ACC ~ Acts 13 v16 - 25

OVERVIEW:

This is the first time that Luke gives us a discourse of Paul. Modern commentators note that the discourse emphasizes a continuity between the history of Israel, how God took care of it through various leaders and what God has done in Jesus. Unlike the earlier speeches, which build to a climax intended to bring repentance, this speech builds the case that Jesus was foreshadowed in the history of the chosen people. Chrysostom notes how Luke shows Paul beginning to take precedence in the missionary activity over Barnabas. He also notes how Paul’s speech witnesses to the abundance of God’s love toward the people of Israel. Further, Paul’s use of prophecy and the fulfillment of it in Christ shows how neither the Old Testament nor the New stands alone but they unlock each other’s potentials (CHRYSOSTOM, ORIGEN). Even John the Baptist’s proclamation, which Paul cites, only hints at the great mysteries that the full revelation of the gospel holds (ORIGEN).

13:16 | Paul Stood

BARNABAS GIVES WAY TO PAUL. CHRYSOSTOM: Look how Barnabas gives way to Paul—how should it be otherwise?—to him whom he brought from Tarsus, just as John gives way to Peter on all occasions, even though he commands more respect. Indeed, it was to the common advantage that they both looked. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 29.

13:18 | God Bore with Israel in the Wilderness

PAUL EMPHASIZES GOD’S KINDNESS. CHRYSOSTOM: And notice how he passes over the times of their misfortunes and nowhere brings forward their faults but only God’s kindness, leaving the rest for them to think over. … “And afterward they desired a king.” Again [Paul] does not speak of their ingratitude but always the kindness of God. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 29.

13:23 | A Savior for Israel

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE GOSPEL CONFIRM EACH OTHER. CHRYSOSTOM: Notice how [Paul] weaves his discourse from things present and from the prophets. Thus he says, “from [this man’s] seed according to the promise,” and then adduces John again, saying, “By condemning they fulfilled all that was written.” Both the apostles as witnesses of the resurrection, and David bearing witness. For neither do the Old Testament proofs seem so cogent when taken by themselves, nor the later testimonies apart from the former. Therefore it is through both that he makes his discourse trustworthy. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 29.

13:24 | John Preached a Baptism of Repentance

JOHN BEGINS THE GOSPEL. ORIGEN: It must be said, on the one hand, that the Old [Testament] is not a Gospel since it did not show “the one coming” but announced him beforehand, and on the other that the entire New [Testament] is the gospel, speaking not just in a way similar to the beginning of the Gospel, “Behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,” but encompassing manifold praises and teachings of the one on whose account the Gospel is the gospel. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.17.

13:25b | John Unworthy to Untie Jesus’ Sandals

BEING WORTHY TO UNTIE JESUS’ SANDALS. ORIGEN: If the passage about the sandals has a mystic meaning we should not reject an investigation of it. Now I consider that the full humanization, when the Son of God assumes flesh and bones, is seen in one of his shoes. The other humbling is the descent to Hades, whatever that Hades might be, and the journey with the Spirit to the prison. As to the descent into Hades, we read in the sixteenth psalm, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades.” As for the journey in prison with the Spirit, we read in Peter in his Catholic epistle, “Put to death,” he says, “in the flesh but quickened in the Spirit, in which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, which at one time were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God once waited in the days of Noah while the ark was in preparation.” He, then, who is able worthily to set forth the meaning of these two journeys is able to untie the strap of the sandals of Jesus. Such a one is whoever bends down in his mind and goes with Jesus as he goes down into hades, and whoever descends from heaven and the mysteries of Christ’s divinity to the advent that he had to spend with us when he took on humanity (as his sandals). Now he who put on humanity also put on the dead, since “for this end Jesus both died and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living.” This is why he put on both the living and the dead, that is, the inhabitants of the earth and those of hades, that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. Who, then, is able to stoop down and untie the latchet of such sandals, and having untied them not to let them drop, but by the second faculty he has received to take them up and bear them, by bearing the meaning of them in his memory? COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 6.18.