An ode of congratulation to Zion on her restoration at the L-rd's second advent to her true position as the mother Messianic church from which the Gospel is to be diffused to the whole Gentile world; the first spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, beginning at Jerusalem [Lk.. 24:47], is an serious of this. The language is too glorious to apply to anything that as yet has happened in Isaiah’s time, imperative for the future indicative.
The fact that G-d speaks of the Gentiles here in opposition to the subjects of the prophecy shows He speaks to Israel as Israel. Replacement theology just doesn't work here, or anywhere.
[Isa.60:1] Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
The glory of the L-rd is not merely the Shekinah, or cloud of glory, such as rested above the ark in the old dispensation, but the glory of the Messiah in person (Jer. 3:16, 17). Israel’s spiritual light will be impart to the Gentiles, for at this time they will all become true believers in the Messiah and step into their calling of teaching ‘all’ nations. Isa 2:2-3 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of G-d’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of G-d, to the house of the G-d of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem.
Zec. 8:23 Thus saith G-d of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that G-d is with you.
The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to Israel: Not only will they receive the treasure for their people, but also the literal treasure of the Gentiles shall come to Israel as willing captives to the truth; or, if not willingly, be bought by judgments to submit to Israel (verses 12, 14). The nations will willingly give them their wealth, much as the Egyptians willingly gave the Israelites riches when they left Egypt (Exodus 12:35-36). So much will be given that they will need to keep the gates of the city open continually!
The gates are ever open to receive new offerings and converts (26:2; Acts 14:27; Rev. 3:8). In time of peace the gates of a city are open: so, under the Prince of peace, there shall be no need of barring gates against invaders. Gentiles brought forth as willing captives to the truth,
[14] The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
All rulers in restored Jerusalem shall not only be peaceable and righteous, but shall be, as it were, "peace" and "righteousness" itself in their administration.
Poetically, with figurative allusion to the furniture of the Temple; all things in that happy age to come shall be changed for the better. Were the sun and moon, the brightest objects by day and night, shall be eclipsed by the surpassing glory of G-d manifesting Himself to you (30:26; Zec 2:5; Rev. 21:23; 22:5). No more mourning:
Rev. 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.
Not our timing; we might wish to hasten it, but it will come in due time, and sooner than you think!
The promise seems too good to be true, and we are conditioned to think that if it seems too good to be true, it is. But G-d is too good not to be true!
Sin Causes Judgment
[Isa. 59:8] The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
G-d’s people wondered why G-d did not seem to rescue them from their trials. They wondered if perhaps G-d had diminished in strength - if His hand had become shortened.
This touch on one of the greatest problems in practical theology: how can there be a G-d of love and all power when there is human suffering? If we loved someone and had the power to end their suffering, wouldn't we do it?
Your iniquities have separated you from your G-d: The problem isn't with G-d's power, His knowledge, or His interest. The problem is with our iniquities. Sin has separated you from your G-d. Sin does not necessarily separate us from the presence of G-d, because
G-d is present everywhere (Psalm 139:7) and even Satan can have an audience with G-d (Job 1:6). Sin does not separate us from the love of G-d, because G-d loves sinners (Romans 5:8). But sin still does separate.
Sin separates us from fellowship with G-d, because at least at the point of our sin, we no longer think alike with G-d.
Sin separates us from the blessing of G-d, because at least at the point of our sin, we are not trusting G-d and relying on Him.
Sin separates us from the some of the benefits of G-d's love, even as the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) was still loved by the father, but didn't enjoy the benefits of his love when he was in sin.
Sin separates us, in some way, from the protection of G-d, because He will allow trials to come our way to correct us.
How easy it is for us to blame our problems on everything except our iniquities! We will even blame G-d before seeing that the problem is with us! We will deny who G-d is before seeing that the problem is with us!
Your hands are defiled with blood: They practiced and approved of violence and murder.
Your lips have spoken lies: They lied with ease and regularity.
No one calls for justice: They did not share G-d's heart for what was fair and good; everyone simply thought in terms of their own good. Both justice and truth were distant concepts, and instead of justice there were empty words, instead of truth there were lies.
They have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace: Their choice and the consequences are plain. Their crooked paths will never lead them into the way of peace, meaning peace in the full sense of shalom. Justice and righteousness are put away from our legal courts.
We look for light, but there is darkness! Now, having given themselves over to darkness, when they want the light, it isn't there. When you always have the light to go to, the darkness feels "fun." It seems mysterious and adventurous. But when the light is taken away, we despair in the darkness.
The state of G-d's people was no mystery to the Father. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: Not only was the state of G-d's people bad; but no one among them took the lead in getting it right. Where was the man that would lead the people in righteousness? He could not be found. Where was the intercessor who would plead G-d's case to the people, and the people's repentance to their G-d?
No intercessor could be found. None arose; so the Father did it Himself.
They have had their reality check, and see things as they are. Now we need to check ours!
Their plans resembled the egg of the serpent. The nature of the egg cannot be easily known by an inspection. It may have a strong resemblance to those which would produce some inoffensive and even useful animals. It is only when it is hatched that its true nature is fully developed. So it is with the plans of the wicked. When forming, their true nature may not be certainly known, and it may not be easy to determine their real character. Their plans, when developed, are like the poisonous and destructive production of the serpent's egg. The true nature is then seen; and it is ruinous, pernicious, and evil.
Most people don't pick up the connection between Isaiah 59:17-18 and Paul's comments on our spiritual armor in Ephesians 5:10-17. In that passage, Paul calls that armor the whole armor of G-d, and it is G-d's armor in the sense that it belongs to Him - after all, He uses it here in verses 17-18 - and He allows us to use it to fight for Him. If we don't put on the armor of G-d and fight for Him, then eventually G-d will put it on Himself and fight for His glory. But G-d's preference is to work in and through us, with us using His armor. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Father will lift up a standard against him. The enemies of G-d will never triumph over Him. Even if they come in like a flood, and seem unstoppable, G-d will lift up a battle-standard against him, and he will be stopped. G-d gives His people the glorious privilege of being more than conquerors (Romans 8:37), but will win it with or without us.
The Redeemer will come to Zion: After speaking in the third-person through the prophet, now the Father speaks in the first-person through the prophet. When He speaks, He declares: the Redeemer - the goel - will come to Zion. The goel - sometimes translated kinsman-redeemer, here simply as Redeemer, the goel was responsible to safeguard the persons, the property, and the posterity of the family. The Messiah, He is our near kinsman because He has added perfect humanity to His deity. He is the one who buys us out of slavery. He is the one who avenges wrongs done to us. He protects our inheritance, and blesses and guards our posterity. This promise of G-d in verse 20 could be reworded, "I will send My Son, the Redeemer for all humanity, Y’Shua of Nazareth!"
Who does the Redeemer come to? To those who turn away from transgression. The goel only worked for those who asked for His services, and knew they needed Him.
“My Spirit who is upon you, and My words . . . shall not depart from your mouth . . . from this time and forevermore”: The covenant G-d makes with His people promises an abiding Spirit and an enduring word. G-d accomplishes His purpose in people and through all creation through both the Spirit and the word.
There is too much to gain to spend a lifetime in wrong chooses!
Don’t allow sin to bring on righteous judgment to come into your life!
Put on the full armor of G-d to be able to war off your battles.
G-d’s people wondered why G-d did not seem to rescue them from their trials. They wondered if perhaps G-d had diminished in strength - if His hand had become shortened.
This touch on one of the greatest problems in practical theology: how can there be a G-d of love and all power when there is human suffering? If we loved someone and had the power to end their suffering, wouldn't we do it?
