Acts 16:9-15 Commentary

Commentary:

Not What I Had in Mind

I wonder what it was that drew Paul and his companions toward Mysia, Bithynia, etc.  Importing modern church planting strategy, one imagines they did market research, they had developed relationships with potential leaders interested in helping them develop a new ministry. Perhaps as they walked the 2-3 weeks in the direction, they were consulting language-learning flashcards or podcasts on the culture of northern Turkey. Only to be turned around at the last minute.

Then, when the moved on to Philippi and went to the river on the Sabbath, were they disappointed in what they found there?  Likely, they’d been looking for a small gathering of faithful Jews, an official gathering marked out by the presence of 10 Jewish men (a minion).  But … all they found were ladies. A prayer meeting, not a proper synagogue, not even made up of Jewish women but, rather, God-fearing (curious about Judaism, committed to learning more) women.

In the first case, they didn’t get to go where they thought they needed to be.  In the second case, they showed up at the right place only to discover the “right” people weren’t there.  This kind of ministry dream deferred is, it turns out, a venerable tradition within the Biblical text.

In the Old Testament, King David wanted to build the temple — a noble aspiration.  But God told him to leave it to his son, Solomon.  God leads and directs us in our endeavors but often not to where or to whom or even how we want to go!  And, in fact, sometimes God waits until we’ve invested a lot of time and energy in what turns out to be the wrong direction, like the journey of the disciples toward Turkey, only to be turned toward Europe instead.  It wasn’t the difference of  an hour or so but was a 2-3 week commitment (as as a conservative estimate.) One wonders why the Spirit couldn’t have revealed the plan at the front end of the journey. Convenience, I am afraid to admit, is not a gift of the Spirit.

And yet, according to Leander Keck, “The Holy Spirit is responsible for the plot line of church’s mission…In this case, the Spirit directs Paul by blocking doors in Asia rather than opening them…God’s redemptive plan, worked out in the church’s mission, cannot be frustrated…Yet here God frustrates Paul’s plan…Perhaps there is in this text a faint echo of the circumstances in Peter’s mission to Cornelius, which also began with resistance to God’s plans for the Gentiles and were also challenged and overturned by visionary revelations.”

This wasn’t Paul’s plan and yet everything that follows after this in the book of Acts is dependent upon it.  Paul would not preach at the Areopagus, Lydia would not hear the good news, the men of Athens would not be challenged, had this not gone sideways of what Paul had planned.

N.T. Wright observes from this passage into our own lives that “We sometimes think it would be nice if life were not complicated, but it is and the complexities matter. They are part of God’s world and God’s work.” Here I think we might make a helpful connection to the realities of an uncertain and deeply complicated world.  History and geography teach us the world has always been filled with these complexities though, perhaps, many of us have been insulated by our comforts and are only coming to seek it now.  The call is not to be in control of the world, not even in control of our own lives and certainly not in control of the church.  Our call is, as the simple hymn reminds us, “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.” Again from N.T. Wright, “It’s one thing to trust God’s guidance when it’s actually quite obvious what to do next. It’s something else entirely when you seem to be going on and on up a blind alley.” Yet here we stand—in good company with Paul, with Peter, with David and all of God’s people—for we can do no other.

Illustration:

At the risk of anachronism, one might wish the early church had the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s instruction to the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwaald, later published as a small text entitled: Life Together.  And it is certainly the case that those in seminary today would be well-served to remember these words as they set out into their first assignments:

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly.

It is not we who build. Christ builds the church. Whoever is mindful to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it, for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it.

We must confess he builds.

We must proclaim, he builds.

We must pray to him, and he will build.

We do not know his plan.

We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down.

It may be that the times which by human standards are the times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that the times which from a human point are great times for the church are times when it’s pulled down. It is a great comfort which Jesus gives to his church. You confess, preach, bear witness to me, and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is not your providence. Do what is given to you, and do it well, and you will have done enough.”