Acts 13:42-52 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles sought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.… It may certainly be said that the Jews had long been a world by themselves. In one fashion this had been the ordaining of Heaven itself, though they had wrested the true idea of things to a false. And in matter of fact, the whole of the rest of the earth had been another world. It was but too true now that places were to change, and, while the lofty fell, the lowly were exalted. The climax was scarcely reached as yet chronologically, but the passage of the history before us may most justly be looked at as setting forth very strikingly the climax in its nature. Notice - I. THE OPENING SIGNS. The place is the synagogue, the place of the Jew. The service is on the sabbath, the service and the sabbath both of the Jew. The congregation is in the first place almost exclusively the congregation of the Jew and of those who had now some time been allied to him as proselytes. These had heard read the Law and the prophets, and had, in addition, heard thereupon exposition and exhortation, the freshest in style, from two of their own race. The service is over, and they leave, when (1) in some form or another, by deputation or by the importunate acclamation of many together, the Gentiles beg that next sabbath they may be given to hear the same Word preached. It seems that their application was at all events not refused. But (2) Paul and Barnabas turn not their back upon those who had been listening to them, nor give them any sign of the cold shoulder, but the contrary. They speak to them, and beg them to value and "to continue in the grace of God." II. THE GREAT DISCLOSURE. The next sabbath day has come round. There is still a standing synagogue; there are still "Law and prophets and blest psalm;" there are still an ample number of Jews and of proselytes to make a congregation, and a good one. But the synagogue has come to look like an antiquated, useless, and quite disproportionate building. It is not equal to the needs of the day, nor anything like it. 1. "Almost the whole city is come together to hear the Word of God." 2. The second part of the great disclosure is that the Jews cannot take it with any equanimity even, that they are to be thus swamped by the outsiders. "Envy" rules them. 3. The third act in the disclosure is that they will try to resist the tide of a greater force than the ocean. They "speak against" what last sabbath they did not speak against. They commit themselves to speak against the word spoken by Paul, and they add contradiction and blasphemy. 4. And the fourth act in the disclosure is that Paul and Barnabas both close with them, no longer in argument - argument is waste when "contradiction and blasphemy" are begun - but in an authoritative and bold declaration of their own mission. The very hour has come to say that the privileges, long neglected and now refused, shall not waste nor be "drawn up again into heaven," but shall be fully, freely, publicly offered to all the world; "For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" (ver. 47). III. THE DAY'S ISSUE. It is threefold. 1. The strangers and outsiders are filled with gladness and gratitude. They do not refuse to take the "leavings" of haughty and exclusive Jews. Nor do they think them, call them, or find them "crumbs from the Master's table." No; they see their day, their opportunity, their feast, and, hungry, sit down to it as a banquet indeed. They are "glad;" they glorify the Word of the Lord;" they "believe;" they are "filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost." For they felt that that "day salvation had come to their house." 2. The disconcerted Jew, most disconcerted of all because he inwardly knew he had forfeited, of his own surrender, his chiefest blessing and distinction, will not let things lie. He will raise the "respectable," the "orthodox," part of the city, and even women of the devout and honorable, and chief men of the city, who "cared for none of these things" probably in their heart. And all these join to persecute the two men, Paul and Barnabas. And they expel them. 3. These two servants of Christ hear the echoes of a voice which perhaps they had not heard itself (Luke 10:11). And they hear the call of duty (Matthew 10:23) elsewhere, and do not forget that the time is precious, that daylight will soon have gone, and that it is theirs to "work while it is day." - B. Parallel Verses KJV: And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. |
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