The Sixth Sunday of Easter - 29 May 2011
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 29 May 2011 Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:7-18 I Peter 3:13-22 St. John 14:15-21 BACKGROUND: The Missionary Journeys of Paul The first reading for Sunday tells of an incident during Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (49-52) and his sermon in Athens. These journeys, there were three of them, lasted from 46 through 58, and comprise the most active features of Paul’s life. They were fundamental in pointing the early church away from a Palestinian existence and into a robust Imperial world, where the faith of the apostles would be buffeted about by the lively theological talk of the empire. The push is up into Asia Minor, then Greece, and finally Rome. The work, however, is really concentrated in Asia Minor and Greece, and it is from this new base that nascent Christianity is to form around its new gentile members. In a way, Paul, exhibits what had been going on in t