PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 250,385 words · 359 reading sections
The Great Question And The Plain Answer
And there is an immense danger that with some of you, if that change does not begin in a moment's resolve now, you will be further away from it than ever you were. I have no doubt there are many of you who, at any time for years past, have known that you ought to be Christians, and who, at any time for years past, have…
362 wordsSECTION 242Thessalonica And Berea
'Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath-days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3. Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again fr…
691 wordsSECTION 243Thessalonica And Berea
With whatever differences in manner of presentation, the true message of the Christian teacher is still the message that woke such opposition in the synagogue of Thessalonica,--the bold proclamation of the personal Christ, His death and resurrection. And with whatever differences, the instrument of conviction is still …
773 wordsSECTION 244Thessalonica And Berea
Again, the charges are a violent distortion of the truth. Possibly the Jewish ringleaders believed what they said, but more probably they consciously twisted Paul's teachings, because they knew that no other charges would excite so much hostility or be so damning as those which they made. The mere suggestion of treason…
560 wordsSECTION 245Paul At Athens
'Then Paul stood In the midst of Mars-hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24. God, that made …
650 wordsSECTION 246Paul At Athens
It is incredible that Paul should have begun his speech to so critical an audience by charging them with excessive superstition, as the Authorised Version makes him do. Nor does the modified translation of the Revised Version seem to be precisely what is meant. Paul is not blaming the Athenians, but recording a fact wh…
806 wordsSECTION 247Paul At Athens
So Paul declares the one God as Creator and Sustainer of all. He goes on to sketch in broad outline what we may call a philosophy of history. The declaration of the unity of mankind was a wholly strange message to proud Athenians, who believed themselves to be a race apart, not only from the 'barbarians,' whom all Gree…
730 wordsSECTION 248Paul At Athens
Now the hint in the previous part is made more plain. The demand for repentance implies sin. Then the 'ignorance' was not inevitable or innocent. There was an element of guilt in men's not feeling after God, and sin is universal, for 'all men everywhere' are summoned to repent. Philosophers and artists, and cultivated …
327 wordsSECTION 249The Man Who Is Judge
'...He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.'--ACTS xvii. 31. I. The Resurrection of Jesus gives assurance of judgment. (_a_) Christ's Resurrection is the pledge of ours. The belief in a future …
665 wordsSECTION 250Paul At Corinth
And further, Paul tells his hearers that God judges 'through' Him, and does so 'in righteousness.' He is fitted to be our Judge, because He perfectly and completely bears our nature, knows by experience all its weaknesses and windings, as from the inside, so to speak, and is 'wondrous kind' with the kindness which 'fel…
754 wordsSECTION 251Paul At Corinth
We cannot tell whether he had had any previous acquaintance with Aquila and his wife, nor indeed is it certain that they had previously been Christians. Paul's reason for living with them was simply the convenience of getting work at his trade, and it seems probable that, if they had been disciples, that fact would hav…
732 wordsSECTION 252Paul At Corinth
It is a solemn thing to say 'I am clean.' We need to have been very diligent, very loving, very prayerful to God, and very persuasive in pleading with men, before we dare to roll all the blame of their condemnation on themselves. But we have no right to say, 'Henceforth I go to' others, until we can say that we have do…
715 wordsSECTION 253Paul At Corinth
Why was Paul not to be afraid? It is easy to say, 'Fear not,' but unless the exhortation is accompanied with some good reason shown, it is wasted breath. Paul got a truth put into his heart which ends all fear--'For I am with thee.' Surely that is enough to exorcise all demons of cowardice or despondency, and it is the…
363 wordsSECTION 254'Constrained By The Word'
'And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified.'--ACTS xviii. 5. The Revised Version, in concurrence with most recent authorities, reads, instead of 'pressed in the spirit,' 'constrained by the word.' One of these alterations depends on a diversity of reading, the…
768 wordsSECTION 255'Constrained By The Word'
And what thus brought a cloud over his sky? A little exercise of historical imagination will very sufficiently answer that. A few weeks before, in obedience, as he believed, to a direct divine command, Paul had made a plunge, and ventured upon an altogether new phase of work. He had crossed into Europe, and from the mo…
816 wordsSECTION 256'Constrained By The Word'
