This was precisely what God was now doing; and the remarkable fact appears, that God did not wait for the apostle of the Gentiles to bring the good news to Cornelius. By divine intervention this proud Herod Agrippa I is soon to be "eaten of worms" (verse 23). And Luke calleth these Grecians not but [?]. Accordingly, among the train of those that received the gospel and were baptized, Simon is found. When redemption was accomplished, it was the seal of the faith and the life which they already had. The change in James may well be another great example of the power of the Cross to change the lives of men. No doubt he had read them many a time, but no better than we have read them, and many other words likewise; and how little we understood any of them to profit until the mighty power of God gave it efficacy in our souls! (2.) Those to whom they addressed themselves were really Gentiles. The language of the inspired writers of the New Testament is the expression of that Christian experience, or conscious participation in the blessings vouchsafed through Christ, which the Holy Ghost had shed abroad in their hearts: their idea therefore of a saint, or a believer, being derived from their own spiritual consciousness, must have been the highest of which the words will admit. A believer would have wondered more at the grace of God, and bowed in adoration before Him. - Pastor David Jetts daily prayer: Lord, SPEAK to me today SEARCH me today SHOW me today SEND me today. - The saint who advances on his knees never retreats. (Jim Elliot) - Be sure that no time is so well spent as that which a man spends on his knees. (J.C. Ryle) - Pray without ceasing. ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17) So he went away to another place. He was led into no small perplexity by the reading current in his day, and, to the shame of Christendom, still tolerated as the received reading. He is mentioned in Matthew 2:22. However graciously given of the Lord as a token to attract the careless minds of men, they are dangerous when they are made the resting-place and the object of the mind; and this was the fatal mistake made then, and not merely there but by many millions of souls from that day to this. No man in his natural state could pray, nor serve God acceptably, as Cornelius did. It was not to be done by mere systematic rule of a human pattern. Prayer to God for him was earnestly offered by the Church. What in our Lord's discourses is a matter of anticipation or prophecy, here appears as a matter of fact. I have already touched upon the practical effects, and therefore will not enlarge on these now. And they said, "Yes, Lord, we are able." Help me togrow in grace and in a knowledge of the Lord Jesus. When he had seized Peter, he put him under arrest. The ACTS prayer ensures that you are praising God for who He is, confessing sin on your heart that could otherwise hinder your prayers, and thanking Him for all He is Paul had it not more suddenly than with a heavenly splendour which was peculiar to himself; and thus there was a vast work soon wrought. "He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. Mirt is kell az eskvi fots a kszldsnl? Who that honours scripture can pretend that hands were laid on any then? Perhaps God intended hereby to awaken the rest of the apostles to disperse themselves among the nations, and not to nestle any longer at Jerusalem. Without this, faith is good for nothing, nor is God Himself honoured in His own word. The man just now so ignorant is not the channel that God was about to use for bringing out the remarkable confession that is introduced prematurely here. He had been educated at Rome, but he sedulously cultivated the good graces of the Jewish people by meticulously keeping the Law and all Jewish observances. Alas! But Luke distinguisheth them from those, whom he calleth afterward [this is precisely where he is mistaken; his reasoning is sound, but his knowledge defective]. First of all, the apostles and the disciples themselves received it as they were waiting. Korbban, filmes idszakban meggondolta TovbbEskvi fots munkja, vrl vre emberek tzezrei dntenek gy, hogy letket sszektik, csaldot alaptanak sboldogsgban lnek. . But there is not yet the revealed truth of the body, though involved in the word of the Lord to Saul of Tarsus when he said, "Why persecutest thou me?" And he was highly respected by the Jews. At the passover, when the Jews came from all parts to Jerusalem to keep the feast, they irritated one another against the Christians and Christianity, and were then more violent than at other times. When this Gird yourself up and tie on your sandals. Genitive case of hos as adverb; at which place, i.e. Where man chooses for human things, we have the Lord recognising it. How could its reality be doubted? Mary the mother of John was aunt to Barnabas (Colossians 4:10).If Paul and Barnabas were not in her house at the time (which there is no evidence that they were), it is likely that all the particulars of Herod Agrippa was a direct descendant of the Maccabees, through his mother Mariamne. Herod the king - This was Herod Agrippa. From sun and athroizo; to convene. Little did the great apostle of the circumcision anticipate what was before him as