Persecution Has Led to Propagation
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman
Acts11:19-26; 29-30; John 4:5-42
"There is no evil without good," states a well-known folk proverb. Another common saying, based on Scripture, is that God has the power to turn evil into good.
Jacob's sons, Joseph's brothers, persecuted their brother Joseph out of jealousy and committed a shameful act of selling their brother into slavery, but God gave Joseph clairvoyance and wisdom - he rose from slavery in Egypt to the position of Pharaoh's first advisor (in the modern sense, the position of prime minister), and later would be able to help save his entire family from starvation.
Christ told his disciples that
"As they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20)
Just as He was persecuted by the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, so his disciples will be persecuted by the same or similar people.
And indeed it did happen: Long before they were persecuted by the Roman authorities for preaching the faith of Christ, the apostles were severely persecuted by Jewish rulers, chief priests, and scribes. They were beaten and imprisoned; the archdeacon Stephen was beaten to death by his own Jewish brothers.
The apostles were ordered to keep silent, not to mention the name of Jesus of Nazareth, but they replied that they should listen to God more than to people (Acts 5:29), and continued to make known all the events of the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, and about His gospel teaching.
But when the persecution in Palestine increased, as it is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles,
“those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch..." (Acts 11:19).
At first, the disciples of Christ mainly preached in different places and countries only among the Jews, but later, as it is attested in the Acts of the Holy Apostles:
"And among them were certain men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch, and were also speaking to the Greeks, preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 11:20).
When the disciples of Christ in Antioch saw that many Greeks were accepting the teachings and faith of Christ, they preached to Greeks and other nations in other places. After all, they had received the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, and they used this gift of God to enlighten and save different peoples.
And, as the Apostle Luke relates,
"And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." (Acts 11:21)
Thus, the persecution of the apostles, the disciples of Christ, by the Jewish elite and fanatical Pharisees led to the spread of the preaching of the faith of Christ in other lands and among other peoples. Even the name "Christians" was first given to the followers of Jesus Christ not in Jerusalem, but in Antioch, an international commercial centre in which Greek culture was dominant.
Clearly, the disparaging term “Christians” was intended to mock and humiliate the followers of Jesus Christ, but, as in the case of Jesus Christ Himself, God turned mockery and means of humiliation into glorification of those who did and fulfilled His will. The name Christians, Christianity, has become the most respected in the world, reflecting the greatest human virtues and dignity. The Apostle Paul's prediction that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19) was fulfilled.
The apostles, the disciples of Christ, preached in various countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and in many of those countries lived people who adopted Greek culture and Greek writing. Thus, it is not surprising that the oldest manuscripts of The Gospel, the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles are found in Greek, with the exception of The Gospel of St. Matthew, which was found in the ancient Hebrew language.
All this serves to demonstrate that the disciples of Christ made use of the conditions created by the historical development of mankind. Greek culture, philosophy, and literature became widespread because they stood at a higher level of development, so even the Romans, having conquered the Greek lands militarily and administratively, adopted the Greek language, literature, and philosophy to enlighten their higher strata of society.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
