--- title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible" author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 673 of 927 url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/673/ cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 673. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/673/" --- # Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible *Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown* The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation. ## 673. Acts · 13 of 23 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/673/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/673/#p-N [¶0] 24-25. God that made the world and all ... therein--The most profound philosophers of Greece were unable to conceive any real distinction between God and the universe. Thick darkness, therefore, behooved to rest on all their religious conceptions. To dissipate this, the apostle sets out with a sharp statement of the fact of creation as the central principle of all true religion--not less needed now, against the transcendental idealism of our day. [¶1] seeing he is Lord--or Sovereign. [¶2] of heaven and earth--holding in free and absolute subjection all the works of His hands; presiding in august royalty over them, as well as pervading them all as the principle of their being. How different this from the blind Force or Fate to which all creatures were regarded as in bondage! [¶3] dwelleth not in temples made with hands--This thought, so familiar to Jewish ears ([1Ki 8:27]; [Is 66:1], 2; [Ac 7:48]), and so elementary to Christians, would serve only more sharply to define to his heathen audience the spirituality of that living, personal God, whom he "announced" to them. [¶4] 26-27. and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth--Holding with the Old Testament teaching, that in the blood is the life ([Ge 9:4]; [Le 17:11]; [De 12:23]), the apostle sees this life stream of the whole human race to be one, flowing from one source [Baumgarten]. [¶5] and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation--The apostle here opposes both Stoical Fate and Epicurean Chance, ascribing the periods and localities in which men and nations flourish to the sovereign will and prearrangements of a living God. [¶6] 28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being--(or, more briefly, "exist").--This means, not merely, "Without Him we have no life, nor that motion which every inanimate nature displays, nor even existence itself" [Meyer], but that God is the living, immanent Principle of all these in men. [¶7] as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring--the first half of the fifth line, word for word, of an astronomical poem of Aratus, a Greek countryman of the apostle, and his predecessor by about three centuries. But, as he hints, the same sentiment is to be found in other Greek poets. They meant it doubtless in a pantheistic sense; but the truth which it expresses the apostle turns to his own purpose--to teach a pure, personal, spiritual Theism. (Probably during his quiet retreat at Tarsus. [Ac 9:30], revolving his special vocation to the Gentiles he gave himself to the study of so much Greek literature as might be turned to Christian account in his future work. Hence this and his other quotations from the Greek poets, [1Co 15:33]; [Tit 1:12]). [¶8] 29. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think--The courtesy of this language is worthy of notice. [¶9] that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device--("graven by the art or device of man"). One can hardly doubt that the apostle would here point to those matchless monuments of the plastic art, in gold and silver and costliest stone, which lay so profusely beneath and around him. The more intelligent pagan Greeks no more pretended that these sculptured gods and goddesses were real deities, or even their actual likenesses, than Romanist Christians do their images; and Paul doubtless knew this; yet here we find him condemning all such efforts visibly to represent the invisible God. How shamefully inexcusable then are the Greek and Roman churches in paganizing the worship of the Christian Church by the encouragement of pictures and images in religious service! (In the eighth century, the second council of Nicea decreed that the image of God was as proper an object of worship as God Himself). [¶10] 30. the times of this ignorance God winked at--literally (and far better), "overlooked," that is, bore with, without interposing to punish it, otherwise than suffering the debasing tendency of such worship to develop itself (compare [Ac 14:16], and see on [Ro 1:24], &c.). [¶11] but now--that a new light was risen upon the world. [¶12] commandeth--"That duty--all along lying upon man estranged from his Creator, but hitherto only silently recommending itself and little felt--is now peremptory." [¶13] all men every where to repent--(compare [Col 1:6], ; [Tit 1:11])--a tacit allusion to the narrow precincts of favored Judaism, within which immediate and entire repentance was ever urged. The word "repentance" is here used (as in [Lu 13:3], ; ) in its most comprehensive sense of "repentance unto life." [¶14] 31. Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world--Such language beyond doubt teaches that the judgment will, in its essence, be a solemn judicial assize held upon all mankind at once. "Aptly is this uttered on the Areopagus, the seat of judgment" [Bengel]. [¶15] by that man whom he hath ordained--compare [Joh 5:22], 23, 27; [Ac 10:42]. [¶16] whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead--the most patent evidence to mankind at large of the judicial authority with which the Risen One is clothed. [¶17] 32-34. when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked--As the Greek religion was but the glorification of the present life, by the worship of all its most beauteous forms, the Resurrection, which presupposes the vanity of the present life, and is nothing but life out of the death of all that sin has blighted, could have no charm for the true Greek. It gave the death blow to his fundamental and most cherished ideas; nor until these were seen to be false and fatal could the Resurrection, and the Gospel of which it was a primary doctrine, seem otherwise than ridiculous. [¶18] others said, We will hear thee again of this--"an idle compliment to Paul and an opiate to their consciences, such as we often meet with in our own day. They probably, like Felix, feared to hear more, lest they should be constrained to believe unwelcome truths" ([Ac 24:25]; and compare [Mt 13:15]) [Webster and Wilkinson]. ### Chapter 18 ### Ac 18:1-22. Paul's Arrival and Labors at Corinth, Where He Is Rejoined by Silas and Timothy, and, under Divine Encouragement, Makes a Long Stay--At Length, Retracing His Steps, by Ephesus, Cæsarea, and Jerusalem, He Returns for the Last Time to Antioch, Thus Completing His Second Missionary Journey [¶21] 1-4. came to Corinth--rebuilt by Julius Cæsar on the isthmus between the Ægean and Ionian Seas; the capital of the Roman province of Achaia, and the residence of the proconsul; a large and populous mercantile city, and the center of commerce alike for East and West; having a considerable Jewish population, larger, probably, at this time than usual, owing to the banishment of the Jews from Rome by Claudius Cæsar ([Ac 18:2]). Such a city was a noble field for the Gospel, which, once established there, would naturally diffuse itself far and wide. [¶22] 5-6. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia--that is, from Thessalonica, whither Silas had probably accompanied Timothy when sent back from Athens (see on [Ac 17:15]). [¶23] Paul was pressed in the spirit--rather (according to what is certainly the true reading) "was pressed with the word"; expressing not only his zeal and assiduity in preaching it, but some inward pressure which at this time he experienced in the work (to convey which more clearly was probably the origin of the common reading). What that pressure was we happen to know, with singular minuteness and vividness of description, from the apostle himself, in his first Epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians ([1Co 2:1-5]; [1Th 3:1-10]). He had come away from Athens, as he remained there, in a depressed and anxious state of mind, having there met, for the first time, with unwilling Gentile ears. He continued, apparently for some time, laboring alone in the synagogue of Corinth, full of deep and anxious solicitude for his Thessalonian converts. His early ministry at Corinth was colored by these feelings. Himself deeply humbled, his power as a preacher was more than ever felt to lie in demonstration of the Spirit. At length Silas and Timotheus arrived with exhilarating tidings of the faith and love of his Thessalonian children, and of their earnest longing again to see their father in Christ; bringing with them also, in token of their love and duty, a pecuniary contribution for the supply of his wants. This seems to have so lifted him as to put new life and vigor into his ministry. He now wrote his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which the "pressure" which resulted from all this strikingly appears. (See Introduction to First Thessalonians). Such emotions are known only to the ministers of Christ, and, even of them, only to such as "travail in birth until Christ be formed in" their hearers. [¶24] 7-8. he departed thence, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus--not changing his lodging, as if Aquila and Priscilla up to this time were with the opponents of the apostle [Alford], but merely ceasing any more to testify in the synagogue, and henceforth carrying on his labors in this house of Justus, which "joining hard to the synagogue," would be easily accessible to such of its worshippers as were still open to light. Justus, too, being probably a proselyte, would more easily draw a mixed audience than the synagogue. From this time forth conversions rapidly increased. [¶25] 9-11. Then spake the Lord to Paul ... by a vision, Be not afraid ... no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, &c.