Take courage and be bold

There is much about St Paul that is to be admired. Truly, he was – along with St Peter – the principal preacher of the Gospel in apostolic times, and without a doubt the greatest Christian writer of all times. Looking back over the vast distance of time and place from which we now see Paul, it may seem incredulous to us that he was received very cautiously and with considerable angst by his contemporaries.

Yet, we heard in our first reading today that the Christians in Jerusalem were initially afraid of Paul, and that he raised such passion in others by his preaching that some wanted to kill him. The really telling sentence in today’s reading is where St Luke, one of Paul’s most faithful disciples, writes “the churches throughout Judaea, Galilee and Samaria were now left in peace” after Paul had to be secretly hustled out of Jerusalem.

St Paul wrote and preached with a fearless passion that seems to have been an essential part of his personality. We know, for instance, that as the Jewish preacher Saul, he was driven in his pursuit of Christians. Something of this driven character flowed over, it would seem, into his mission to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was in Jerusalem that Saul had been most ferocious towards the fledgling Christian community, so no wonder they were afraid of him when he returned three years later as the Christian apostle Paul.

There is, however, another side of Paul that we should not neglect. We know from elsewhere in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul, once he had settled in a particular community for a period of time, was deeply loved and cared for. We know that he stayed among the community in Antioch, for example, for lengthy periods of time, living and working among them, and that the community of Christians in Ephesus was deeply grieved when he departed from them for his final destination in Rome.

St Paul was, clearly, a man of God with both a very bold passion for preaching the Gospel and a very deep love for the disciples with whom he lived. In terms of his passion, we might hear again the words of Jesus: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.” And in terms of his great love, let us not forget what St John said: “My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.” St Paul lived with boldness the Gospel he had given his life to.

How might we be measured in our boldness for the Gospel of Jesus Christ? We certainly can’t and shouldn’t try to take on the personality of Paul. I suspect if we were to meet him face-to-face today, we might experience him a bit like the disciples in Jerusalem! So, the question of gospel boldness is not one of personality. Rather it is a measure of our passion for Jesus Christ and our love for his Body, the community within which we live.

“See how they love one another” was an early description of the first Christians. They did this with humility, dignity, mercy and compassion; and they did so boldly. They invited others by their manner of living, while speaking assuredly about the saving actions of Jesus, a message meant for all. Each of us can do this, with trust in our own personalities; we can each be Christian apostles, sent by our heavenly Father to tell the story of our meeting with Jesus Christ. We can trust in the words of St John, “We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.” You are Christian disciples, and through the Lord’s pruning of your own lives, you will bear much fruit. So, take courage and be bold.