he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon a tanner. The greatest precautions had been taken to see that Peter did not escape. The gospel goes forth elsewhere; it is in no way bound to Jerusalem. If you don't have faith, God's not going to answer your prayers. Undoubtedly throughout these districts churches existed; but it was all one and the same church too, and not different bodies. . There was among them a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, of whom we have had a happy report before, as we shall hear many (though not altogether unmingled) good tidings to the end. Or it was to show that though the apostles were appointed to plant the gospel in the world, yet if they were taken off God could do his work without them, and would do it. See the notes on Matthew 2:19. James and John were called by Jesus the sons of thunder. After this comes no slight discipline for Saul. There was more work for him to do. Therefore some say that those came of the Jews, yet did they inhabit Greece [and these would be right if the reading had been really and not ]; which I do not allow. 280-283). And when they understood the bearing of that which God had wrought here below that it judged man; that it gave no countenance to the religiousness in which they boasted; that it showed most convincingly, and so much the more bitterly because convincingly, what God all through His testimony with them had expressly intimated, by the prophets as well as in the types of the law itself, that He had deeper purposes; that nothing on earth could satisfy Him; that it was in His mind, on the proved ruin of Israel, to bring in heaven and its things for a heavenly people even while here below: now that this was made manifest, above all, in the testimony that Stephen had rendered to the very man that they had rejected and crucified, seen in glory at the right hand of God, it was unbearable. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, whose name was Rhoda. (i) Herod Philip the First. But Peter waited there knocking. to 1 B.C. 378.) Observe that, although the next words are beyond a question scriptural, and so far the case differs from verse 37 referred to in the last chapter, the last clause of verse 5 and the first of verse 6 belong properly speaking to two other chapters (Acts 22:1-30, Acts 26:1-32) rather than to this. Web1. Kedvenc terleteim kz tartozik Gyr-Moson-Sopron megye is, nagyon gyakran kapok eskvi megbzst Sopron szvbl, de nagyon szvesen jrok fotzni Tapolcra is elvgre mgis csak ott szlettem. 1. Stretched forth his hands - A figurative expression, denoting that he laid his hands on them, or that he endeavored violently to oppress the church.. He handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard, for he wished to bring him before the people after the Passover Feast. There was to be a testimony to an the nations. C. Evangelistic: Shows the saving power of the Gospel (Acts 16). 5. Vincent says the word "vex" is used "in the older and stronger sense of torment or oppress rather than its modern usage of petty annoyances" (508). Whether this was the ease among the Jews scripture does not say; but that there were persons who had this responsible place among them, as among the Gentile churches afterwards, we see clearly. Nevertheless the God that vindicated the honour of the crucified Jesus did not forget the martyred Stephen; and though there was an outburst of persecution, which scattered abroad throughout the region of Judea and Samaria all the believers that were in Jerusalem except the apostles, devout men were not wanting who carried Stephen to his burial. In the remarks sometimes made upon this subject it seems to be assumed that there is no medium between our affirming of persons that they are not perfect Christians, and that they are not Christians at all; whereas in fact there is no Christian, however holy, who comes up to the ideal of Christian practice. Nevertheless, being a good man and full of the Holy Ghost, he seeks out and takes Saul to the apostles when others stood aloof, and declared unto them "how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus; and he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem." Now according to their law, during the times of the Feast of Passover, they could not have any trial, and so he determined to bring him forth at the end of the Feast of Passover. Acts 12:23), and moved his headquarters to Jerusalem. From that we learn that this was the headquarters of the Christian Church. And he goes, the Lord communicating another vision to the apostle himself, in which he sees Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. It has indeed been suggested that it was in this very house that the Last Supper was eaten and that it continued to be the meeting place of the disciples in Jerusalem. Precautions could go no further. Why is it so important to love God and place Him first in Pray and say: Father, here am I, take me and use me. And he said, Go show these things unto James ( Acts 12:16-17 ). How essential to the idea of a Church the exercise of discipline is, may be seen from the embarrassing contrarieties between theory and practice which the virtual suspension of it in the Church of England is constantly occasioning" (pp.