Acts 13:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It does not allow them to see anything. It surrounds them like a mist and darkness, not permitting them to look clearly.

What excuse shall we have, who overcome passion by passion, and not by the fear of God? For example, many who are pleasure-loving and money-loving have restrained love of pleasure for the sake of saving money.

Others, on the contrary, have despised money for the sake of pleasures. Some, carried away by vainglory, have despised both, spending money unsparingly and keeping chastity in vain.

Others, being exceedingly vainglorious, have despised this passion by committing many shameful deeds, both for bodily pleasures and for money. Still others, to satisfy their anger, venture upon countless expenses and care for nothing except doing their own will.

Thus what passion can do, the fear of God does not do among us. And why do I say passion? What human shame can do, the fear of God does not do.

We do much good, and we also sin much, because we are ashamed before men, while we do not fear God. How many have squandered their possessions out of shame! How many have vainly sought honors, serving their friends in evil!

How many, and in how many ways, have sinned to please friendship! Therefore, if passion and shame before men can move us both to sins and to good deeds, then we speak in vain when we say that we cannot restrain the passions.

We can, if we wish. And all must wish it. Tell me, why can you not overcome vainglory, when others overcome it, having the same soul, the same body, the same outward form, and living the same life?

Think of God. Think of the higher glory. Set the present glory against it, and you will soon depart from vainglory.

If you insist on desiring glory, seek true glory. What kind of glory is it if it brings dishonor? What kind of glory is it if it forces one to seek honor from inferiors and to need it?

Honor consists in enjoying glory from those above. If you insist on desiring glory, seek rather glory from God.

When you have loved that glory, you will despise the other and will see how dishonorable it is. But until you know this glory, you will not see how shameful and ridiculous that one is.

Those who are captivated by some wicked, ugly, and shameless woman cannot see her ugliness while they love her. Passion darkens their judgment. So it is here also: while this passion holds us, we cannot see what an evil it is.

But how, you say, can we be freed from it? Remember those who squandered much property and received no benefit from it.

Remember the dead. What glory did they enjoy? It proved unstable, disappeared, and was scattered.

Understand that it is only a name and has nothing substantial in itself. Indeed, tell me, what is glory? Give some definition.

You will say, to be the object of everyone's admiration. Rightly or wrongly? If wrongly, this will not be admiration, but censure, flattery, and slander.

If rightly, this is impossible, because the people do not have sound judgments. They admire those who gratify their desires. If you wish, look at those who give their property to harlots, charioteers, and dancers.

But you will say, we are not speaking of them, but of honorable and just men who can do much good. Indeed, if they wished, they would soon do much good. But now they do nothing of the kind.

Tell me, who now praises the honorable and just man? The opposite happens.

And what is more repulsive than such a righteous man if, when doing some good deed, he awaits glory from the crowd? He acts as though an excellent painter, painting the portrait of a king, awaited praise from the inexperienced.

Moreover, whoever seeks glory from men will soon abandon virtuous deeds. Whoever expects praise does what others desire, not what he himself judges right.

What, then, would I advise you to do? Attend to God, be satisfied with praise from Him, do everything pleasing to Him, and perform good works. Do not cling to anything human.

This attachment to earthly glory harms fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, and makes all our good works vain. Therefore, lest we suffer this, let us flee this passion.

Let us keep only one thing in view: praise from God, approval from Him, and glorification from our common Master. Then, having lived the present life virtuously, may we be counted worthy of the promised blessings with those who love Him.

May this be by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit belong glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

For those whom this good tidings first reached, the Jews of Jerusalem and their rulers, did not wish to receive it. They did not recognize the Messiah. They did not understand the prophecies that are read every Sabbath in the synagogue.

Yet by condemning the Messiah to death, they could not destroy the promise. Against their own knowledge and expectation, they only served its fulfillment. For He, having endured everything that He had to suffer according to the prophets' predictions, rose from the dead.

You have not seen Him, but through faith in Him you can receive remission of sins and justification, which the Law could never provide. Having proclaimed this promise, the Apostle added a threat against unbelief.

Perhaps, but this word by itself gives no right to such an assumption. They entered and sat down because everyone was sitting. They sat down to listen and to pray.

The more probable supposition is that Paul and Barnabas had become known as men capable of teaching even before they visited the synagogue. Nowhere is it evident, nor is it very probable, that this Sabbath was the first day of their stay in the city.

If they had arrived earlier, then through private conversations with the Jews there, they could have become known as teachers skilled in understanding and interpreting the Scriptures.

Therefore, when they appeared in the synagogue, after the regular sections of Holy Scripture had been read, they were invited to speak.

Men and brethren: a respectful address (Acts 1:16).

A word of exhortation: or a word of edification, occasioned by the sections of Scripture that had been read. As was customary, the word consisted of an interpretation of what had been read and an application of the word of the Law and the Prophets to life.

From Paul's speech, in which rare Old Testament words are used that occur, however, in the first chapter of Deuteronomy and the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah, some conclude that those very sections from Deuteronomy and Isaiah were the appointed readings that Sabbath.

But this conjecture is more ingenious than probable. Apart from the similarity in the use of the mentioned words, Paul's speech has no further similarity to those sections in anything.

Praising this goodwill of the elders, Saint John Chrysostom laments their later unresponsiveness to the words of the apostolic good tidings. He explains it by their love of pleasure and vainglory, and says:

“See what introduction Paul makes. First he praises them and shows the great providence of God concerning them by the words, ‘you who fear God.’ Then he begins his speech. He did not say, ‘sojourners,’ because that name points to action.”

Meanwhile, perhaps the rulers of the synagogue wished to hear consoling news about the end of this coming, about liberation from foreign powers, and about the return of Jerusalem.

The Apostle did speak of a consoling good tidings, of Christ Jesus and the Comforting Spirit. But all this was far from the consolation for which the representatives of the synagogue thirsted and thought they would hear from the Apostles.

In any case, it is significant that Paul did not begin to speak before he was asked to do so. Therefore, even if his preaching was not crowned with evident success, he was not counting on that.

With the reading from the Bible in Jewish synagogues there was joined an edifying instruction or sermon (see Lk 4:17-21).

The offering of such instructions was not the duty of some particular person, but was open to every Jew. It seems to have been customary to grant this right first of all to foreigners.

So in the present case, the members of the college of elders sent to say to them: if you feel within yourselves an inward need for some word of exhortation, then speak.

The outward summons to preach met the Apostle's own inward desire. Therefore he immediately stood up and, by a gesture of his hand, called all those assembled to attention. Then he began his first sermon.

Its subject was the “salvation” of man in Christ Jesus. The purpose of the speech was not only to bring the Jews to faith.

It was also to bring the Hebrew people into accord with its providential calling: not only to appropriate this salvation to itself, but also to be its bearer for all the nations.