Your iniquities have separated you from your G-d: The problem isn't with G-d's power, His knowledge, or His interest. The problem is with our iniquities. Sin has separated you from your G-d. Sin does not necessarily separate us from the presence of G-d, because
G-d is present everywhere (Psalm 139:7) and even Satan can have an audience with G-d (Job 1:6). Sin does not separate us from the love of G-d, because G-d loves sinners (Romans 5:8). But sin still does separate.
Sin separates us from fellowship with G-d, because at least at the point of our sin, we no longer think alike with G-d.
Sin separates us from the blessing of G-d, because at least at the point of our sin, we are not trusting G-d and relying on Him.
Sin separates us from the some of the benefits of G-d's love, even as the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) was still loved by the father, but didn't enjoy the benefits of his love when he was in sin.
Sin separates us, in some way, from the protection of G-d, because He will allow trials to come our way to correct us.
How easy it is for us to blame our problems on everything except our iniquities! We will even blame G-d before seeing that the problem is with us! We will deny who G-d is before seeing that the problem is with us!
Your hands are defiled with blood: They practiced and approved of violence and murder.
Your lips have spoken lies: They lied with ease and regularity.
No one calls for justice: They did not share G-d's heart for what was fair and good; everyone simply thought in terms of their own good. Both justice and truth were distant concepts, and instead of justice there were empty words, instead of truth there were lies.
They have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace: Their choice and the consequences are plain. Their crooked paths will never lead them into the way of peace, meaning peace in the full sense of shalom. Justice and righteousness are put away from our legal courts.
We look for light, but there is darkness! Now, having given themselves over to darkness, when they want the light, it isn't there. When you always have the light to go to, the darkness feels "fun." It seems mysterious and adventurous. But when the light is taken away, we despair in the darkness.
The state of G-d's people was no mystery to the Father. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: Not only was the state of G-d's people bad; but no one among them took the lead in getting it right. Where was the man that would lead the people in righteousness? He could not be found. Where was the intercessor who would plead G-d's case to the people, and the people's repentance to their G-d?
No intercessor could be found. None arose; so the Father did it Himself.
They have had their reality check, and see things as they are. Now we need to check ours!
Their plans resembled the egg of the serpent. The nature of the egg cannot be easily known by an inspection. It may have a strong resemblance to those which would produce some inoffensive and even useful animals. It is only when it is hatched that its true nature is fully developed. So it is with the plans of the wicked. When forming, their true nature may not be certainly known, and it may not be easy to determine their real character. Their plans, when developed, are like the poisonous and destructive production of the serpent's egg. The true nature is then seen; and it is ruinous, pernicious, and evil.
Most people don't pick up the connection between Isaiah 59:17-18 and Paul's comments on our spiritual armor in Ephesians 5:10-17. In that passage, Paul calls that armor the whole armor of G-d, and it is G-d's armor in the sense that it belongs to Him - after all, He uses it here in verses 17-18 - and He allows us to use it to fight for Him. If we don't put on the armor of G-d and fight for Him, then eventually G-d will put it on Himself and fight for His glory. But G-d's preference is to work in and through us, with us using His armor. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Father will lift up a standard against him. The enemies of G-d will never triumph over Him. Even if they come in like a flood, and seem unstoppable, G-d will lift up a battle-standard against him, and he will be stopped. G-d gives His people the glorious privilege of being more than conquerors (Romans 8:37), but will win it with or without us.
The Redeemer will come to Zion: After speaking in the third-person through the prophet, now the Father speaks in the first-person through the prophet. When He speaks, He declares: the Redeemer - the goel - will come to Zion. The goel - sometimes translated kinsman-redeemer, here simply as Redeemer, the goel was responsible to safeguard the persons, the property, and the posterity of the family. The Messiah, He is our near kinsman because He has added perfect humanity to His deity. He is the one who buys us out of slavery. He is the one who avenges wrongs done to us. He protects our inheritance, and blesses and guards our posterity. This promise of G-d in verse 20 could be reworded, "I will send My Son, the Redeemer for all humanity, Y’Shua of Nazareth!"
Who does the Redeemer come to? To those who turn away from transgression. The goel only worked for those who asked for His services, and knew they needed Him.
“My Spirit who is upon you, and My words . . . shall not depart from your mouth . . . from this time and forevermore”: The covenant G-d makes with His people promises an abiding Spirit and an enduring word. G-d accomplishes His purpose in people and through all creation through both the Spirit and the word.
There is too much to gain to spend a lifetime in wrong chooses!
Don’t allow sin to bring on righteous judgment to come into your life!
Put on the full armor of G-d to be able to war off your battles.
Shaking in the Making
[Deut. 8:8]A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey.
Study with Perry Stone:
Fruit Harvest Method
1. Barley April Winnowing ‘Sickle’
2. Wheat May Threshing ‘Sickle’
3. Grapes June-September By Hand ‘cut’
4. Pomegranates August-September By Hand ‘separated from the tree’
5. Figs August-September By Hand
6. Olive September-November By Shaking
7. Honey Summer-Fall By Hand
Matthew 13:39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
End of the ‘world’ is translated to be the end of age of man’s dispensation.
There was the early rain was to repair the ground and a latter rain to water the seed to grow to maturity and prepare it for the time of the harvest.
In the New Covenant the out pouring is liken on to the Holy Spirit. Without the out pouring of the Holy Spirit the seeds are going to die. If our churches do not have and outpouring of the Holy Spirit they die within drying up, lacking the life of G-d’s Spirit.
James 5:7-8 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
The olives have to be ‘shaken’ off the tree and press to produce oil. It is our ‘pressing’ that we receive our ‘anointing’. If it stays on the tree it serves no purpose. Have you been pressed and received an anointing or just hanging on to ‘comfort’ going no-where?
The first pressing of the olives produces. The second pressing is called in the ‘Rapture’ the over-comers are the ‘extra virgin oil’; well the 14000 Jews are the ‘virgin oil’.
There is no such thing as passing on ‘your’ anointing, for others have not been pressed in the same tribulations as you had walked through, (paid your price).
There are many ministries ‘called of G-d’ that are not of G-d.
Matt. 15:13 Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
There is a shaking in the making! If you feel like you have been shaken it is from G-d. He is shaking off things that are not of Him that what is will grow to maturity. Giving the anointing that will break the yoke off of His people.
Study with Perry Stone:
Fruit Harvest Method
1. Barley April Winnowing ‘Sickle’
2. Wheat May Threshing ‘Sickle’
3. Grapes June-September By Hand ‘cut’
4. Pomegranates August-September By Hand ‘separated from the tree’
5. Figs August-September By Hand
6. Olive September-November By Shaking
7. Honey Summer-Fall By Hand
Matthew 13:39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
End of the ‘world’ is translated to be the end of age of man’s dispensation.
There was the early rain was to repair the ground and a latter rain to water the seed to grow to maturity and prepare it for the time of the harvest.
In the New Covenant the out pouring is liken on to the Holy Spirit. Without the out pouring of the Holy Spirit the seeds are going to die. If our churches do not have and outpouring of the Holy Spirit they die within drying up, lacking the life of G-d’s Spirit.
James 5:7-8 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
The olives have to be ‘shaken’ off the tree and press to produce oil. It is our ‘pressing’ that we receive our ‘anointing’. If it stays on the tree it serves no purpose. Have you been pressed and received an anointing or just hanging on to ‘comfort’ going no-where?
