Following Pentecost, the Apostles discussed whether
someone had to become a Jew to be a Christian. It seems an odd problem
for us today, but everything was new then, and even the term “Christian”
was not used until a significant number of believers had been baptized
in Antioch, a city in Turkey near the modern city of Antakya. Christ
(the name is a Greek form of “Messiah”) sent his followers out to
convert “all nations,” and he promised that the Holy Spirit would show
them what to do.
After the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles at Pentecost, the
prime question of Judaic observance was debated. Paul and Barnabas went
to Jerusalem and consulted with the other Apostles. This was a hint of
how the Church was to resolve matters in great Councils. Given the
stolid temperament and vivid personalities of the Apostles, the term
“debated” might be an understatement. But they remembered that the Risen
Lord had promised that his “Paraclete” would guide them. Only rarely
does ancient Greek use that term, as when the orator Demosthenes used it
for a sort of legal advocate, and not necessarily an ethical one at
that. But Christ makes it mean the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. How
the Apostles were helped by this divine Helper is not said, but they
sent their decision to the scattered Christians, beginning with the
words “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us.”
To claim private guidance from the Holy Spirit that departs from
what has inspired the collective agreement of the successors of the
Apostles, would be to confuse personal opinion with divine truth. But
the Holy Spirit does help us in the ways of truth every day. Sometimes
he even works through children: “. . . and a little child shall lead
them” (Isaiah 11:6). The birth of a child may convert a parent to more
intense faith, or a child's First Communion may inspire a young father
to return to Confession. The Holy Spirit works through encounters that
are often unnoticed. Yogi Berra, not to be underestimated as a
philosopher, said, “Some things are just too coincidental to be a
coincidence.”
Our Lord requires of us only “meekness” to be helped by the Holy
Spirit. The spiritually “meek” are not milquetoasts, or spineless
wimps. The Greek praus for “meek” means controlled strength, a suppleness like that of an athlete. Without praus,
a surfer would stand stiff and soon fall off the surfboard, and a boxer
would be knocked out with the first punch without agile footwork. God
calls the arrogant, who will not bend their opinions to his truth, a
“stiff-necked people” (Exodus 32:9). Arrogance, as the opposite of
meekness, is spiritual arthritis. Get rid of that moral stiffness, and
then “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you”
(John 14:26).
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