II. And now note the 'constraining word.' I have already said that the return of the two, who had been sent to see how things were going with the recent converts in the infant Churches, brought the Apostle good tidings, and so lifted off a great load of anxiety from his heart. No wonder! He had left raw recruits under…
655 wordsSECTION 257'Constrained By The Word'
Well then, what about the masses of so-called Christians who feel nothing of any such constraining force? And what about the many who feel enough of it to make them also feel that they are wrong in not yielding to it, but not enough to make their conduct be influenced by it? Brethren, I venture to believe that the meas…
783 wordsSECTION 258Gallio
'And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong: or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: 15. But if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.'--ACTS xviii. 14, 15. …
682 wordsSECTION 259Gallio
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 righ…
299 wordsSECTION 260Two Fruitful Years
'And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples. 2. He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. 3. And he s…
707 wordsSECTION 261Two Fruitful Years
Paul's question is, 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' Obviously he missed the marks of the Spirit in them, whether we are to suppose that these were miraculous powers or moral and religious elevation. Now this question suggests that the possession of the Holy Spirit is the normal condition of all bel…
719 wordsSECTION 262Two Fruitful Years
The other part of the section presents mainly the familiar features of Apostolic ministration, the first appeal to the synagogue, the rejection of the message by it, and then the withdrawal of Paul and the Jewish disciples. The chief characteristics of the narrative are Paul's protracted stay in Ephesus, the establishm…
663 wordsSECTION 263Would-Be Exorcists
The principle laid down by Peter (ch. iii. 12) is to be kept in view in the study of all the miracles in the Acts. It is Jesus Christ who works, and not His servants who heal by their 'own power or holiness.' Jesus can heal with or without material channels, but sometimes chooses to employ such vehicles as these, just …
753 wordsSECTION 264Would-Be Exorcists
These would-be exorcists but irritated the demons by their vain attempts at ejecting them, and it is sometimes the case that efforts to cure social diseases only result in exacerbating them. If one hole in a Dutch dyke is stopped up, more pressure is thrown on another weak point and a leak will soon appear there. There…
734 wordsSECTION 265The Fight With Wild Beasts At Ephesus
'After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. 22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season. …
682 wordsSECTION 266The Fight With Wild Beasts At Ephesus
We have, first, the protest of the shrine-makers' guild or trades-union, got up by the skilful manipulation of Demetrius. He was evidently an important man in the trade, probably well-to-do. As his speech shows, he knew exactly how to hit the average mind. The small shrines which he and his fellow-craftsmen made were o…
797 wordsSECTION 267The Fight With Wild Beasts At Ephesus
II. A various reading of verse 28 gives an additional particular, which is of course implied in the received text, but makes the narrative more complete and vivid if inserted. It adds that the craftsmen rushed 'into the street,' and there raised their wild cry, which naturally 'filled' the city with confusion. So the h…
761 wordsSECTION 268Parting Counsels
But the rioters were in no mood to listen to fine distinctions among the members of a race which they hated so heartily. Paul was a Jew, and this man was a Jew; that was enough. So the roar went up again to Great Diana, and for two long hours the crowd surged and shouted themselves hoarse, Gaius and Aristarchus standin…
742 wordsSECTION 269Parting Counsels
The personal references in verses 22 to 27 turn on two points--his heroic attitude in prospect of trials and possible martyrdom, and his solemn washing his hands of all responsibility for 'the blood' of those to whom he had declared all the counsel of God. He looks back, and his conscience witnesses that he has dischar…
760 wordsSECTION 270Parting Counsels
Paul's purpose in this retrospect was not only to vindicate himself, but to suggest to the elders their duty. Therefore he passes immediately to exhortation to them, and a forecast of the future of the Ephesian Church. 'Take heed to yourselves.' The care of one's own soul comes first. He will be of little use to the Ch…
777 wordsSECTION 271Parting Counsels
Even at the close Paul cannot refrain from personal references. He points to his example of absolute disinterestedness, and with a dramatic gesture holds out 'these hands' to show how they are hardened by work. Such a warning against doing God's work for money would not have been his last word, at a time when all heart…
266 wordsSECTION 272A Fulfilled Aspiration