The first pressing of the olives produces. The second pressing is called in the ‘Rapture’ the over-comers are the ‘extra virgin oil’; well the 14000 Jews are the ‘virgin oil’.
There is no such thing as passing on ‘your’ anointing, for others have not been pressed in the same tribulations as you had walked through, (paid your price).
There are many ministries ‘called of G-d’ that are not of G-d.
Matt. 15:13 Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
There is a shaking in the making! If you feel like you have been shaken it is from G-d. He is shaking off things that are not of Him that what is will grow to maturity. Giving the anointing that will break the yoke off of His people.
Darkness be as the Noonday
[Isa. 58:1] Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
This elegant chapter contains a severe reproof of the Jews on account of their vices, particularly their hypocrisy in practicing and relying on outward ceremonies, such as fasting and bodily humiliation, without true repentance, 1-5. It then lays down a clear and comprehensive summary of the duties they owed to their fellow creatures, 6, 7. Large promises of happiness and prosperity are likewise annexed to the performance of these duties in a variety of the most beautiful and striking images, 8-12. Great temporal and spiritual blessedness of those who keep holy the Sabbath day, 13, 14.
Never was a louder cry against the hypocrisy, nor a more cutting reproof of the wickedness, of a people professing a national established religion, having all the forms of godliness without a particle of its power during that time. The Gentiles are from the house of Jacob, so this applies to us also.
There are many men who take some pleasure in knowing G-d's will and word, and yet do not conform their lives to it. Dispelling the delusion that G-d would be satisfied with outward observances, while the spirit of the Law was violated and the heart unchanged.
If you wish acceptance with G-d, you must not fast as you now do, to make your voice heard high in strife, not to gain the ear of G-d (1 Kgs. 21:9, 12, 13). The pain felt by abstinence is not the end to be sought, as if it were praiseworthy; it is of value only in so far as it leads us to amend our ways.
Fast days are generally called holidays, and holidays are days of idleness and pleasure. In numberless cases the fast is turned into a feast. Some disregard the most sacred fast, and will oblige their servant to work all day long; others use fast days for the purpose of settling their accounts, posting up their books, and drawing out their bills to be ready to collect their debts. These are sneaking hypocrites; the others are daringly irreligious. The reference is to all the work and bother that the hypocritical Believers are going about in order to observe their own fast days, while neglecting G-d's one sacred fast day on the Day of Atonement.
Many of the things written about the situation here are in error because they are founded upon the mistake that G-d is not concerned with anything except social justice. It is very significant here that the very first sin G-d mentions is their neglecting "His's ordinance." Of course, G-d is also concerned with social justice; but all social justice, in the final analysis, derives from honor paid to the Word of G-d and the holy worship He has commanded.
Let the oppressed go free! How can any nation pretend to fast or worship G-d at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O you most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach, while you continue in this traffic! When a man fasts, suppose he do it through a religious motive, he should give the food of that day, from which he abstains, to the poor and hungry, who, in the course of providence, are called to sustain many involuntary fasts, besides suffering general privations. History repeats itself!
If all fasts and religious observances be carried on in the spirit and manner of G-d's blessing will attend every ordinance. But in public fasts, prescribed not in the Book of
G-d, but by the rulers of nations in general (very unfit persons) care should be taken that the cause is good, and that G-d's blessing may be safely implored in it. Ask yourself is this such a fast as G-d hath chosen? The Day of Atonement being the only fast day G-d commanded.
The necessity for providing rest for man and beast, as well as the weekly observance of worship and devotion were a much better condition than that provided by the mad pursuit of pleasure, sports, and so-called recreation on the part of the current godless generation. The people of this generation have legislated the Sabbath Day into a day of work instead of a day of worship, apparently ignorant of how it required three centuries of Christian fidelity to G-d's Law of worship on Sundays to win, under Constantine, the right of assembly on that day, at any other hour, than before daylight! We are very sure that future generations will pay dearly for this lack of responsibility on the part of our own.
A full account of the blessings and benefits which attend the performance of one’s duty to G-d’s will. If a person, a family, a people, be thus disposed to every thing that is good, let them know for their comfort that they shall find G-d their bountiful rewarder and what they lay out in works of charity shall be abundantly made up to them.
Good works shall be recompensed with a good name; this is included in that light which rises out of obscurity. Though a man's extraction is mean, his family obscure, and he has no external advantages to gain him honor, yet, if he do good in his place, that will procure him respect and veneration, and his darkness shall by this means become as the noon-day, that is, he shall become very eminent and shine brightly in his generation. He that would be the greatest of all, and best-loved, let him by humility and industry makes himself a servant of all.
His providence will make their way plain to them, both what is their duty and what will be most for their comfort. G-d will give them abundance of satisfaction in their own minds. As the world is a wilderness in respect of wanderings, so that they need to be guided continually, so also is it in respect of wants, which makes it necessary that they should have continual supplies.Even in the drought of affliction; these will makeyou’re your bones, and fill them with marrow, will give you that pleasure which will be a support to you as the bones to the body, that joy of the L-rd which will be your strength and He shall give your bones rest" rest from the pain and sickness which they have labored under and been chastened with; so it agrees with that promise made to the merciful. The sum is that, if you who keep such fasts as G-d has chosen, He will settle you again in your former peace and prosperity, and there shall be none to make you afraid.
This elegant chapter contains a severe reproof of the Jews on account of their vices, particularly their hypocrisy in practicing and relying on outward ceremonies, such as fasting and bodily humiliation, without true repentance, 1-5. It then lays down a clear and comprehensive summary of the duties they owed to their fellow creatures, 6, 7. Large promises of happiness and prosperity are likewise annexed to the performance of these duties in a variety of the most beautiful and striking images, 8-12. Great temporal and spiritual blessedness of those who keep holy the Sabbath day, 13, 14.
Never was a louder cry against the hypocrisy, nor a more cutting reproof of the wickedness, of a people professing a national established religion, having all the forms of godliness without a particle of its power during that time. The Gentiles are from the house of Jacob, so this applies to us also.
There are many men who take some pleasure in knowing G-d's will and word, and yet do not conform their lives to it. Dispelling the delusion that G-d would be satisfied with outward observances, while the spirit of the Law was violated and the heart unchanged.
If you wish acceptance with G-d, you must not fast as you now do, to make your voice heard high in strife, not to gain the ear of G-d (1 Kgs. 21:9, 12, 13). The pain felt by abstinence is not the end to be sought, as if it were praiseworthy; it is of value only in so far as it leads us to amend our ways.
Fast days are generally called holidays, and holidays are days of idleness and pleasure. In numberless cases the fast is turned into a feast. Some disregard the most sacred fast, and will oblige their servant to work all day long; others use fast days for the purpose of settling their accounts, posting up their books, and drawing out their bills to be ready to collect their debts. These are sneaking hypocrites; the others are daringly irreligious. The reference is to all the work and bother that the hypocritical Believers are going about in order to observe their own fast days, while neglecting G-d's one sacred fast day on the Day of Atonement.
Many of the things written about the situation here are in error because they are founded upon the mistake that G-d is not concerned with anything except social justice. It is very significant here that the very first sin G-d mentions is their neglecting "His's ordinance." Of course, G-d is also concerned with social justice; but all social justice, in the final analysis, derives from honor paid to the Word of G-d and the holy worship He has commanded.
Let the oppressed go free! How can any nation pretend to fast or worship G-d at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O you most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach, while you continue in this traffic! When a man fasts, suppose he do it through a religious motive, he should give the food of that day, from which he abstains, to the poor and hungry, who, in the course of providence, are called to sustain many involuntary fasts, besides suffering general privations. History repeats itself!
