A Reflection for Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Find today’s readings here.
The Gentiles were delighted when they heard this
and glorified the word of the Lord.
All who were destined for eternal life came to believe,
and the word of the Lord continued to spread
through the whole region. (Acts 13:48-49)
The Acts of the Apostles is roughly 24,000 words long and covers 30 years in the life of the early church. Surely much more happened in that period, but we only get the highlights. Why? For one, the medium drove the message. You could only fit so much on a scroll, especially if you wanted to carry it from town to town. And parchment was expensive, so you chose your words carefully.
Which gets me thinking: If I were an evangelist, how would I cover a burgeoning Christian movement? Send a team of podcasters? A reporter with an iPhone and a mic? How many articles would I write?
Would I cover the story from every angle, or find one good story and tell it as well as I could?
The author of Acts had limited options, so he stuck to the essentials. Hence we get a line like this: “The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.” All telling, no showing.
Today’s evangelist faces a different dilemma. You can tell your story in almost any medium; the trick is to get people to pay attention. The battle for eyeballs never ends.
Or you could try a different strategy: Aim for the heart, not the head. Try for less, not more. Opt for deeds, not words.
