synagogue broke

43. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and proselytes followed Paul and Bar'na-băs: who, speaking to them, them to continue in 2 the grace of God.

44. And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city to hear the word of God.

1 Acts 1:23; 14: 22.

religious

of the devout 1 persuaded urged

was gathered together

2 Tit. 2:11; Heb. 12: 15; 1 Pet. 5: 12.

and remarkable doctrine must have already spread in the little Jewish community, and it was evidently expected that they would be called upon. Paul instantly accepted the invitation. Usually a Jewish preacher sat down during the delivery of his sermon, as is freely done by Roman Catholics abroad; but Paul, instead of going to the pulpit, seems merely to have risen in his place, and with uplifted arm and beckoning finger, he spoke to the expectant throng." - Farrar.

III. Paul preaches the Gospel in the Synagogue at Antioch. Compare Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2: 14-36); Stephen's sermon before the Sanhedrim (Acts 7), Paul's address on the castle stairs at Jerusalem (Acts 21: 40–22: 21), and before Agrippa (Acts 26: 1-29).

THE TEXT. JESUS IS THE PROMISED MESSIAH OF THE Jews.

THE ARGUMENT.

1. In your past history see the plans of God unfolding for his kingdom.

2. The kingdom was established in the house of David.

3. The promise of the everlasting kingdom was to the house of David.

4. Jesus, a descendant of David, is the promised Saviour and Messiah.

OBJECTION ANSWERED.

THE APPLICATION.

But Jesus died, slain by the rulers at Jerusalem.

Yes, but God raised him from the dead, and he is a living
Saviour.

Here is the forgiveness of sins, the way of salvation.
Believe on him or you must perish.

IV. The After-meetings. Vs. 43, 44. At the close of the service the apostles went out before the congregation was dismissed, for so according to the best authorities v. 42 should read, "And as they" (the apostles) "went out of the synagogue of the Jews, the Gentiles" (proselytes) "besought them," etc. They were so interested in the gospel, especially the Gentile portion of them, for it gave them unexpected blessings and privileges, that they wished to hear more.

προσηλύτων, σε

43. Now when the congregation was broken up. Dismissed, after Paul and Barnabas had left. Many of the Jews and religious (devout, worshiping) proselytes, 'Originally one who arrives at a place, a stranger; thence, one who comes over to another faith."— Prof. M. R. Vincent. Followed. Came to the apostles, not waiting till the following Sabbath. Who refers to the apostles. Knowling. (But Rendall makes it refer to those who received the word, persuading the apostles to continue to preach the same gracious truths.) Persuaded. Induced them by persuasion. To continue in. Implying that they had received the gospel, and come already into the grace of God. Tỷ xáρITI, from the same root as xaipw, to rejoice, and hence, primarily, that which gives joy and delight, then the loving, kindly favor of God which is expressed toward men and which produces in them the graces, which are the source of true joy, which are delightful to the possessor and pleasing to the beholder. This grace shone around the new converts, and was noticed by the heathen around. It brought to them a new vision of God's grace. was no longer confined to the Jews and those who were willing to become Jews, but the gates to the city of God were seen to be on every side, and flung wide open with a welcome to every race, every nation, every condition of men, to all who would receive it by repentance and faith. It was the dawn of a new day to them.

It

The

During the week the knowledge of the gospel would be spread everywhere. apostles would be engaged in conversation with all who came to them, so that on (44) the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city, not merely Jews and proselytes, but the heathen, to hear the word of God. "It is clear that the Jewish synagogue could not have held such a crowd, and we are led, accordingly, to the conclusion, either that they thronged round portals and windows, while the apostles spoke within, or that the

envy,

45. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and 1 spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and

blaspheming.

a blasphemed.

the

I Acts 18: 6; 1 Pet. 4: 4; Jude 10.

crowd gathered in some open space or piazza in which the synagogue was situated, and were addressed from its entrance." Plumptre.

CROWDS AND SUCCESS. Crowds are not success nor a proof of success. Any cause

of excitement, useless or evil, can draw crowds. And a preacher may fail to draw crowds and yet be successful, provided he fills the few with new life, fresh truth, and strong inspiration. Some of the most important discourses of Jesus were spoken to one hearer or to a few. Some of Paul's greatest epistles were written to individuals. But such discourses and epistles were like

"the shot heard round the world," and their sound is still vibrating over all Christendom.

a Or, railed.

Jewish Synagogue.

But crowds are a means of success. You must have people to hear you if you would reach their souls. And each individual is stronger and more deeply influenced because of the people around him. Some one has said that "a large Sunday school is often a large failure." That may be, but a small one that might be large is a crime. The best of work may be done with small numbers, but not with a church or school that has not done its best to gain as many as possible to learn its blessed truths.