If all fasts and religious observances be carried on in the spirit and manner of G-d's blessing will attend every ordinance. But in public fasts, prescribed not in the Book of
G-d, but by the rulers of nations in general (very unfit persons) care should be taken that the cause is good, and that G-d's blessing may be safely implored in it. Ask yourself is this such a fast as G-d hath chosen? The Day of Atonement being the only fast day G-d commanded.
The necessity for providing rest for man and beast, as well as the weekly observance of worship and devotion were a much better condition than that provided by the mad pursuit of pleasure, sports, and so-called recreation on the part of the current godless generation. The people of this generation have legislated the Sabbath Day into a day of work instead of a day of worship, apparently ignorant of how it required three centuries of Christian fidelity to G-d's Law of worship on Sundays to win, under Constantine, the right of assembly on that day, at any other hour, than before daylight! We are very sure that future generations will pay dearly for this lack of responsibility on the part of our own.
A full account of the blessings and benefits which attend the performance of one’s duty to G-d’s will. If a person, a family, a people, be thus disposed to every thing that is good, let them know for their comfort that they shall find G-d their bountiful rewarder and what they lay out in works of charity shall be abundantly made up to them.
Good works shall be recompensed with a good name; this is included in that light which rises out of obscurity. Though a man's extraction is mean, his family obscure, and he has no external advantages to gain him honor, yet, if he do good in his place, that will procure him respect and veneration, and his darkness shall by this means become as the noon-day, that is, he shall become very eminent and shine brightly in his generation. He that would be the greatest of all, and best-loved, let him by humility and industry makes himself a servant of all.
His providence will make their way plain to them, both what is their duty and what will be most for their comfort. G-d will give them abundance of satisfaction in their own minds. As the world is a wilderness in respect of wanderings, so that they need to be guided continually, so also is it in respect of wants, which makes it necessary that they should have continual supplies.Even in the drought of affliction; these will makeyou’re your bones, and fill them with marrow, will give you that pleasure which will be a support to you as the bones to the body, that joy of the L-rd which will be your strength and He shall give your bones rest" rest from the pain and sickness which they have labored under and been chastened with; so it agrees with that promise made to the merciful. The sum is that, if you who keep such fasts as G-d has chosen, He will settle you again in your former peace and prosperity, and there shall be none to make you afraid.
Liberty of a Gurded Man
a>[Acts 28:31] Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Y’Shua Messiah, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.With all confidence, no man forbidding him - enjoying, in the uninterrupted exercise of Paul’s ministry, all the liberty of a guarded man. Thus closes this most precious monument of the beginnings of the Christian Church in its march from east to west, among the Jews first, whose center was Jerusalem; next among the Gentiles, with Antioch for its headquarters; finally, its banner is seen waving over imperial Rome, foretokening its universal triumphs. That distinguished missionaries whose conversion, labors, and sufferings for "the faith which once he destroyed" occupy more than half of this History, it leaves a prisoner, unheard, so far as appears, for two years. His accusers, whose presence was indispensable, would have to await the return of spring before starting for the capital, and might not reach it for many months; nor, even when there, would they be so sanguine of success, after Felix, Festus, and Agrippa had all pronounced him innocent, as to be impatient of delay. And if witnesses were required to prove the charge advanced by Tertullus, that he was "a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the Roman world" (24:5), they must have seen that unless considerable time was allowed them the case would certainly break down. If to this be added the capricious delays which the emperor himself might interpose, and the practice of Nero to hear but one charge at a time, it will not seem strange that the historian should have no proceedings in the case to record for two years. Begun, probably, before the missionary’s arrival, its progress at Rome under his own eye would furnish exalted employment, and beguile many a tedious hour of his two years' imprisonment. Had the case come on for hearing during this period, much more if it had been disposed of, it is hardly conceivable that the History should have closed as it does. But if, at the end of this period, the Narrative only wanted the decision of the case, while hope deferred was making the heart sick (Prov. 13:12), and if, under the guidance of that Spirit whose seal was on it all, it seemed of more consequence to put the Church at once in possession of this History than to keep it back indefinitely for the sake of what might come to be otherwise known, we cannot wonder that it should be wound up as it is in its two concluding verses. All that we know of the missionary’s proceedings and history beyond this must be gathered from the Epistles of the Imprisonment--Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon--written during this period, and the Pastoral Epistles--to Timothy and Titus, which, in our judgment, are of subsequent date. From the former class of Epistles we learn the following particulars:
1. That the trying restraint laid upon the missionary’s labors by his imprisonment had only turned his influence into a new channel; the Gospel having in consequence penetrated even into the palace, and pervaded the city, while the preachers of Messiah were emboldened; and though the Judaizing portion of them, observing his success among the Gentiles, had been led to inculcate with fresh zeal their own narrower Gospel, even this had done much good by extending the truth common to both (See on Phip. 1:12-18; Phip. 4:22);
2. That as in addition to all his other labors, "the care of all the churches pressed upon him from day to-day" (2 Cor. 11:28), so with these churches he kept up an active correspondence by means of letters and messages, and on such errands he lacked not faithful and beloved brethren enough ready to be employed--Luke; Timotheus; Tychicus; (John) Mark; Demas; Aristarchus; Epaphras; Onesimus; Y’Shua, called Justus; and, for a short time, Epaphroditus (Col 4:7; Col 4:9-12; Col 4:14; Phim. 23, 24. That the missionary suffered martyrdom under Nero at Rome has never been doubted. But that the appeal which brought him to Rome issued in his liberation, that he was at large for some years thereafter and took some wide missionary circuits, and that he was again arrested, carried to Rome, and then executed--was the undisputed belief of the early Church, as expressed by Chrysostom, Jerome, and Eusebius, in the fourth century, up to Clement of Rome, the "fellow laborer" of the missonry himself (Phip 4:3), in the first century. The strongest possible confirmation of this is found in the Epistles, which bear marks throughout of a more advanced state of the Church, and more matured forms of error, than can well have existed at any period before the appeal which brought the missionary to Rome; which refer to movements of himself and Timothy that cannot without some straining be made to fit into any prior period; and which are couched in a manifestly riper style than any of his other Epistles.
Voyage to Italy
[Acts 27] The "we" here reintroduces the historian as one of the company. Not that he had left the missionary from the time when he last included himself (21:18), but the missionary was parted from him by his arrest and imprisonment, until now, when they met in the ship.
The other prisoners were State prisoners going to be tried at Rome; of which several instances are on record.
Julius, who treats the missionary throughout with such marked courtesy (27:3, 43; 28:16), that it has been thought he was present when Paul made his defense before Agrippa (25:23), and was impressed with his lofty bearing.
A centurion of Augustus' band was the Augustan legion, an honorary title given to more than one legion of the Roman army, implying, perhaps, that they acted as a bodyguard to the emperor or procurator, as occasion required.
Adramyttium was a port on the northeast coast of the Ægean Sea. Doubtless the centurion expected to find another ship, bound for Italy, at some of the ports of Asia Minor, without having to go with this ship all the way to Adramyttium; and in this he was not disappointed.
Asia was a coasting vessel, which was to touch at the ports of proconsular Asia.
One Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us or rather, "Aristarchus the Macedonian.” The word "one" should not have been introduced here by our translators, as if this name had not occurred before; for we find him seized by the Ephesian mob as a "man of Macedonia and Paul's companion in travel" (19:29) and as a "Thessalonian" accompanying the apostle Timothy from Ephesus on his voyage back to Palestine (20:4). Here both these places are mentioned in connection with his name. After this we find him at Rome with the apostle Mark (Col 4:10; Philemon 24).
