Acts 8:25Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But why do I say journeys? Many have fields and villages, yet they do not care for them and show them no concern at all. They care greatly about arranging a bath, increasing revenues, and building courtyards and houses.

But they do not care at all about cultivating souls. When you see thorns in a field, you pull them up, burn them, and destroy them, so as to free the earth from the harm they cause.

Yet when you see the farmers themselves filled with thorns, you do not pull them out. Tell me, do you not fear and tremble before Him who will require an account of them from you?

Should not each of the faithful build a church, invite a teacher to help him, and care first of all that all may be Christians? Tell me, how will a farmer be a Christian when he sees that you are so negligent about his salvation?

But you cannot work signs and persuade them? Persuade them by what you can: by love for mankind, protection, meekness, kindness, and everything else.

Many build marketplaces and baths, but they do not build churches. They would sooner do anything than this. Therefore I exhort, entreat, and ask it as a kindness. Or rather, I even lay it down as a law: let no one have a village without a church.

Do not tell me, “There is one nearby, among the neighbors. It involves many expenses and little income.” If you have anything to set aside for the poor, use it for the church. Better for this than for that.

Support a teacher, support a deacon, and support the priestly order. Act as you do when you take a wife or a bride, or when you give your daughter in marriage. Do the same with the church. Give her a dowry.

In this way your village will be filled with blessing. What blessings will not be there? Tell me, is it a small thing that your threshing floor will be blessed?

Is it a small thing that God will receive, before all others, a portion and firstfruits from all your produce? This is profitable for the peace of the farmers.

Then the priest too will enjoy honor, and this will serve for the village’s salvation. There, constant prayers, hymns, feasts, and the offering of the bloodless sacrifice will be made for you every Lord’s Day.

What is more worthy of praise? Is it that others build splendid tombs, so that people after them may say, “So-and-so built them”? Or is it that you have raised up churches?

Consider that, by raising an altar to God, you will have a reward until the very coming of Christ.

Tell me, if a king commanded you to build a house for him to live in, would you not do everything? But the building of a church is the royal dwelling of Christ.

Do not look at the expenses, but consider the fruit. They cultivate the earth. You cultivate their souls. They bring you fruits. You lead them up to heaven.

He who lays the beginning becomes the cause of everything that follows. So you too will become the cause of the salvation of catechumens there and in the neighboring villages.

Baths make farmers very soft. Taverns make them very intemperate. Yet despite this, you build them for glory. Marketplaces and gatherings make them shameless. Here, however, everything is the opposite.

What is it like to see a priest walking like Abraham, white-haired, girded, cultivating the earth and working with his own hands? What is more desirable than such a village?

Here virtue is far greater. Here there is no profligacy, for it is cast out. There is no drunkenness or gluttony, for they are driven away. There is no vainglory, for it is quenched.

Here hospitality shines more brightly through simplicity of heart. What is it like to go out and enter the house of God, knowing that you yourself built it?

What is it like to lie down to rest, and after bodily rest to be present at evening and morning prayers? What is it like to invite the priest to your table, converse with him, receive a blessing, and see others going there too?

This is a wall. This is the village’s security. This is the field of which it was said: “Behold, the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed” (Gen 27:27).

If a village is good even without this, because of the quiet and peace that reign there, then to what can it be compared when it has this also? Truly, a village that has a church is like the paradise of God.

There is no shouting there, no tumult, no various enemies, and no heresies. All appear as friends, confessing the same dogmas.

Quiet disposes you to philosophy. The priest, beginning from this philosophy, will easily heal you. Here everything we say is scattered in the marketplace. But there, what you hear from him you will firmly imprint on your soul.

Because of this, in the village you will be another man. He will guide the villagers and will be a guardian for them, both by his very presence among them and by instructing them.

And what expenses are there, tell me? First build a small house in the form of a temple. Someone after you will build a narthex. Another after him will add something else.

Thus the whole will be reckoned to you. You give a little, and you receive the reward for all. Therefore make a beginning. Lay the foundation.

Or rather, persuade one another and vie with one another in this work. Places where chaff, rye, and the like must be stored are arranged with every convenience.

But where spiritual fruits must be gathered, no one cares at all. They force themselves to walk thousands of stadia and undertake long journeys to come to church.

How good it is when the priest comes to church in perfect peace, to approach God and pray every day for the village and for the builder of the temple.

