{"id":9205,"date":"2023-09-22T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/combonimission.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=9205"},"modified":"2023-09-18T11:15:23","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T10:15:23","slug":"bible-and-mission-europes-first-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/09\/22\/bible-and-mission-europes-first-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Bible and Mission. Europe\u2019s First Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome to my house and stay\u201d \u2013 Read Acts of the Apostles 15: 36\u201316: 15<\/em><\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s first church was born \u201cby chance\u201d and it was all feminine. The race of the Word, which started in Jerusalem, reached Judea and Samaria. After the encounter between Peter and Cornelius, some Hellenists from Cyprus and Cyrene, possibly traders, went to Antioch and immediately started evangelizing the pagans. This mixed and problematic community, the base camp of Paul\u2019s journeys, was the cause of the \u201cCouncil\u201d of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Christianity spread throughout Asia Minor where the thirst for salvation and the mystery cults, with their related search for relationship with God, facilitated the announcement of the Gospel. There were deep desires that needed only to be made explicit and directed towards Christ.<\/p>\n

After the experience of the first journey, Paul carefully prepared the second. His companion was Barnabas and the target was the communities he had founded and the new ones he would add to them. Everything was planned: where to go, what to do, whom to collaborate with and whom to turn to. The only unknown factor was the time of permanence. Paul, however, knew that everywhere, \u201cchains and tribulations are waiting for him\u201d (Acts 20: 23): once a community was born, persecution sent him elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The plan, however, didn\u2019t work. Soon, Barnabas separated from Paul. His companion then was Silas who, \u201cby chance\u201d, had not gone back to Jerusalem. The target changed: Barnabas left for Cyprus with Mark; Paul and Silas went towards Derbe and Lystra in order to evangelise the Asian Province.<\/p>\n

There they met, always \u201cby chance\u201d, Timothy, who joined them. They went through Phrygia and Galatia, but the Holy Spirit, we don\u2019t know why, forbade them to preach. Then they reached Mysia in order to go to Bithynia but the Spirit of Jesus didn\u2019t allow it. They descended to Troas, the sea door towards Greece, where a dream diverted them towards Europe, in Macedonia.<\/p>\n

At Troas, Luke, the author of the Gospel and the Acts, also joined them. His presence, even if anonymous, was clear. Suddenly, the account changed from the third person plural \u201cthey\u201d to \u201cwe\u201d (cf. Acts 16: 10: \u201cWe tried to depart.\u201d). The meetings with Silas, Timothy and Luke were destined to begin the new mission.<\/p>\n

Evangelization is God\u2019s work. He puts obstacles in our projects and works with the unexpected. What appears as chance is His way of travelling incognito. Not our certainties but the most upsetting novelties reveal God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n

The short crossing from Troas to Philippi was, in reality, the jump from Asia to Europe. Beyond the Bosporus, Paul and company met the Greek-Roman world, a cultural and religious universe different from their own.<\/p>\n

Paul could not make use of the strategy already tested with Jews and Hellenists in Asia. He tried new approaches. It was not by chance that he started looking for Jewish people already settled in the territory – they were familiar with the local mentality. Their inculturation process had started long ago because of their zeal for spreading the Word and their intellectual curiosity.<\/p>\n

Arriving at Philippi, the apostolic quartet went out of the city and along the river bank. It was a Saturday. For lack of something better, it was a place of prayer fit for the Jews and their ablutions. The riverside became a synagogue and the congregation was only women. The four men sat with them and spoke to them of Christ.<\/p>\n

Among the women listeners was Lydia, a purple dye merchant from Thyatira. Listening to Paul, the Lord opened her heart. Lydia asked for baptism and \u201ccompelled\u201d them to go to her house. The house of this hospitable woman was the first of all the churches in the West. This community, which had not been planned, was the dearest to Paul (read the Letter to the Philippians). The good seed would spread from there to the ends of the earth. (Fr. Silvano Fausti)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 (Illustration: Luis Henrique Alves Pinto)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome to my house and stay\u201d \u2013 Read Acts of the Apostles 15: 36\u201316: 15 Europe\u2019s first church was born \u201cby chance\u201d and it was all feminine. The race of the Word, which started in Jerusalem, reached Judea and Samaria. After the encounter between Peter and Cornelius, some Hellenists from Cyprus and Cyrene, possibly traders, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}