Aristarchus was a loyal co-worker of Paul, Aristarchus hailed from Thessalonica, but was in Ephesus and arrested with Gaius during the riot following Paul’s first appearance in that city. Aristarchus was Paul’s constant companion at the close of the missionary’s life, journeying with him from Troas to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Rome, and sharing Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. According to tradition Aristarchus, too, died a martyr’s death in Rome during Nero’s persecution
As Egypt was the granary of Italy, and this vessel was laden with wheat (verse 35), they did need not wonder it was large enough to carry two hundred seventy-six souls, passengers and crew together (verse 37). Besides, the Egyptian merchantmen, among the largest in the Mediterranean, were equal to the largest merchantmen in our day. It may seem strange that on their passage from Alexandria to Italy they should be found at a Lycian port. But even still it is not unusual to stand to the north towards Asia Minor, for the sake of the current.
Since leaving Cæsarea. But for unforeseen delays they might have reached the Italian coast before the stormy season, that of the day of atonement, answering to the end of September and beginning of October, about which time the navigation is pronounced unsafe by writers of authority. Since all hope of completing the voyage during that season was abandoned, the question next was, whether they should winter at Fair Havens, or move to Port Phenice, a harbor about forty miles to the westward. Paul assisted at the consultation and strongly urged them to winter where they were.
A typhon or tornado wind, causing a whirling of the clouds, called Euroclydon, or east-northeast, caught the ship! They had to hoist up and secure the boat that had became independently of the gale, raging at the time, and had been towed between twenty and thirty miles after the gale sprang up, and could scarcely fail to be filled with water. Undergirding the ship was, passing four or five turns of a cable-laid rope round the hull or frame of the ship, to enable her to resist the violence of the seas, an operation rarely resorted to in modern seamanship.
Fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands meant "be cast ashore" or "stranded upon the Syrtis," the Syrtis Major, a gulf on the African coast, southwest of Crete, the dread of mariners, owing to its dangerous shoals. They struck lowered the gear which was
lowering of the heavy main yard with the sail attached to it.
On the third day they had to tackling of the ship, whatever they could do without that carried weight. This further effort to lighten the ship seems to show that it was now in a leaking condition, as will presently appear more evident.
Most of the next fourteen days this continued thickness of the atmosphere prevented their making the necessary observations of the heavenly bodies by day or by night; so that they could not tell where they were. And all hope that they should be saved was taken away. Their exertions to subdue the leak had been unavailing; they could not tell which way to make for the nearest land, in order to run their ship ashore, the only resource for a sinking ship: but unless they did make the land, they must founder at sea. Their apprehensions, therefore, were not so much caused by the fury of the tempest, as by the state of the ship. From the inferiority of ancient to modern naval architecture, leaks were sprung much more easily, and the means of repairing them were fewer than now. Hence the far greater number of shipwrecks from this cause! The hardships which the crew endured during a gale of such continuance, and their exhaustion from laboring at the pumps and hunger, may be imagined, but are not described.
While the crew were toiling at the pumps, Paul was wrestling in prayer, not for himself only and the cause in which he was going a prisoner to Rome, but with true generosity of spirit of soul for all his shipmates; and G-d heard him, "giving him" (remarkable expression!) all that sailed with him. "When the cheerless day came he gathered the sailors (and passengers) around him on the deck of the laboring vessel, and raising his voice above the storm”, reported the divine communication he had received; adding with a noble simplicity, "for I believe G-d that it shall be even as it was told me," and encouraging all on board to "be of good cheer" in the same confidence. What a contrast to this is the speech of Cæsar in similar circumstances to his pilot, bidding him keep up his spirit because he carried Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune! The Roman general knew no better name for the Divine Providence, by which he had been so often preserved, than Cæsar's fortune. From the explicit particulars--that the ship would be lost, but not one that sailed in it, and that they "must be cast on a certain island"--one would conclude a visional representation of a total wreck, a mass of human beings struggling with the angry elements, and one and all of those whose figures and countenances had daily met his eye on deck, standing on some unknown island shore. From what follows, it would seem that Paul from this time was regarded with deference akin to awe.
They cast four anchors out of the stern, the ordinary way was to cast the anchor, as now, from the bow: but ancient ships, built with both ends alike, were fitted with hawseholes in the stern, so that in case of need they could anchor either way. And when the fear was, as here, that they might fall on the rocks to leeward, and the intention was to run the ship ashore as soon as daylight enabled them to fix upon a safe spot, the very best thing they could do was to anchor by the stern. In stormy weather two anchors were used, and we have instances of four being employed.
The ship might go down at her anchors, or the coast to leeward might be iron-bound, affording no beach on which they could land with safety. Hence their anxious longing for day, and the ungenerous but natural attempt, not peculiar to ancient times, of the seamen to save their own lives by taking to the boat.
While the graphic minuteness of this narrative of the shipwreck puts it beyond doubt that the narrator was himself on board, the great number of nautical phrases, which all critics have noted, along with the unprofessional air which the whole narrative wears, agrees singularly with all we know and have reason to believe of "the beloved physician".
The other prisoners were State prisoners going to be tried at Rome; of which several instances are on record.
Julius, who treats the missionary throughout with such marked courtesy (27:3, 43; 28:16), that it has been thought he was present when Paul made his defense before Agrippa (25:23), and was impressed with his lofty bearing.
A centurion of Augustus' band was the Augustan legion, an honorary title given to more than one legion of the Roman army, implying, perhaps, that they acted as a bodyguard to the emperor or procurator, as occasion required.
Adramyttium was a port on the northeast coast of the Ægean Sea. Doubtless the centurion expected to find another ship, bound for Italy, at some of the ports of Asia Minor, without having to go with this ship all the way to Adramyttium; and in this he was not disappointed.
Asia was a coasting vessel, which was to touch at the ports of proconsular Asia.
One Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us or rather, "Aristarchus the Macedonian.” The word "one" should not have been introduced here by our translators, as if this name had not occurred before; for we find him seized by the Ephesian mob as a "man of Macedonia and Paul's companion in travel" (19:29) and as a "Thessalonian" accompanying the apostle Timothy from Ephesus on his voyage back to Palestine (20:4). Here both these places are mentioned in connection with his name. After this we find him at Rome with the apostle Mark (Col 4:10; Philemon 24).
Aristarchus was a loyal co-worker of Paul, Aristarchus hailed from Thessalonica, but was in Ephesus and arrested with Gaius during the riot following Paul’s first appearance in that city. Aristarchus was Paul’s constant companion at the close of the missionary’s life, journeying with him from Troas to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Rome, and sharing Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. According to tradition Aristarchus, too, died a martyr’s death in Rome during Nero’s persecution
As Egypt was the granary of Italy, and this vessel was laden with wheat (verse 35), they did need not wonder it was large enough to carry two hundred seventy-six souls, passengers and crew together (verse 37). Besides, the Egyptian merchantmen, among the largest in the Mediterranean, were equal to the largest merchantmen in our day. It may seem strange that on their passage from Alexandria to Italy they should be found at a Lycian port. But even still it is not unusual to stand to the north towards Asia Minor, for the sake of the current.
Since leaving Cæsarea. But for unforeseen delays they might have reached the Italian coast before the stormy season, that of the day of atonement, answering to the end of September and beginning of October, about which time the navigation is pronounced unsafe by writers of authority. Since all hope of completing the voyage during that season was abandoned, the question next was, whether they should winter at Fair Havens, or move to Port Phenice, a harbor about forty miles to the westward. Paul assisted at the consultation and strongly urged them to winter where they were.