'So that I might finish my course....'--ACTS xx. 24. 'I have finished my course....'--2 TIM. iv. 7. I do not suppose that Paul in prison, and within sight of martyrdom, remembered his words at Ephesus. But the fact that what was aspiration whilst he was in the very thick of his difficulties came to be calm retrospect…
698 wordsSECTION 273A Fulfilled Aspiration
The broad arrow stamped on Crown property gives a certain dignity to whatever bears it, and whatever small duty has the name of God written across it is thereby ennobled. If our days are to be full-fraught with the serenity and purity which it is possible for them to attain, and if we ourselves are to put forth all our…
740 wordsSECTION 274A Fulfilled Aspiration
II. Turn now to another thought here, and consider what Paul aimed at. It is a very easy thing for a man to say, 'I take the discharge of my duty, given to me by Jesus Christ, as my great purpose in life,' when there is nothing in the way to prevent him from carrying out that purpose. But it is a very different thing …
685 wordsSECTION 275A Fulfilled Aspiration
III. Lastly, what Paul won thereby. 'That I _may_ finish my course ... I _have_ finished my course'; in the same lofty meaning, not merely _ended_, though that was true, but 'completed, accomplished, perfected.' Now some hyper-sensitive people have thought that it was very strange that the Apostle, who was always pre…
705 wordsSECTION 276A Fulfilled Aspiration
The Apostle whose words I have taken for my text was leaving, as he supposed, for the last time, the representatives of the Church in Ephesus, to whom he had been painting in very sombre colours the dangers of the future and his own forebodings and warnings. Exhortations, prophecies of evil, expressions of anxious soli…
718 wordsSECTION 277A Fulfilled Aspiration
Remember that these believers to whom Paul thus spoke had no New Testament, and most of them, I dare say, could not read the Old. There were no written Gospels in existence. The greater part of the New Testament was not written; what was written was in the shape of two or three letters that belonged to Churches in anot…
664 wordsSECTION 278A Fulfilled Aspiration
So it is often a good thing that a human voice which speaks the divine word, should be silenced; just as it is often a good thing that other helps and props should be taken away. No man ever leans all his weight upon God's arm until every other crutch on which he used to lean has been knocked from him. And therefore, …
786 wordsSECTION 279A Fulfilled Aspiration
This 'commending,' as it is the highest expression of Christian solicitude, so it is the highest and most natural expression of Christian affection. I am not going to do what is so easy to do--bring tears at such a moment. I do not purpose to speak of the depth, the sacredness of the bond that unites a great many of us…
708 wordsSECTION 280The Blessedness Of Giving
'I commend you to God and to the word of His grace,' and beseech you 'that, whether I come to see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel.' '...It is more blessed to give than to receive.'--ACTS xx. 35. How 'many …
689 wordsSECTION 281The Blessedness Of Giving
The light and glory thus thrown on His relation to us. He gives. He does not exact until He has given. He gives what He requires. The requirement is made in love and is itself a 'grace given,' for it permits to God's creatures, in their relation to Him, some feeble portion and shadow of the blessedness which He posses…
259 wordsSECTION 282Drawing Nearer To The Storm
'And it came to pass, that, after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara: 2. And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we went aboard, and set forth. 3. Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the…
784 wordsSECTION 283Drawing Nearer To The Storm
Tyre was the first port of call, and there the cargo was to be landed. The travellers had to wait till that was done, and probably another one shipped. The seven days' stay is best understood as due to that cause; for we find that Paul re-embarked in the same ship, and went in her as far as Ptolemais, at all events, pe…
716 wordsSECTION 284Drawing Nearer To The Storm
The eager haste of the earlier part of the journey, contrasted with the delay in Caesarea at the threshold of his goal, is explained by supposing that at the beginning Paul's one wish had been to get to Jerusalem in time for the Feast, and that at Caesarea he found that, thanks to his earlier haste and his good passage…
687 wordsSECTION 285Philip The Evangelist
If we feel that we have been 'bought with a price,' we too, in our small spheres, shall be filled with that ennobling passion of devoted love which will not count life dear if He calls us to give it up. Let us learn from Paul how to blend the utmost gentleness and tender responsiveness to all love with fixed determinat…
664 wordsSECTION 286Philip The Evangelist
Now these seven are never called 'deacons' in the New Testament, though it is supposed that they were the first holders of that office. It is instructive to note how their office came into existence. It was created by the Apostles, simply as the handiest way of getting over a difficulty. Is that the notion of Church or…