V. The Intense Opposition of the Jews. -V. 45. When the Jews saw the multitudes. They wanted the Gentiles to be saved by becoming Jews, and they labored for this end, hoping thus to bring in the kingdom of God. But the popularity of the new teaching of these strangers was shown by the multitudes who came to hear. And they were filled with envy. "Jealousy," λov, from gew, to boil with heat. Our word "zeal " is almost a transliteration of the Greek. It means boiling over with excitement, intense fervor (boiling) of spirit. Here it is used in the bad sense, boiling over with fierceness of indignation, with rivalry, jealousy. The jealousy was bad, but it was not wholly base and selfish. It was mistaken, but connected with their religion and their highest hopes.

THE REASON FOR THE JEALOUSY. It arose (1) from the popularity of the two strangers, seeming interlopers, throwing the Jews into the background. (2) From the teaching which seemed to overthrow their own teaching and make their work and their office useless and obsolete. "Whoso breaketh a hedge (i. e., the hedge of the law) a serpent shall bite him" (Ecclus. 10: 8). (3) From the difference between their own interpretation of the Scriptures and that of the apostles. They felt that the very foundations of religion were giving way under them, because their interpretations were giving way. Because the little moss island they had built was settling down, they thought the whole continent of truth was sinking. They thought the ceiling was falling, because the cobwebs were swept away. Like the disciples, in the storm, on the Sea of Galilee, they were afraid at the approach of Jesus who could save them. (4) From the fact that the Gentiles were to be admitted to the same high privileges as themselves. See the parable of the laborers, Matt. 20: 11-15. (5) From the fact of so many heathen crowding into and around their

synagogue.

Contradicting. They denied, argued against, which, if done in the right way and

Then

And

waxed bold spake out boldly,

be

and said, 'It was necessary

but 2 seeing

put

Paul and Bar'na-băs 46. that the word of God should first have been spoken to you Seeing ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gen'tiles.

3

for

47. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gen'tiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

uttermost part

IV. 26; Matt. 10: 6; Acts 3: 26; Rom. 1: 16.
2 Ex. 32: 10; Matt. 21: 43; Rom. 10: 19.

3 Acts 18: 6; 28: 28.

4 Isa. 42 6; Luke 2: 32.

with the right spirit, was eminently proper. But the word implies not argument, but assertion and denunciation. And blaspheming. "To blaspheme is here not to take God's name in vain, but to speak evil and slanderous words." Abbott. They used abusive language, calling hard names, and saying false things about the apostles. They, doubtless, spoke of them as heretics, as renegade Jews, as destroyers of true religion, as keepers of evil company. They were certain to have some opportunity of perverting the words or acts of the apostles.

NOTE. (1) It is very noticeable that a large part of the sarcasms and epigrams against other people find their point in a perversion of the truth, and their venom is the poison of a liar. (2) No weapon acts in the end more like a boomerang, injuring the one that throws it, than this of slander and abuse. (3) This is doubly true on the part of any who use this weapon to defend the Church or Christianity, for it is so utterly contrary to the spirit of Christ. It is holding the blade in the hand, and smiting the enemy with the handle. The very use of it is an unanswerable argument against the user, Even Michael, the archangel, would not use such language against Satan himself (Jude 9).

VI. Four Effects of this Opposition.-Vs. 46-52. FIRST EFFECT. THE APOSTLES GREW MORE BOLD AND DECIDED. 46. Paul and Barnabas waxed (grew) bold. R. V., "spake out boldly." The opposition had just the opposite effect from that which the Jews expected. It made the apostles take a more decided stand in favor of receiving the Gentiles. It was a costly step, and required great courage. (1) "Few acts are more courageous than the unflinching announcement of a most distasteful intention to an infuriated audience." Farrar. (2) It made bitter enemies of those who could persecute them, and do them all manner of evil. (3) It separated them from their friends and co-religionists, and joined them to Gentiles just out of their heathenism. (4) It shut them out from a part of their work, from the synagogues, and those who should aid them. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you. Because: (1) it was God's purpose and command (Rom. 1: 16; Luke 24: 47; Acts 3: 26); it was God's command, because (2) the Jews were most prepared to receive the truth, by their long training under God; (3) the proof of the Messiah and the understanding of his work would grow best upon the Jewish Scriptures; (4) they were the easiest channel by which the Gentiles could be reached; (5) this order to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles, did not depend upon the rejection of Christ by the Jews, but would have been the more efficacious through the believing of the Jews (Rom. 11: 12). We have done our duty by you, but we cannot stop preaching the gospel because you put (thrust) it from you. You can lose its blessings, but you cannot stop its progress. And judge yourselves. By your actions you pronounce a verdict against yourselves, that you are unworthy of everlasting life. God offers it to you and you thrust it away. God opens the door to eternal life, and you shut it against yourselves, showing that you have not the heavenly spirit. So if a parent offers his child an education, and he refuses it, or one has an opportunity to do good, and he rejects it, in each case the one who refuses pronounces sentence against himself.

