There is something very pathetic in the erroneous estimates made by
those persons mentioned in Acts who some once or twice come in contact
with the preachers of Christ. How little they recognise what was before
them! Their responsibility is in better hands than ours. But in Gallio
there is a trace of tendencies always in operation.
We see in him the practical man's contempt for mere ideas. The man of
affairs, be he statesman or worker, is always apt to think that things
are more than thoughts. Gallio, proconsul in Corinth, and his brother
official, Pilate, in Jerusalem, both believed in powers that they could
see. The question of the one, for an answer to which he did not wait,
was not the inquiry of a searcher after truth, but the exclamation of a
sceptic who thought all the contradictory answers that rang through the
world to be demonstrations that the question had no answer. The
impatient refusal of the other to have any concern in settling 'such
matters' was steeped in the same characteristically Roman spirit of
impatient distrust and suspicion of mere ideas. He believed in Roman
force and authority, and thought that such harmless visionaries as Paul
and his company might be allowed to go their own way, and he did not
know that they carried with them a solvent and constructive power
before which the solid-seeming structure of the Empire was destined to
crumble, as surely as thick-ribbed ice before the sirocco.
And how many of us believe in wealth and material progress, and regard
the region of truth as very shadowy and remote! This is a danger
besetting us all. The true forces that sway the world are ideas.
We see in Gallio supercilious indifference to mere 'theological
subtleties.' To him Paul's preaching and the Jews' passionate denials
of it seemed only a squabble about 'words and names.' Probably he had
gathered his impression from Paul's eager accusers, who would charge
him with giving the name of 'Christ' to Jesus.
Gallio's attitude was partly Stoical contempt for all superstitions,
partly, perhaps, an eclectic belief that all these warring religions
were really saying the same thing and differed only in words and names;
and partly sheer indifference to the whole subject. Thus Christianity
appears to many in this day.
What is it in reality? Not words but power: a Name, indeed, but a Name
which is life. Alas for us, who by our jangling have given colour to
this misconception!
We see in Gallio the mistake that the Gospel has little relation to
conduct. Gallio drew a broad distinction between conduct and opinion,
and there he was right. But he imagined that this opinion had nothing
to do with conduct, and how wrong he was there we need not elaborate.
The Gospel is the mightiest power for shaping conduct.