The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 260

HOMILETICS. Vers, 1-8.-Thefruits of persecution. Persecution is Satan's instrument for check- ing and, if possible, destroying the truth of God. Our Saviour reminds us, in the sermon on the mount, how the prophets, who spake to the people in the Name of God, had been persecuted of old; and foretold how the prophets and wise men and scribes whom he would send should, in like manner, be scourged and persecuted, killed and crucified. And the history of the Church, from the first imprisonment of the apostles related in eh. iv. down to the present day, shows the truth of the prediction. Some of the springs and causes of persecution were noted in the homiletics on eh. iv. 1-31. Our attention shall now be turned to the fruits of persecution. I. THE FIRST EFFECT OF THE PERSECUTION THAT A.BOSE UPON THE DE.,\.TH OF STEPHEN WAS THE DISPERSION OF THE DISCIPLES. In accordance with the Lord's directions (Matt. x. 23), they fled, to save their lives, from the city of Jeru.salem to the neighbouring cities of Judrea and Samaria. But wherever they went they preached the Word. Thus the immediate effect of the persecution raised at Jerusalem for the extirpation of the faith of Jesus Christ was that that faith was ca1Tied into cities and districts and countries where it might never have been heard of but for the per- secutions. Samaria heard the gospel; it was deposited in the heart of the eunuch for dissemination in Ethiopia. From Azotus to Cresarea it was proclaimed aloud. It passed on to Phc:enicia and Cyprus and Antioch. It took deep root in Antioch, and was passed on from thence through all Asia and on into Europe. Il. ANOTHER EFFEOT OF THE PERSECUTION WAS THE BREAKING DOWN OF OPPOSING BAIIRIERB OF HABIT, OPINION, A.ND PREJUDICE. If the rulers and priests, the scribes and Pharisees, had accepted the gospel, it might have been a very hard matter to separate it from circumcision and from the temple and from exclusive Judaism. It might have been very long before Jewish Christians would have turned in a spirit of love and brotherhood to their Samaritan neighbours, or sent a messenger to Ethiopia, or planted the first community who called themselves Christians in the great heathen city of Antioch. Endless scruples, hesitations, difficulties, would have barred the way, But persecution quickened with a marvellous impulse the logic of reason and bene- volence, ay, and of faith too. By the force of circumstances, the persecuted disciples, expelled from country and home by their own flesh and blood, found themselves drawn into the closest bonds with those who were not Jews, and as it were compelled to tell them of the love of Jesus, and then to feel that that love made them both one. It would have taken generations, perhaps, to do what persecution did in a day, Persecution cut the Gordian knot which the fingers of human reason would, perhaps, never have untied; and the great persecutor himself might :11ever ha!e become the great chief and prince that he was in the Church of the Gentiles, had it not been for the part thu.t he had played in persecuting it in times past. III. Non MUST WE OVERLOOK THE INFLUENCE OF PERSECUTION, WHEN ENDURED DT THIii TBU111 MARTYR'S SPIRIT, IN DEEPENING AND HBIGHTBNING THl!l FAITB, TEJI  256 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [ OH, VID, 1-40.