A typhon or tornado wind, causing a whirling of the clouds, called Euroclydon, or east-northeast, caught the ship! They had to hoist up and secure the boat that had became independently of the gale, raging at the time, and had been towed between twenty and thirty miles after the gale sprang up, and could scarcely fail to be filled with water. Undergirding the ship was, passing four or five turns of a cable-laid rope round the hull or frame of the ship, to enable her to resist the violence of the seas, an operation rarely resorted to in modern seamanship.
Fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands meant "be cast ashore" or "stranded upon the Syrtis," the Syrtis Major, a gulf on the African coast, southwest of Crete, the dread of mariners, owing to its dangerous shoals. They struck lowered the gear which was
lowering of the heavy main yard with the sail attached to it.
On the third day they had to tackling of the ship, whatever they could do without that carried weight. This further effort to lighten the ship seems to show that it was now in a leaking condition, as will presently appear more evident.
Most of the next fourteen days this continued thickness of the atmosphere prevented their making the necessary observations of the heavenly bodies by day or by night; so that they could not tell where they were. And all hope that they should be saved was taken away. Their exertions to subdue the leak had been unavailing; they could not tell which way to make for the nearest land, in order to run their ship ashore, the only resource for a sinking ship: but unless they did make the land, they must founder at sea. Their apprehensions, therefore, were not so much caused by the fury of the tempest, as by the state of the ship. From the inferiority of ancient to modern naval architecture, leaks were sprung much more easily, and the means of repairing them were fewer than now. Hence the far greater number of shipwrecks from this cause! The hardships which the crew endured during a gale of such continuance, and their exhaustion from laboring at the pumps and hunger, may be imagined, but are not described.
While the crew were toiling at the pumps, Paul was wrestling in prayer, not for himself only and the cause in which he was going a prisoner to Rome, but with true generosity of spirit of soul for all his shipmates; and G-d heard him, "giving him" (remarkable expression!) all that sailed with him. "When the cheerless day came he gathered the sailors (and passengers) around him on the deck of the laboring vessel, and raising his voice above the storm”, reported the divine communication he had received; adding with a noble simplicity, "for I believe G-d that it shall be even as it was told me," and encouraging all on board to "be of good cheer" in the same confidence. What a contrast to this is the speech of Cæsar in similar circumstances to his pilot, bidding him keep up his spirit because he carried Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune! The Roman general knew no better name for the Divine Providence, by which he had been so often preserved, than Cæsar's fortune. From the explicit particulars--that the ship would be lost, but not one that sailed in it, and that they "must be cast on a certain island"--one would conclude a visional representation of a total wreck, a mass of human beings struggling with the angry elements, and one and all of those whose figures and countenances had daily met his eye on deck, standing on some unknown island shore. From what follows, it would seem that Paul from this time was regarded with deference akin to awe.
They cast four anchors out of the stern, the ordinary way was to cast the anchor, as now, from the bow: but ancient ships, built with both ends alike, were fitted with hawseholes in the stern, so that in case of need they could anchor either way. And when the fear was, as here, that they might fall on the rocks to leeward, and the intention was to run the ship ashore as soon as daylight enabled them to fix upon a safe spot, the very best thing they could do was to anchor by the stern. In stormy weather two anchors were used, and we have instances of four being employed.
The ship might go down at her anchors, or the coast to leeward might be iron-bound, affording no beach on which they could land with safety. Hence their anxious longing for day, and the ungenerous but natural attempt, not peculiar to ancient times, of the seamen to save their own lives by taking to the boat.
While the graphic minuteness of this narrative of the shipwreck puts it beyond doubt that the narrator was himself on board, the great number of nautical phrases, which all critics have noted, along with the unprofessional air which the whole narrative wears, agrees singularly with all we know and have reason to believe of "the beloved physician".
Almost a Christian
[Acts 26:28] Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
This speech, though in substance the same as that from the fortress stairs of Jerusalem (22:1-29), differs from it in being less directed to meet the charge of apostasy from the Jewish faith, and giving more enlarged views of his remarkable change and missionary commission, and the divine support under which he was enabled to brave the hostility of his countrymen.
Here the missionary appears to condense his personal history in various sayings of his L-rd to him in visions at different times, in order to present at one view the grandeur of the commission with which his Master had clothed him. Trying to put himself=lf on a footing with those "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word" mentioned in Lk. 1:2. He was all along the object of Jewish malignity, and was at that moment in the hands of the Gentiles; yet he calmly reposes on his Master's assurances of deliverance from both, at the same time taking all precautions for safety and vindicating all his legal rights.
His speech here was not meant for his own vindication as to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith. The connection here between being "turned from darkness" and "from the power of Satan," whose whole power over men lies in keeping them in the dark: hence he is called "the ruler of the darkness of this world," faith is here made the instrument of salvation at once in its first stage, forgiveness, and its last, admission to the home of the sanctified; And who that believes this can refrain from casting his crown before Him or resist offering Him supreme worship?
[24] Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
The union of flowing Greek, deep acquaintance with the sacred writings of his nation, reference to a resurrection and other doctrines to a Roman utterly unintelligible, and, above all, lofty religious earnestness, so strange to the cultivated, cold-hearted skeptics of that day--may account for this sudden exclamation.
Can anything surpass this reply, for readiness, self-possession, and calm dignity? Every word of it refuted the rude charge, though Festus, probably, did not intend to hurt the prisoner's feelings.
The courage and confidence here shown proceeded from a vivid persuasion of Agrippa's knowledge of the facts and faith in the predictions which they verified; and the king's reply is the highest testimony to the correctness of these presumptions and the immense power of such bold yet courteous appeals to conscience.
- "Thou thinkest to make me with little persuasion (or small trouble) a Christian". The objection on which so much stress is laid, that the word "Christian" was at that time only a term of contempt, has no force except on the other side; for taking it in that view, the sense is, "Thou wilt soon have me one of that despised sect."
[29] And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
Doubtless holding up his two chained hands (12:6): which in closing such a noble utterance must have had an electrical effect.
This speech, though in substance the same as that from the fortress stairs of Jerusalem (22:1-29), differs from it in being less directed to meet the charge of apostasy from the Jewish faith, and giving more enlarged views of his remarkable change and missionary commission, and the divine support under which he was enabled to brave the hostility of his countrymen.
Here the missionary appears to condense his personal history in various sayings of his L-rd to him in visions at different times, in order to present at one view the grandeur of the commission with which his Master had clothed him. Trying to put himself=lf on a footing with those "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word" mentioned in Lk. 1:2. He was all along the object of Jewish malignity, and was at that moment in the hands of the Gentiles; yet he calmly reposes on his Master's assurances of deliverance from both, at the same time taking all precautions for safety and vindicating all his legal rights.
His speech here was not meant for his own vindication as to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith. The connection here between being "turned from darkness" and "from the power of Satan," whose whole power over men lies in keeping them in the dark: hence he is called "the ruler of the darkness of this world," faith is here made the instrument of salvation at once in its first stage, forgiveness, and its last, admission to the home of the sanctified; And who that believes this can refrain from casting his crown before Him or resist offering Him supreme worship?
[24] Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
The union of flowing Greek, deep acquaintance with the sacred writings of his nation, reference to a resurrection and other doctrines to a Roman utterly unintelligible, and, above all, lofty religious earnestness, so strange to the cultivated, cold-hearted skeptics of that day--may account for this sudden exclamation.
