Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Chrysostom:

This is success for a teacher, to educate his disciples by his own accomplishments.… Notice, if you please, the character of the teaching here. He lays down love and bravery. “I kept back nothing,” he says, thereby showing both generosity and resoluteness. “Of what was profitable.” Well said! For there were things that they did not need to learn. For just as it is envy not to say some things, so it is folly to say everything. For this reason he adds, “of what was profitable,” that is, “I not only spoke but also taught.” He means he was not doing this merely for form’s sake.¹

Do you see that these are not the words of one lamenting but of one who is in control, teaching and sympathizing with them in what has happened? He did not say, “We grieve, but it is necessary to bear it,” but “I do not account.…” He repeats this, not to extol himself but to teach them, through the earlier words, humility, and through these, bravery and boldness. ²

Do not think that I am lamenting as I say this. “I do not consider my life so precious.” He says this to elevate their mind and to persuade them not only not to flee but to bear it nobly. For this reason he calls it “course” and “ministry”: “course,” or “race,” because of the glory; “ministry,” because of the obligation. I am a minister, he says; I have nothing more.²

[Paul] is about to say something more burdensome, that is, “I am innocent of the blood of all of you.” With this he prepares them and shows that nothing is lacking. Since he was about to place upon them the entire burden with all its weight, he first appeases their feelings by saying, “And now, behold, I know that you will see my face no more.” He then adds, “I am innocent of the blood of all of you.” The pain is twofold: one, to see his face no more; two, that this applies to all of them. For he says, “All you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom will see my face no more.” Therefore it is natural that “I testify to you,” since I will no longer be here, “that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Do you see how he frightens them and crushes their souls, troubled and afflicted as they are? But this was necessary. “For I did not shrink,” he says, “from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” So it is he who does not speak who is responsible for the blood, that is, for the murder. Nothing could be more terrifying than this. He shows that they too, if they do not act, are responsible for the blood. So although he seems to be justifying his own actions, he is, in fact, putting fear into them.³

 

1. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 44.  Martin, F., & Smith, E. (Eds.). (2006). Acts (p. 250). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 44.  Martin, F., & Smith, E. (Eds.). (2006). Acts (p. 251). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 44.  Martin, F., & Smith, E. (Eds.). (2006). Acts (p. 253). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.