SECOND EFFECT. THE GENTILES BECAME CHRISTIANS. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles, and they shall enter the kingdom which the Jews refused. So Christ himself said, Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out (Matt. 8: 11, 12).

66

47. For so hath the Lord commanded us. By showing them that Isa. 49: 6 and similar promises were to be so applied. I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles. See Acts 1: 8; Luke 2: 32. This was the mission of the Jews, "the servant of Jehoyah," to be carried out through Jesus their Messiah, as the representative "servant of

as

published

48. And when the Gen'tiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: 1 and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. 49. And the word of the Lord was dead throughout all the region. 50. But the Jews stirred up the devout honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and

urged on
2 raised

and women of

estate,

stirred up a persecution against Paul and Bar'na-bas,

and expelled them out of their coasts.

cast

borders.

51. 3 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto I-cō'ni-um.

52. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Hō'ly Ghōst.

I Acts 2: 47.

2 2 Tim. 3: II.

the world.

3 Matt. 10: 14; Mark 6: 11; Luke 9: 5; Acts 18:6.
4 Matt. 5: 12; John 16: 22; Acts 2: 46.

Jehovah." The religion of the Jews was never intended for themselves alone, but for all By refusing to give it to the world, they lost it themselves. So it is still both with individuals and with churches. Salvation unto the ends of the earth. The gospel is not narrow, but world-wide. And this is one of the great proofs that it is divine. Other religions are for a race or nation or state of civilization. This is for all. And if our missionaries had done nothing more than prove that the gospel is adapted to all nations and stages of civilization, by what it has actually done among them, the expense of men and means would have been repaid a thousandfold.

48. The Gentiles . . . were glad. The good news to them was very great. Glorified by word and by deed. As many as were ordained, teтayμèvol, arranged, assigned a place, as in an army, either by God (but even then not necessarily meaning an arbitrary act, but expressing the divine side of our life plan), or by themselves. They placed or disposed themselves. The Jews certainly arrayed themselves on the other side.

"The passive of this verb is used as equivalent to the middle, e. g., Acts 20: 13, and repeatedly by Josephus, as many as had marshaled themselves, placed themselves in the ranks of those who welcomed the offer of eternal life." - Cook. God's plans were not defeated because the Jews rejected the gospel.

49. The word was published, etc. The opposition, as well as the joyous converts, made the gospel known far and wide. Compare the parable of the leaven. The opposition stirred the mass in which the active leaven was placed, and made it spread the faster.

THIRD EFFECT. THE APOSTLES WERE DRIVEN AWAY, only to spread the gospel the more. 50. The Jews stirred up (urged on) the devout (the earnestly religious) and honourable women, of good social position and rank, perhaps wives of the chief men. The women were more intensely religious than the men, and were used as a means of urging on the men who might otherwise be indifferent. Josephus says that nearly all the married women in Damascus were attached to the Jewish religion (Bell. Jud. 2: 20, 2). Good persons, on account of their very love for the good, may, if mistaken, do a great Ideal of harm. All their devotion and zeal becomes a power to do wrong. Thus many good men have persecuted those better than themselves. How difficult it is to attain to that finest and most Christlike flower of the spirit of toleration — namely, the tolerance of intolerance." Expelled them out of their coasts, "borders." "The persecution was probably a tumultuous outbreak, and the apostles, for the sake of peace, retired from the place." Schaff.

51. Shook off the dust. So Christ had commanded them to do as a testimony (Matt. 10: 14), not in anger, but to show them that they did not leave them willingly to go to ruin, but the blame must rest upon themselves. Came unto Iconium. A large city in Lycaonia, sixty miles to the southeast of Antioch in Pisidia.

FOURTH EFFECT. GREAT JOY. 52. And the disciples. Both the apostles who went and the Christians in Antioch who remained. Were filled with joy. "The tense is that which expresses the continuance of the state." Plumptre. "It might have been expected that they would leave gloom and despondency among their discouraged converts; but it was not so. They left behind them the joy of a new hope, the inspiration of a new faith, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who had learned of the heavenly promise."-Farrar. And with the Holy Ghost. And this was the source of their joy, their strength, and their firmness. "Great is the power of Christian joy. A religion of gloom, of asceticism, of self-accusation, may be sincere and solid, but it wants the abounding strength, the rich consolation, the glorious attractiveness of a religion of joy,

especially if it be the joy of those filled with the Holy Ghost." Whedon. The opposite state of mind was in the persecutors. Persecution, jealousy, slander, awaken no joy, no peace, no courage. They proceed from a bad spirit, and kindle painful feelings.

LIBRARY. Story of Francis Xavier's experience in Rome, given in Fish's Primitive Piety Revived, p. 162, and in Kip's Conflicts of Christianity, p. 185. Professor Drummond's Pax vobiscum; two examples in Earl's Bringing in the Sheaves; and French's Poems, "The Monk and the Bird."

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. 2 TIM. 2: 3.