To the Ends of the Earth
The second half of the Acts follows a single man, Paul, through his great missionary journeys. From city to city, from Syria to Greece, he announces Christ, founds communities, writes letters, suffers a thousand trials. Arrested in Jerusalem, he appeals to the emperor, and the book ends on his arrival in Rome, where the Gospel reaches at last the heart of the Empire. Thus is fulfilled the word of Christ: his witnesses have carried the Good News to the ends of the earth.
The journeys of Paul
Become the tireless apostle of the nations, Paul travels the Mediterranean world through several great journeys. He crosses Asia Minor, passes into Greece, announces Christ in the synagogues and in the squares, and leaves behind him a string of young Churches, at Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica. Everywhere he begins with the Jews, then turns to the pagans who welcome the Word. These journeys are strewn with trials: blows, prison, shipwrecks, plots, without anything stopping his momentum. Paul does not seek his own glory, but that of Christ, and he spends himself without counting so that the greatest number may be saved. From these journeys were born his letters: to sustain from afar the Churches he had founded, Paul wrote to them, and these letters, kept and reread, form today a great part of the New Testament. Thus the missionary labor of the apostle left a double fruit, living communities and a written word that still nourishes the Church. Everywhere, his preaching follows the same method: entering first the synagogue, he opens the Scriptures and demonstrates, from the prophets and the psalms, that the Messiah had to suffer and rise, and that this Messiah is Jesus. It is never a foreign doctrine that he brings, but the key that deciphers the holy books his hearers already know. There is the heart of the apostolic proclamation: not to break with the Old Testament, but to show that it is fulfilled in Jesus, in whom all the promises find their yes.
The unknown God of Athens
At Athens, heart of Greek wisdom, Paul offers a model of proclamation to the cultured pagans. Noticing an altar dedicated to the unknown god, he declares to the philosophers that he comes to reveal to them this God whom they honor without knowing him: the Creator of heaven and earth, in whom we have life, movement, and being, and who has fixed a day when he will judge the world by a man he has raised from the dead. At the announcement of the resurrection, some mock, others want to hear again, a few believe. Paul thus shows how to reach those who do not know the Bible: to begin from what they already seek, to lead them to the living God who has revealed himself in Jesus.
A prisoner for Christ
Back in Jerusalem, Paul is arrested following a riot. There begins a long series of trials, before the Jewish then the Roman authorities, where he never ceases to bear witness to Christ. A Roman citizen, he ends by appealing to the tribunal of the emperor, which will lead him to Rome. The journey to the capital is itself a trial: a terrible storm, a shipwreck on the coasts of Malta from which all escape, so much does God watch over his apostle. Through the chains and the tribunals, Paul continues to announce the Gospel, for he knows that his captivity itself serves the Word, which, for its part, is not chained.
The Gospel reaches Rome
The book ends at Rome. Paul, kept a prisoner but free to receive whoever wishes, announces Christ there for two years. The last words of the Acts sum up all their movement: he proclaims the kingdom of God “with complete freedom and without hindrance.” Acts 28:31 The Gospel, setting out from a small group in Jerusalem, has reached the heart of the Empire, open to all. The book does not recount the death of Paul, and this open ending is no accident: the story of the Acts is not over, it continues through the centuries. Each generation of witnesses takes up the movement where Luke left it, carrying the Good News ever further, until Christ returns. Tradition reports that Paul, like Peter, sealed his testimony at Rome by martyrdom, under the emperor Nero. The two apostles, one come from the Jewish people, the other sent to the nations, thus give their blood in the capital of the Empire, and the Church of Rome finds itself founded on this double witness. What the Acts leave open, the history of the martyrs pursues, down to us. The very title of the book, these witnesses carried to the ends of the earth, takes up a word of Isaiah: God there told his servant that he would make him the light of the nations, so that his salvation might reach to the end of the world. What the prophet promised to the Servant, Christ fulfils first in himself, then in his Church, which prolongs his mission. Thus the Acts do not recount only a human adventure: they show the patient fulfillment of an ancient promise, the Gospel winning the nations as the prophets had announced, until there is no land where the name of Christ is not known.