672 wordsSECTION 287Philip The Evangelist
So he has the noble distinction of being the very first Christian man who put a bold foot across the boundary of Judaism, and showed a light to men that were in darkness beyond. Remember he did it as a simple private Christian; uncalled, uncommissioned, unordained by anybody; and he did it because he could not help it,…
658 wordsSECTION 288Philip The Evangelist
Here is a beautiful instance of the contented acceptance of a lot very much less conspicuous, very much less brilliant, than the early beginnings had seemed to promise. I suppose that there are very few of us but have had, back in the far-away past, moments when we seemed to have opening out before us great prospects o…
702 wordsSECTION 289Philip The Evangelist
So there was no envy in Philip's heart of the younger brother that had so outrun him. He was quite content to share the fate of pioneers, and rejoiced in the junior who had entered into his labour. 'One soweth and another reapeth'; he was prepared for that, and rejoiced to hear about what the Lord had done by his broth…
422 wordsSECTION 290An Old Disciple
'... One Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge.'--ACTS xxi. 16. There is something that stimulates the imagination in these mere shadows of men that we meet in the New Testament story. What a strange fate that is to be made immortal by a line in this book--immortal and yet so unknown! We do not …
718 wordsSECTION 291An Old Disciple
'We all are changed by still degrees; All but the basis of the soul,' and the 'basis of the soul,' in the truest sense, is that one God-laid foundation on which whosoever buildeth shall never be confounded, nor ever need to change with changing time. Are we building there? and do we find that life, as it advances, bu…
804 wordsSECTION 292An Old Disciple
Now does not this flexibility of mind and openness of nature to welcome new ways of work, when united with the persistent constancy in his old creed, make an admirable combination? It is one rare enough at any age, but especially in elderly men. We are always disposed to rend apart what ought never to be separated, the…
950 wordsSECTION 293Paul In The Temple
'She hath done what she could.' Her power determined the measure and the manner of her work. One precious thing she had, and only one, and she broke her one rich possession that she might pour the fragrant oil over His feet. Therefore her useless deed of utter love and uncalculating self-sacrifice was crowned by praise…
764 wordsSECTION 294Paul In The Temple
This incident brings out very strikingly the part played by each of the two factors in carrying out God's purposes for Paul. They are unconscious instruments, and co-operation is the last thing dreamed of on either side; but Jew and Roman together work out a design of which they had not a glimpse. I. Note the charge a…
756 wordsSECTION 295Paul In The Temple
III. Note the source of deliverance. The Roman garrison was posted in the fortress of Antonia, which commanded the Temple from a higher level at the north-west angle of the enclosure. Tidings 'came _up_' to the officer in command, Claudius Lysias by name (Acts xxiii. 26), that all Jerusalem was in confusion. With disci…
741 wordsSECTION 296Paul On His Own Conversion
The tribune had for some unknown reason settled in his mind that the Apostle was a well-known 'Egyptian,' who had headed a band of 'Sicarii' or 'dagger-men,' of whose bloody doings Josephus tells us. How the Jews should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when he heard the…
908 wordsSECTION 297Paul On His Own Conversion
The blaze struck all the company to the ground (Acts xxvi. 14). Prone on the earth, and probably with closed eyes, their leader heard his own name twice sounded, with appeal, authority, and love in the tones. The startling question which followed not only pierced conscience, and called for a reasonable vindication of h…
726 wordsSECTION 298Rome Protects Paul
'And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance; 18. And saw Him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me. 19. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in ev…
665 wordsSECTION 299Rome Protects Paul
We note the delicate, conciliatory skill with which he brings out that his conversion had not made him less a devout worshipper in the Temple, by specifying it as the scene of the trance, and prayer as his occupation then. The mention of the Temple also invested the vision with sanctity. Very noticeable too is the avo…
702 wordsSECTION 300Rome Protects Paul
The tribune no doubt had been standing silently watching, in his strong, contemptuous Roman way, the paroxysm of rage sweeping over his troublesome charge. Of course he did not understand a word that the culprit had been saying, and could not make out what had produced the outburst. He felt that there was something her…
656 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.