Can anything surpass this reply, for readiness, self-possession, and calm dignity? Every word of it refuted the rude charge, though Festus, probably, did not intend to hurt the prisoner's feelings.
The courage and confidence here shown proceeded from a vivid persuasion of Agrippa's knowledge of the facts and faith in the predictions which they verified; and the king's reply is the highest testimony to the correctness of these presumptions and the immense power of such bold yet courteous appeals to conscience.
- "Thou thinkest to make me with little persuasion (or small trouble) a Christian". The objection on which so much stress is laid, that the word "Christian" was at that time only a term of contempt, has no force except on the other side; for taking it in that view, the sense is, "Thou wilt soon have me one of that despised sect."
[29] And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
Doubtless holding up his two chained hands (12:6): which in closing such a noble utterance must have had an electrical effect.
Paul Imprisonment
[Acts]Bribery in a judge was punishable by the Roman law, but the spirit of a slave (to use the words of Tacitus) was in all his acts, and his communing with Paul", as if he cared for either him or his message, simply added hypocrisy to meanness. Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. While Tacitus' works contain much information about his world, details regarding his personal life are scarce.The position in life of Paul's Christian visitors might beget the hope of extracting something from them for the release of their champion; but the missionary would rather lie in prison than stoop to this!
After two years in prison, what a trial to this burning missionary of Messiah, to suffer such a tedious period of inaction! How mysterious it would seem! But this repose would be medicine to his spirit; he would not, and could not, be entirely inactive, so long as he was able by pen and message to communicate with the churches; and he would doubtless learn the salutary truth that even he was not essential to his Master's cause. That Luke wrote his Gospel during this period, under the missionary’s superintendence, is the not unlikely conjecture of able critics.
Porcius Festus was procurator of Judea from about AD 58 to 62, succeeding Antonius Felix. His exact time in office is not known. Luke claims he arranged Paul's audience with Agrippa; but the Lukan chronology cannot be coordinated with events mentioned by Josephus.
The plan of Felix, therefore, in suppressing the enmity of the Jews, and conciliating their favor by injustice to Paul, did not succeed; and is one of those instances, so numerous in the world, where a man gains nothing by wickedness. He sought money from Paul by iniquity, and failed; he sought by injustice to obtain the favor of the Jews, and failed in that also. And the inference from the whole transaction is, that "honesty is the best policy," and that man in any office should pursue a course of firm, and constant, and undeviating integrity.He died a few years after this [Josephus, Antiquities, 20.8.9-9.1. Festus' sudden death (62 CE) left Judea temporarily without a Roman governor. In the interim before the arrival of his successor, Lucceius Albinus, the Sadducean high priest [Hanan II] arranged the execution of Y’Shua's brother James along with others on charges of Torah violations.
Paul may have spent as much as 25% of his time as a missionary in prison. We know of his brief lock-up in Philippi (late 49 A.D.), two years' incarceration in Caesarea 58 A.D., and at least another two in Rome (60-62 A.D. Yet Paul says he experienced "far more imprisonments" than his opponents. To understand Paul, we need to understand where he spent so much time. Paul is back in a Roman prison in the city of Rome in 67 A.D. Paul stays in jail until he is put to death by the Romans around May or June 68 A.D.
During his ministry the missionary Paul spends roughly 5 1/2 to 6 years as a prisoner or in prison.
Roman imprisonment was preceded by being stripped naked and then flogged, a humiliating, painful, and bloody ordeal. The bleeding wounds went untreated; prisoners sat in painful leg or wrist chains. Mutilated, blood-stained clothing was not replaced, even in the cold of winter. In his final imprisonment, Paul asked for a cloak, presumably because of the cold.
Most cells were dark, especially the inner cells of a prison, like the one Paul and Silas inhabited in Philippi. Unbearable cold, lack of water, cramped quarters, and sickening stench from few toilets made sleeping difficult and waking hours miserable.
Male and female prisoners were sometimes incarcerated together, which led to sexual immorality and abuse. Prison food, when available, was poor. Most prisoners had to provide their own food from outside sources. When Paul was in prison in Caesarea, Felix, the procurator, gave orders to the centurion that "none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs."
Because of the miserable conditions, many prisoners begged for a speedy death. Others simply committed suicide.
All of this could be mitigated to some extent if the prisoner was important or paid a bribe (as Governor Felix hoped to receive from Paul in Caesarea).
A prominent individual, or one expected to be released, might be kept under house arrest if he or she could afford the rent. In Rome, where housing prisoners was excessively expensive, Paul was given the privilege of house arrest, and he paid the rent himself (exactly how, we don't know). He probably lived in a third-floor apartment; first floors were used for shops, and the second floor was expensive.
In his final imprisonment in Rome, though, Paul's life came to an end in the woeful conditions of a Roman prison (John McRay, "Paul and His Times," Christian History, No 47).
Josephus
The historian known to posterity by the Latinized name Josephus was a member of Jerusalem's priestly aristocracy who, at age 30, was taken hostage in the great Jewish revolt against Rome (66-70 CE) & spent the rest of his life in Roman circles as a protégé of three emperors [Vespasian, Titus & Domitian]. His constant need to explain his role in the unsuccessful Jewish uprising that climaxed with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple led him to publish four works [in Greek] that are our prime source for information about events that shaped the history of Jews of the second temple period.Joseph bar Matthew [Greek: Matthias], as Josephus was originally known, was born soon after Caligula became Roman emperor (37/38 CE). He was one of two sons of a Jewish priest who claimed descent from the Hasmonean family of priests who had won Jewish independence from the Greco-Syrian empire two centuries earlier. A precocious youth with a thirst for learning, Josephus claims that by the time he was 14 he was already consulted on legal problems by Jerusalem's chief priests [Life 8]. At age 16 he began three years of intense religious training. After basic introduction to the principles of the three primary Judean factions [Pharisees, Sadducees & Essenes], Josephus attached himself to an ascetic hermit [Bannus] who was an advocate of a natural lifestyle in the wilderness of Judea. When he returned to Jerusalem (57 CE), he associated himself with the majority party of the Pharisees. Factionalism was intensifying in Judea, however, with an increase of demagogues & revolutionary bands. Roman prefects, responsible for maintaining social order, reacted swiftly & ruthlessly to suppress dissent from any quarter. When Gessius Florus sent some priests that Josephus knew in chains to Rome
(64 CE), he followed to petition the emperor [Nero] to release them. The emperor's consort, Poppea, introduced the 26 year old Jewish aristocrat to the imperial court & supported his cause. This successful mission left Josephus favorably impressed by the grandeur & power of Rome & with a first-hand familiarity with imperial circles that few of his contemporary Jews could match.
