December 11th, 2021

This Sunday is the Third Sunday in Advent, and this Sunday’s epistle text is again from Philippians, but this time the text is near the very end of the epistle [4:4-7]. And we will continue to see how Christianity was ‘spoken against’ in the book of Acts [see 28:22], in the European city of Philippi.
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Last week Christianity was spoken against in that city in a very subtle way, by a woman who was possessed by a demon [Acts 16:16ff]. The demon had a somewhat positive statement to make, and it seems that since this statement was not followed by a clearer and more significant one, it was eventually dealt with by St. Paul. This week we will look at an act of speaking against Christianity that followed the exorcism.

After the woman in Philippi was healed, the ‘masters’ of that woman realized that they just lost their source of income from the woman’s ‘fortunetelling’ by the demon, and they dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace before the magistrates. What follows is the accusation (in a somewhat-literal translation), what they said when they spoke against Christianity—although they seem to be speaking against the Jews [Acts 16:20b-21]:

These men are greatly disturbing OUR city, being really Jews, and announce customs which it is not lawful for us to receive, nor to do, being Romans.

There are a couple of things with this translation that might be helpful if noted. Within the Greek language, often the placement of a word within the sentence is not necessary to give its meaning. Because of the endings that are at the end of almost every word, one can emphasize a certain word by its special placement within the sentence.

In the Greek text, the word ‘our’ in the sentence appears sooner than it needs to be and sooner than it usually appears. And so, in the above translation, the word was capitalized, to show the emphasis that comes across in the word order in the original language. And the words that are connected to two words, ‘Jews’ and ‘Romans’, are both from one word in the Greek, and they both have the idea of existence, but they are not the same word, and the first word was translated as ‘being really’ to show a difference between the words. Now both of these points point out that, in this accusation, there is a stark contrast between the Jews and the Romans. [For more details on this second point, see A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Christian Literature, revised and edited by Frederick William Danker; Third Edition, Chicago, Illinois, USA: University of Chicago, 2000; page 1029f.]

Christianity is spoken against in the above situation, and, within this scenario, it is closely related to the Jews. Although the Jewish religion was allowed in the Roman Empire, that does not seem to matter to those who are making this accusation.

This seems to be an accusation with a strong political/cultural focus, and sometimes that happens even today. The problem is essentially that often people are too focused on the ‘here and the now’—in whatever century they are living in.

Sometimes people forget that God has ultimately ruled all the kingdoms of this earth, although not so obviously. Things will become obvious on the Last Day. And that is why Advent is so helpful.