have about what they must do
is the way every Christian, called as he is at Baptism, should feel about his vo-
cation to imitate Christ and therefore be apostolic.

“All Christians”, Bl. John Paul teaches, “incorporated into Christ and His Church
by baptism, are consecrated to God. They are called to profess the faith which
they have received. By the Sacrament of Confirmation, they are further endowed
by the Holy Spirit with special strength to be witnesses of Christ and shares in
His mission of salvation. Every lay Christian is therefore an extraordinary work
of God’s grace and is called to the heights of holiness. Sometimes, lay men and
women do not seem to appreciate the full dignity and the vocation that is theirs
as lay people. No, there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary layman’, for all of you
have been called to conversion through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As God’s holy people you are called to fulfill your role in the evangelization of the
world. Yes, the laity are ‘a chosen race, a holy priesthood’, also called to be ‘the
salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’. It is their specific vocation and mis-
sion to express the Gospel in their lives and thereby to insert the Gospel as a
leaven into the reality of the world in which they live and work” (”Homily in Lime-
rick”, 1 October 1979).

Now the narrative moves into the first person plural (16:10-17; 20:5-8; 13-15; 21:
1-18; 27:1-28, 16). The author includes himself among St. Paul’s companions,
as an eyewitness of what he reports. Luke must have joined the missionaries at
Troas and then stayed behind in Philippi.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: John 15:18-21

A Hostile World

(Jesus said to His disciples,) [18] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated
Me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love its own;
but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they
kept My word, they will keep yours also. [21] But all this they will do to you on
My account, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”

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Commentary:

18-19. Jesus states that there can be no compromise between Him and the world,
the kingdom of sin: anyone who lives in sin abhors the light (cf. John 3:19-20).
This is why Christ is persecuted, and why the Apostles will be in their turn. “The
hostility of the perverse sounds like praise for our life”, St. Gregory says, “because
it shows that we have at least some rectitude if we are an annoyance to those who
do not love God; no one can be pleasing to God and to God’s enemies at the same
time. He who seeks to please those who oppose God is no friend of God; and he
who submits himself to the truth will fight against those who strive against truth”
(”In Ezechielem Homiliae”, 9).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.