The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 173

Vers. 33--42.-0ur attitude towards God. There are three attitudes it is possible for us to assume towards our Maker and Saviour. 'l'hey are those of- I. HosTILITY. We may " be found even to fight against God." It is, indeed, as new as it is old for men to contend with God and to oppose themselves to those ends for which he is working. 1. Good men do so unwittingly; as when earnest and holy Catholics have persecuted Protestant men and women; as when devout Protestants have thrown obstacles in the way of their more energetic co-religionists who have been evangelizing in ways not considered legal and correct; as when we ignorantly miscon- strue the sacred Scriptures, finding out, farther on, that those views we combated were in harmony with truth. 2. Bad men do so deliberately and guiltily: (1) when they endeavour positively to overturn influences which they know to be holy and remedial; (2) when they practically encourage that which they feel to be wrong and hurtful. IL NEUTRALITY. We may take the position which Gamaliel advised with so much policy on this occasion: "Let these men alone" (ver. 38). When any sacred cause comes up before us, challenging our approval and asking our aid, we may determinately stand aloof, declining either to befriend it on the one hand or to withstand it on the other: we neither bless nor curse. 1. It is impossible to take a neutral position, upon the whole, in relation to Christ. " He that is not with him is against him," as he has said to us. Our influence is either telling in favour of his holy service, of Christian truth, of eternal life, or else against these sacred things. 2. It is possible that we may assume a neutrality toward particular institutions, usages, movements, habits; and this neutrality may be (1) necessary, because we have not the means of arriving at a judgment at all; (2) wise, because we have not yet had the opportunity of coming to an intelligent decision; (3) culpable, because cowardly, selfish, unfaithful. III. Co-oPERATION. (Vel'I!. 40-42.) When they had beaten the apostles-an act of severe bodily castigation was a grim method of " letting them alone;" it was probably a wncession to the party of hostile action-they did let them go, with strict prohibitions in their ear. We are to be "co-workers with Christ," "workmen together with him;" and we shall become this by: 1. Speaking/or Ohrist. "Daily in the temple ... they ceased not to teach and to preach Jeswi Christ" (vcr. 42). In the Church, in the school, in the home,-anywhere, everywhere, we too may speak for him; uttering the truth which he has ta~ht us to prize, JJ10re especiallf ·.ipholding him himself u the OD, V, 1-42.] THE .ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 169