The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 77

of his own ne.tion, as the method which went riii;ht down to the root of its dece.y, dia• order, misery I It would surely aeem that nothiug could be more nugatory than t,o labour as e.postles laboured, and to suffer e.s they suffered, and to be filled with zeal RS they were filled with zeal, if it were for mere persistence' sake in the urntter oJ an unwelcome historice.1 identifice.tion. Whether for Jew or Gentile, the death of Christ was with the apostles the foundation theme. But with the Jew it was argued as now, with all the light and necessarily with the associations that his Scriptures mllllt throw upon it. III. THE INVABUBLE SEQUEL-SUBJECT OP TUE DEATH OF CnnIST-TIIE RESUBllEOTION -Is PBEAOHED BY PAUL. As much as all the deepest traceable significance of the death of Christ tends to humble those to whom it is preached, a.s" the way of salvation," so much avails the significance of his resu1Tection to comfort and to raise them I The glory of glories for Christ, it is, and it is ever scripturally exhibited as, the joy of joys for the believer in Christ. 'rhese, then, were the great topics upon which Paul und his companions and other apostles were constantly insisting. Let it be explained as it may, these purport to be the message of Heaven to earth; let it be objected to as it may, nothing else comes in their place. The forces that lie hidden, yet scarcely hidden, in both of these a.re now at least testified by an unsurpassed mass and variety of practical and irrefutable evidence. Men's hearts have been softened, humbled, and won to the exercise of profoundest trust and firmest faith by the fact of the slilferings and death of Christ. Their highest nature has answered to the quickening influence of the clearly revealed and clearly exhibited fact of the Resurrection, and so far forth its correlative, immo~tality. The pride of man rarely finds its gain or its object in rejecting the latter, yet is it abundantly doubtful whether any man come to it rightly, much less come to it to the purest and truest advantage, except through that approach which Paul found so often "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness," but to "some" others even at Thessalonica (ver. 4) "the power of God and tho wisdom of God."-B. Vers. 11, 12.-.& comparison justly invidious. In harmony with the directions of Jesus Christ himself, and with the dictates of wisdom as against presumptuousness, Paul and Silas, when endangered by their ministrations in one place, sped on in all :fidelity and zeal to another. It may also be not without its significant interest that, as we are told, they were "sent away," or" sent on," by the brethren. Had they gone away at any time and ceased from their work, they and their motives and their love might well have been objects of suspicion. But the continuity of their devotion, and the renewal again and again of work after disappointment upon disappointment, protect them from suspicion, and even add to their praise. It is one of the greater practical difficulties of life to resist successfully the distressing and disintegrating natural operation of perpetual disappointments, and it is one of the severer tests of an uplifted faith and enduring purpose that "often foiled" is not accepted as failure, and that "cast down" does no€ mean "destroyed." On the other hand, (1) had the apostles been enabled to hold their gronnd against every attack of the spirit of persecution, this would have been equivalent to e.n unceasing repetition of miracle; and the enmity of the human heart might have been silenced indeed, but long before it was destroyed, or had _proved its own intrinsic collapse. And (2) those apostles would not have covered anything like the same ground, nor secured anything like the same experience of human. nature. The language of these verses is one result, simple enough and direct, of the experience that came from the comparison of one people with another. The contrast is brought sharply int.o prominence by the conduct of Bercea, in quick succession upon. that of Thessalonica. The people of Bercea are boldly pronounced "more noble than those of Thessalonica." Let us consider the en!.obling reasons. L READil!lESS TO BECEIVE TBE W OBD. 1. There is, indeed, a "readiness to receive ,. which marks greed. 2. There is a readiness t.o receive which marks credulity. 3, There ia a readiness t.o receive which marks the inertness of indifference. 4. There is a readiness to receive which marks a nature conscious of need, and responsive to the proper supply of that need, when proffered. The readiness to receive which now distin,,awshed the Bermans warked thus a good and a healthy and a spiritual inseinot, For their rtadiness was turued t.owa,rd i;eceiving a "word" that waa t~u~ 11tnd pur, OH, XVIL 1-34.) THE AOTS OF THE APOSTLES. 79