--From this it would seem that these signal successes were stirring up the wrath of the unbelieving Jews, and probably the apostle feared being driven by violence, as before, from this scene of such promising labor. He is reassured, however, from above. [¶26] 12-17. when Gallio was the deputy--"the proconsul." See on [Ac 13:7]. He was brother to the celebrated philosopher Seneca, the tutor of Nero, who passed sentence of death on both. [¶27] 18. Paul ... tarried ... yet a good while--During his long residence at Corinth, Paul planted other churches in Achaia ([2Co 1:1]). [¶28] then took ... leave of the brethren, and sailed ... into--rather, "for" [¶29] Syria--to Antioch, the starting-point of all the missions to the Gentiles, which he feels to be for the present concluded. [¶30] with him Priscilla and Aquila--In this order the names also occur in [Ac 18:26] (according to the true reading); compare [Ro 16:3]; [2Ti 4:19], which seem to imply that the wife was the more prominent and helpful to the Church. Silas and Timotheus doubtless accompanied the apostle, as also Erastus, Gaius, and Aristarchus ([Ac 19:22], ). Of Silas, as Paul's associate, we read no more. His name occurs last in connection with Peter and the churches of Asia Minor [Webster and Wilkinson]. [¶31] having shorn his head in Cenchrea--the eastern harbor of Corinth, about ten miles distant, where a church had been formed ([Ro 16:1]). [¶32] for he--Paul. [¶33] had a vow--That it was the Nazarite vow ([Nu 6:1-27]) is not likely. It was probably one made in one of his seasons of difficulty or danger, in prosecution of which he cuts off his hair and hastens to Jerusalem to offer the requisite sacrifice within the prescribed thirty days [Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 2.15.1]. This explains the haste with which he leaves Ephesus ([Ac 18:21]), and the subsequent observance, on the recommendation of the brethren, of a similar vow ([Ac 21:24]). This one at Corinth was voluntary, and shows that even in heathen countries he systematically studied the prejudices of his Jewish brethren. [¶34] 19. he came to Ephesus--the capital of the Roman province of Asia. (See Introduction to Ephesians). It was a sail, right across from the west to the east side of the Ægean Sea, of some eight or ten days, with a fair wind. [¶35] left them there--Aquila and Priscilla. [¶36] but he himself entered into the synagogue--merely taking advantage of the vessel putting in there. [¶37] and reasoned with the Jews--the tense here not being the usual one denoting continuous action (as in [Ac 17:2]; ), but that expressing a transient act. He had been forbidden to preach the word in Asia ([Ac 16:6]), but he would not consider that as precluding this passing exercise of his ministry when Providence brought him to its capital; nor did it follow that the prohibition was still in force. [¶38] 20. when they desired him to tarry--The Jews seldom rose against the Gospel till the successful preaching of it stirred them up, and there was no time for that here. [¶39] 21. I must ... keep this feast--probably Pentecost, presenting a noble opportunity of preaching the Gospel. [¶40] but I will return--the fulfilment of which promise is recorded in [Ac 19:1]. [¶41] 22. And when he had landed at Cæsarea--where he left the vessel. [¶42] and gone up--that is, to Jerusalem. [¶43] and saluted the church--In these few words does the historian despatch the apostle's FOURTH VISIT TO Jerusalem after his conversion. The expression "going up" is invariably used of a journey to the metropolis; and thence he naturally "went down to Antioch." Perhaps the vessel reached too late for the feast, as he seems to have done nothing in Jerusalem beyond "saluting the Church," and privately offering the sacrifice with which his vow ([Ac 18:18]) would conclude. It is left to be understood, as on his arrival from his first missionary tour, that "when he was come, and had gathered the church together, he rehearsed all that God had done with him" ([Ac 14:27]) on this his second missionary journey. [¶44] Ac 18:23-21:16. Paul's Third and Last Missionary Journey--He Visits the Churches of Galatia and Phrygia.