If the Apostles had Facebook

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For 24 May 2019, Friday of the fifth week of Easter, based on Acts 15:22-31

  The apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

  So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation.


Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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About Deborah Wilhelm

Dr. Deborah Wilhelm is an Adjunct Professor of Preaching and Evangelization at the Aquinas Institute of Theology and a lecturer in theology at the Loyola New Orleans Institute for Ministry. Her most recent book is Preaching Racial Justice, which she edited with Fr. Gregory Heille and Fr. Maurice Nutt. An active preacher, teacher, writer, retreat leader, and Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate, she lives and prays among the rivers, trees, and blackberry vines of rural Oregon.