Tell me, is it a small thing that your name will be constantly commemorated in the sacred rites, and that prayers will be offered to God every day for the village? How much benefit this will bring you in other respects also.

It happens that some of your neighbors have patrons. No one may wish even to come to you, poor as you are. But perhaps the priest will invite you and seat you at table with him.

Do you see how many blessings can come from this? The village will be free from every evil accusation. No one will accuse it of murder or theft, or suspect it of anything of the sort.

The villagers will also have another consolation from this, when illness or death befalls someone. Those who visit one another there will form friendships not uselessly or by chance.

Their gatherings will be much more pleasant than those at popular festivals. Not only the gatherings, but the elders themselves will be more respected because of the priest.

You have surely heard that Jerusalem among the ancients was honored more than the other cities. This was not without reason, but because piety then reigned there.

Where God is honored, there is nothing evil. On the contrary, where He is not honored, there is nothing good. Thus there will be great prosperity there, both toward God and toward men.

Therefore I exhort you: take up this work not negligently, but zealously. “If you bring forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth” (Jer 15:19).

Then what favor will he not receive from God, who brings benefit and salvation to so many souls, both those now existing and those who will exist until the coming of Christ?

Build a fortress against the devil. This is what the church is. From there let the villagers stretch out their hands to labor. First let them stretch them out in prayer, and afterward go to work.

In this way they will have bodily strength, agriculture will prosper, and all calamities will be far from them. It is impossible to express in words the pleasure that comes from this until it is experienced in deed.

Do not look at the fact that the church brings no income. If you look at it so, then it is better not to undertake the work at all, unless you expect to receive an income greater than every village.

If you do not think this, then do not act, unless you count this work above all things. What gain is greater than this: to lead souls into the heavenly granary?

It is a pity that you do not know how great it is to gain souls. Hear what Christ says to Peter: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter says to Him, “Yes, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Jesus says to him, “Feed My sheep” (Jn 21:16).

If you saw the king’s sheep or horses wandering outside the enclosure and in danger, and you built an enclosure and stable for them, or even appointed a shepherd over them, what would the king not reward you with?

Here you gather the flock of Christ and appoint a shepherd over it. Do you think you are doing something unimportant? But why do I speak thus?

If such punishment threatens one who causes even one man to stumble (Lk 17:2), then tell me, will the one who saves so many people not be saved? Certainly he will be saved.

What sin will remain upon him? And if some sin remains, will it not be forgiven him? From the punishment of the one who causes stumbling, learn the reward of the one who saves.

If the salvation of even one soul were not desirable to God, then its destruction would not incur such wrath from Him. Therefore, knowing this, let us take up this spiritual work.

Let each of you invite me also, and together we shall arrange this as far as possible. If there are three owners, let them do this by common effort. If there is one, let him persuade the other neighbors also.

Only, I exhort you, be eager to do this, so that by pleasing God in all things we may be counted worthy of eternal blessings, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ.

With Him, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Even now, however, some went beyond the borders of Palestine, to the island of Crete, to Phoenicia, to Syria, and specifically to Damascus and Antioch. At first they preached only to Jews. These newly founded churches from among the Jews entered into relations with the Church of Jerusalem, the mother of the churches. Although it had diminished in the number of its own members, it came to have incomparably more churches dependent on it.

The apostles themselves later went around the churches located in Palestine and confirmed them. Thus here also the word of the Lord was fulfilled: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24).

"In many villages of the Samaritans" probably means in the villages lying along the apostles' route from that city to Jerusalem. This preaching activity seems to have continued for no little time. The mentioned apostles' absence from Jerusalem was fairly long.

Now experience itself showed that the Church of God cannot be overthrown. In place of those who had been slain, ever new members of the Church came forth. The conversion of the Samaritans was the beginning of that great harvest which, according to the Lord's covenant, His disciples were to gather (see Jn 4:36-38).

The success of the preaching undoubtedly gladdened the apostles. They sweetened the other apostles with this joy, those who remained in Jerusalem and had sent them to Samaria. Undoubtedly the conversion of the Samaritans became known to all the scattered Christians. It gladdened and strengthened them all. At the same time it convinced them that Jewish persecutions opened a freer entrance for Christians even into places where Jews did not receive a friendly welcome.

For the Samaritans, for example, had to understand that if the Jews persecuted the Christians, then Christians were clearly something different. And to learn who they were, one had to listen to their preaching. In this and similar ways, the beginning of the evangelical proclamation was opened.