Stephen
Terry, Director
Confinement
in Caesarea
Commentary
for the September 22, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
““We have found this
man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world.
He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple;
so we seized him..” Acts
24:5-6, NIV
An intrinsic problem with institutional religion seems
to be that no matter how innocent or noble the circumstances surrounding its
founding, in the end it evolves to be about money and power. We see this in the
life of Jesus. Not being a priest of the temple, his independent ministry was
seen as a challenge to the authority of those who were a part of that
priesthood. They questioned his authority to minister to the people.[i] They questioned whether or
not he was financially supporting the temple.[ii] When he challenged them
over their abuse of power and their greed, and they saw how the people were
following him, they resolved to kill him.[iii] Perhaps they surmised
that those people following Jesus would be less submissive to their authority, and
they would be less eager to fill the temple coffers with gold and silver. While
the priesthood and the temple service had been around for many centuries, it
does not take so long to solidify institutional authority and to prime the
glittering streams of financial gain that flow into the church. By the middle
of the first century, this was already happening in the early Christian church.
Originally seen as a sect within Judaism, some Christians
sought to maintain that tie by insisting that new Christians could only be
circumcised Jews, inheritors of the Abrahamic Covenant. One can understand how
they might feel this way. This was accepted as a landmark pillar of the Jewish faith.
Jesus was a Jew. His ministry was to the Jews.[iv] As a Jew, he was no doubt
circumcised. They likely felt in view of all of that, it was a reasonable
expectation for new converts from outside the covenant to be circumcised as
well. This was how the faith came down to them through many generations.
Therefore any departure from that understanding might be seen as rebellion, if
not outright apostasy. The Jews who believed in Christ were caught between two
worlds. On the one hand they wanted to carry the message to the world as Jesus
commanded.[v] But on the other hand they
did not want to lose access to the temple, the iconic presence of God. Perhaps
they saw themselves as the logical bridge between the progressive ideas cropping
up in the nascent Christian movement and the conservative stability of the
established order of worship. The importance to the church in Jerusalem of not
burning that bridge can be seen in the pressure for Paul to present some sacrifices
in the temple, thereby showing that he also was in favor of maintaining that
link. Although they could not see it
then, the futility of all of that became all too clear when the temple was
destroyed about a decade later.
Jesus knew this was the wrong path and warned his
followers about making the temple too important because it was going to be destroyed.[vi] They were also given the
sign of the rending of the temple curtain at his death.[vii] While we can look at
these texts now and perhaps wonder why they didn’t see these things, we must
remember that the gospels were written many years after Paul’s imprisonment in
Caesarea. Once the temple was destroyed, it likely forced a re-examination of
what Jesus had taught them and the significance of his words and the torn
curtain grew in their minds so that the record was then preserved in the
gospels. But that didn’t help Paul in Caesarea. There is little record of the
Jerusalem church doing much to succor Paul during his imprisonment. Acts and
other references in his epistles tend toward portraying the Jerusalem church as
more of a hindrance than a help in taking the gospel to the world. Perhaps they
felt that Paul was in rebellion against the established church and that he was finally
getting what he deserved. They may even have seen this as God endorsing their
more conservative stance by imprisoning the radical evangelist. If so, this
attitude would have made it very difficult for the Gentile Christians to appeal
to the Jerusalem church for assistance on Paul’s behalf. This may be why the
Roman governor’s had the impression that every Jew was against Paul.[viii] Perhaps this is why
Paul felt the only recourse left to him was to appeal to Caesar.
How often have faithful Christians been forced to appeal
to civil authority to protect them from the arrogant authority of an institutional
church usurping the power of God with their own, reaching out to smite those
that would dare challenge that authority? History is replete with examples like
Martin Luther. He found protection from persecution by the Catholic Church in
the combined authority of the Protestant princes of Germany. Roger Williams,
severely persecuted by the Puritans of Massachusetts and fleeing to Providence,
established a secular government that would defend the religious freedom of
dissenters. The path always seems to be the same. Some within the fellowship
question the wisdom of the church regarding dogma or praxis. Others who also see
the inconsistencies begin to show sympathy to the challengers, perhaps even
withholding tithes and offerings or absenting themselves from church worship.
The church then out of an existential fear that may or may not be real, begins
to characterize the dissenters as being in rebellion against properly
constituted church authority, much in the same way as the priests of the temple
characterized Christ. The opposition by the church solidifies the developing
schism, and the fear of losing members and financial support becomes real. The
position of the conservative members of the original church prevented nothing.
Even in the distant past when such dissent was a capital crime and the institutional
church freely exercised such punishment against the dissenters, the schisms
still occurred. In modern times, we consider ourselves more civilized and
rather than burning dissenters at the stake, we allow them to leave, but then we
too often carry hatred in our hearts for those who left, a hatred that may go
on for generations. But we should try not to take it personally when others
shun us because our faith is not the same as theirs. The whole process has
become so institutionalized that people who have long forgotten what the issues
even were are simply reacting out of instinct rather than understanding. Every
church, every denomination deals with dissent. Some find ways to live with the
dissent; others prefer schism to accommodation and continually spawn offshoots
that in turn must find ways themselves to deal with internal dissent. Many seem
to prefer schism to accommodation as evidenced by the plethora of denominations
that exist today.
Perhaps this explains Paul being sequestered for two
years in Caesarea. In this way the church could dialogue internally about the
issues of circumcision and other Jewish practices in a manner that made it less
about personalities and more about God’s blessing of the Gentiles who were
coming to him. From Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, revealing his
confrontation with Peter over the issue,[ix] we can surmise that he
would readily have jumped right in the middle of the fray were he able. While
this schism developed further over the next few centuries, its most critical
juncture was to take place sixty to seventy years later. Perhaps Paul’s zeal,
while beneficial for evangelism, was not desirable as it would inflame doctrinal
disputes that might harm the work. In any event, the issue would resolve itself
when the temple was destroyed in the first Jewish revolt in 70 C.E. and when
Jerusalem was also raised to the ground as a result of the second Jewish revolt
half a century later. At that time, Jews were banned from even setting foot in
Jerusalem, which meant that only Gentile Christians could carry on the work
there. Almost over night the Jerusalem church went from being a bastion held by
the Judaizers to a church now run by those who preached and practiced the
Christian faith informed by their Gentile perspective rather than the Jewish
one. Also due to the devastation of Jerusalem, Antioch, a Gentile city, arose
as the new center of the Christian faith, eventually giving rise to what was to
become the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The lesson in all of this to us today may be that if we
don’t find a healthy way to deal with denominational dissent, we may find
ourselves sidelined in spite of our willingness to enter the lists and do
combat on behalf of one faction or another. If something is truly of God, it
will happen whether we were for it or against it. If it must happen, wouldn’t
it be better that it do so without us inflicting critical wounds on one
another? If we find we cannot abide dissent, then perhaps we should at least
allow those who choose to follow a different path to leave in peace as friends
and not as multi-generational enemies. If we can, there may be hope for the
church. Even though it may shake and tremble, it won’t fall.
