Day 334 - Acts 16-18

The order of the apostle’s argument deserves careful examination. Among Gentiles the treatment of the apostle’s subject takes the form of a series of steps. First, he teaches that the one God is the originator of the world and of all things, and in him we live and move and are, and we are his offspring. Thus he demonstrates that God is to be loved not only because of his gifts of light and life but also because of a certain affinity of kind. Next, he disposes of the opinion that is the explicit reason for idols [by saying] that the founder and Lord of the entire world cannot be enclosed in temples of stone, that the granter of all favors has no need of the blood of victims, that the creator and governor of all people cannot be created by human hands, and finally that God, in whose image humankind was made, should not be appraised in terms of the value of metals. He teaches that the remedy for such errors is the practice of repentance. Now if he had chosen to begin by destroying the idolatrous rites, the ears of the Gentiles would have rejected [him].When he had persuaded them that there is one God, then he added that by his judgment salvation was given to us through Christ. To him, however, he applied the term man rather than God, and he began with those things which he [Christ] did in the body, describing them as divine, so that it might seem that he was more than a man. [He taught that] death was conquered by the power of one man, and that one who was dead was raised up again from hell (for faith grows little by little), so that when it appeared that he was more than a man, they might believe that he was God. For what difference does it make in what order anyone believes? Perfected things are not sought at the start, but from beginnings one comes to the things that are perfect—The Venerable Bede