THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, EDl'l'IW BY 'l'HK
VERY HEY. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DMAN 01-· GLOt.:C.:!!:STER;
A:SIJ BY 'l'IIK
REY. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A
WITH
INTRODUCTIONS BY THE
VERY REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., DEAN OF CANTERBlTRY. RIGHT REV. H. COTTERILL, D.D., F.R.S.E. VERY REV. PRINCIPAL J. TULLOCH, D.D. REV. CANON G. RAWLINSON, M.A. REV. A. PLUMMER, M.A., D.D.
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(T/11 rirM1 ef tnuu/atio,i ar.il ef nfroi/11etl011 art n111T11tl. l PULPIT COMMENTARY, EDITED BY THB
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DEAN or OLOUOESTEEj
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. ~xposflion anb ~omiletfcs THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REV. LORD A. C. HERVEY, D.D., LORD BISHOP 01' BATB illl WXLL8.
~omflfes Ii12 llarious :autf)ors. REV. PROF. P. 0. BARKER, M.A. REV. PROF. E. JOHNSON, M.A BEV. FROF, B. A. REDFORD, M.A. REV. R. TUCK, B.A.. REV. W. CLARKSON B.A.
VOL. L
NBJT EDITION.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW' YORK 1909 THE
ACTS OF TI-IE APOSTLES. INTRODUCTION.
§ I. OBJECT AND PLAN or THE Boox.
THE most ancient title of the book, as given in the Codex Vaticanus ancl the Codex Bezm-Ilp&:[n~ 'A1rouT0Awv ; 1 and properly rendered, both in the Authorized and the Revised Versions," The Acts of the Apostles "-though probably not given to it by the author, sufficiently expresses its general object, viz. to give a faithful and authentic record of the doings of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, after he had ascended into heaven, leaving them as his responsible agents to carry on the building of his Church on earth. It is obvious that, if the authoritative Christian documents had ended with the Gospels, we should have been left without any sufficient guidance in regard to a multitude of important questions of the utmost moment to the Church in all ages. We should have had, indeed, the record of the life and death, the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus; but as to how the holy Catholic Church, of which he was the Divine Founder, was to be compacted together, how the Lord Jesus would carry on from heaven the work which he had begun on earth, what should be the functions of the Holy Ghost, how the city of God was to be ruled, how the evangelization of the world was to be carried on from age to age,-we should have known almost nothing. This second" treatise," therefore, which in St. Luke's design Wa.'3 a following up of his own Gospel, but in the design of the Holy Ghost was the sequel of the four Gospels, was a most necessary supplement to the histories of the life of Christ. But beyond this general object, a closer inspection of the book reveals a more particular purpose, in which the mind of the author and the purpose of the Holy Ghost seem to coincide. The true way to judge of the purpose of any book is to see what the book ! Other titles o.re Qpd(m T<WJI 'A,rorrTOl\0,11, T.R., or T~v "i''"'v 'A1rorrT&l\o,v, R.T. ii INTRODUCTION TO
actually tells us, as it is t.o be presumed that the execution correspond• with the design. Now, " The Acts of the Apostles" gives us the history of the apostles, generally, t.o a very limit.ed extent. .After the first chapters, whioh relate with such power the founding of the Church at Jerusalem, it tells us very little of the work of further evangelization among the Jews; it tells us very little of the hist.ory of the mother Churoh of Jerusalem. After the first chapter, the only apostles named at all are Peter, James, John, and James the Less.1 And of their work, after those first chapters, we learn only so much as bears upon the admission of Gentiles into the Church of Christ. Peter and John go to Samaria to confirm the converts made there. Peter is sent from Joppa to the house of Cornelius the centurion, t.o preach the gospel to the Gentiles; and afterwards declares t.o the assembled Chnrch the mission which he had received, which led to the assent of the brethren in Judma, expressed in the words, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (eh. :ri. 18). The apostles and elders come together to consider the question of the circumcision of Gentile converts, and Peter and James take a prominent part in the discussion and in the decision of the question. The preaching of the gospel by Philip to the Samaritans and to the Ethiopian eunuch, and the conversion of a great number of Greeks at Antioch, are other incidents recorded in the early part of the book, which bear directly upon the admission of the Gentiles into the Church of Christ. And when it is remembered how very brief these early chapters are, and what an extremely small portion of the actions of Peter and James the Less, compared with their whole apostolic work, these incidents must have made up, it already becomes manifest that the history of Gentile Christianity was the main object which St. Luke had in view. But the history of the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and their admission into the Church as fellow-heirs with Israel, and of the same body, and pe.rta.kers of God's promise in Christ, through the preaching of the gree.t apostle of the Gentiles, is avowedly the subject of the last sixteen chapters of the book. From Antioch the capital of the E11St, to Rome the capital of the West, the writer traces in these chapters the wonderful history of Gentile Christianity through about twenty years of the eventful life of St. Paul, during the last eleven or twelve of which he was himself his companion. Here, then, we have a con- firmation of what even the first part of the Acts disclosed a.a to the writer's purpose ; e.nd we are able to frame a theory consistent in itself and with the known facts as to the object of the book. Assuming the authorship of St. Luke and his Gentile birth (see below, I 2), we have an author to whom the progress of Gentile Christianity would be a matter of supreme interest. This interest, no doubt, attached him, when an opportunity presented itself, to the mission of the apostle to the Gentiles. Being a ID&n of education and of cnltive.ted mind, the idea of recording what he had seen of St. Paul's work would naturally occur to him; and this again would oonnect itself. • ;i:t indl'ed James wu one of the twelve. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. iii