By the time he returned to Jerusalem, however, the Jewish revolt had already begun (66 CE). A radical faction [led by Menachem, a son of Judah "the Galilean" who had led a tax revolt against Rome 60 years earlier] had seized the fortress of Antonia, forcing priests to seek refuge in the temple below. As rival revolutionary factions vied for control of Jerusalem & murdered their opponents [including Menachem], Josephus & other priests aligned themselves with the cause of independence. The rebels, encouraged by their decisive defeat of Roman troops that the governor of Syria [Cestius Gallus] dispatched to pacify the city, sent Josephus to fortify Galilee & persuade Galileans to join the revolt. Giscala [Gush cHalav] & other towns in rural northwestern Galilee were already centers of revolt. But the Romanized cities of the more populated southern tier [Sepphoris & Tiberias] were reluctant to join a war with Rome. The rebels in Jerusalem apparently thought that Josephus, as an aristocrat with success as a negotiator in Rome, could persuade hesitant Galileans to support the cause of independence. He met little success either as a negotiator or a military leader, however, characteristically blaming others for his failures. The residents of the old Galilean capitol, Sepphoris---whose city had been destroyed by Roman armies 72 years earlier, in the uprising following Herod's death (4 BCE)---would not be part of a rebellion. The population of Tiberias---the lakeside metropolis built by Herod's son, Antipas---was divided but unwilling to accept Josephus as their leader. Josephus succeeded in fortifying the central Galilean city of Jotapata [Yodefat], but was fortunate to survive its capture. Upon his surrender, he predicted the man who defeated him [Vespasian] would become emperor of Rome, a prediction soon made possible by Nero's suicide (68 CE). Taken to Jerusalem as a hostage, Josephus was eye-witness to the Roman siege. When Vespasian was called to Rome to become emperor (69 CE), he directed his son Titus to continue the siege. Josephus was held in the Roman camp & witnessed the destruction of the temple (70 CE) that had been the center of his family's life for generations.
Taken to Rome after the war, Josephus was declared a freed man, granted Roman citizenship, provided a pension & lodging on Vespasian's estates. He adopted the family name of his imperial patrons & was thus known to Romans as Flavius Josephus. He was near the top of Vespasian's "civil list" of Roman citizens. He witnessed first-hand the rebuilding of Rome after Nero's fire (65 CE) & the erection of the Flavian monuments [Colosseum, the temple of Peace, the forum of Vespasian & the arch of Titus, depicting the conquest of the temple in Jerusalem]. He used his position both to support the cause of the Flavian emperors & to defend his own place as a fixture in their court. Though he gave his children gentile names, he remained dedicated to his Jewish heritage, spending years writing voluminous works to explain & glorify those who championed the laws of Moses to Romans who, in the wake of the Jewish revolt, regarded all Jews as lawless riff-raff & bandits. After his death a statue was erected to him & his works placed in the Roman public library, where they came to be a major source of information for all later historians: Christian, Jewish & secular [Eusebius, History of the Church 3.9].
Roman Advocate
[Acts 24:1] And after five days Ananias the high priest descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul.Tertullus – all so spelled Tertellus. He was an attorney well-versed in Roman law, hired by the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem to present charges against Paul before the Roman governor, Felix, at Caesarea in the year 60. Tertullus was typical of the Italian lawyers who lived in the provinces at the time, selling their services to local people unused to Roman courts. His presentation to Felix was a masterpiece of flattery toward Felix and full of allegations that Paul disturbed the peace and profaned the Temple.
Tertullus made a very competent speech for the prosecution, opening with a compliment to Felix to win his goodwill. ‘Since though you we enjoy much peace, and since by your provision, most excellent Felix, reform are introduced on behalf of this nation, in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude. But, to detain you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly.’ He then declared Paul to be a perfect pest as:
1. An agitator.
2. A ringleader of the Nazarenes.
3. As a desecrator of the Temple.
Finally he invited Felix to examine Paul himself to ascertain the truth of these charges. The speech, whether as spoken by Tertullus, or condensed by Luke, is a masterpiece of brevity. Paul’s defiance of himself, however, was more than a match for the prosecutions, for Paul was equally well trained in the famous law school of Troas.
The speech of Tertullus is a good example of reasonable and dishonest pleading.
Paul's answer was simple. ‘After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the G-d of my Fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets. And have hope toward G-d which they themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust...Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day.’ Tertullus could not prove his case but Paul was imprisoned anyway.
Hypocritical Righteousness
[Isa. 57:12] I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
“I will expose publicly your (hypocritical) righteousness. I will show openly how vain your works, in having recourse to foreign alliances, shall prove.”
Never was a louder cry against the hypocrisy, nor a more cutting reproof of the wickedness, of a people professing a national established religion, having all the forms of godliness without a particle of its power. Politically speaking, was ever any thing more ill-advised?
A whole nation called to fast to implore G-d's blessing on wars carried on for the purposes of wrath and ambition. How can any nation pretend to fast or worship G-d at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O you most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our
L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach, while ye continue in this traffic!
G-d sets forth the malice and disdain of the hypocrites, who grudge against Him, if their works are not accepted. He convinces the hypocrites by the second table and by their duty toward their neighbor, that they have neither faith nor religion. So long as you use contention and oppression, you’re fasting and prayers will not be heard.
When L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach promised to send the Comforter He added, When He shall come He shall convince (John 16:7,8); for conviction must prepare for comfort, and must also separate between the precious and the vile, and mark out those to whom comfort does not belong.
When the prophet went about to show them their transgressions they pleaded that they could see no transgressions which they were guilty of; for they were diligent and constant in attending on G-d's worship--and what more would he have of them?
He owns the matter of fact to be true. As far as hypocrites do that which is good, they shall not be denied the praise of it; let them make their best of it. It is owned that they have a form of godliness.
1. They go to church, and observe their hours of prayer: They seek G-d daily; they are very constant in their devotions and never omit them nor suffer any thing to put them by.
2. They love to hear good preaching; They delight to know My ways, and the stony ground, that received the seed of the word with joy; it is to them as a lovely song, Ezekiel 33:32.
3. They seem to take great pleasure in the exercises of religion and to be in their element when they are at their devotions: They delight in approaching to G-d, not for His sake to whom they approach, but for the sake of some pleasing circumstance, the company, or the festival.
4. They are inquisitive concerning their duty and seem desirous only to know it, making no question but that then they should do it: They ask of Ne the ordinances of justice, the rules of piety in the worship of G-d, the rules of equity in their dealings with men, both which are ordinances of justice.
5. They appear to the eye of the world as if they made conscience of doing their duty: They are as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their G-d; others took them for such, and they themselves pretended to be such. Nothing lay open to view that was a contradiction to their profession, but they seemed to be such as they should be. Men may go a great way towards heaven and yet come short; nay, may go to hell with a good reputation.
The displeasure which these hypocrites conceived against G-d for not accepting the services which they themselves had a mighty opinion of, having gone about to put a cheat upon G-d by their external services, here they go about to pick a quarrel with G-d for not being pleased with their services, as if He had not done fairly or justly by them. How they boast of themselves, and magnify their own performances! They pretended to search for those sins which provoked God to threaten them with his judgments, the shows of religion, though they show ever so fair in the eye of the world, will not be accepted of G-d without the substance of it.
The heritage of believers that have developed a relationship with G-d, is what they shall not only be portioned with hereafter, but fed with now, fed with the hopes of it, and not flattered, fed with the earnests and foretastes of it; and those that are so fed have reason to say that they are well fed. In order that we may depend upon it, it is added, "The mouth of the L-rd has spoken it; you may take G-d's word for it, for He cannot lie nor deceive; what His mouth has spoken His hand will give, His hand will do, and not one iota or tittle of His good promise shall fall to the ground. Blessed, therefore, thrice blessed, is He that does this, and lays hold on it, that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it.
[Isa. 58:13] If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the L-RD, honorable; and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words:
To keep the Sabbath in an idle manner is the Sabbath of oxen and asses; to keep the Sabbath in joviality (pleasure, sports, etc) is the Sabbath of the golden calf; and to keep it in immorality, drunkenness, and licentiousness is the Sabbath of Satan, the devil's holiday.
“I will expose publicly your (hypocritical) righteousness. I will show openly how vain your works, in having recourse to foreign alliances, shall prove.”
Never was a louder cry against the hypocrisy, nor a more cutting reproof of the wickedness, of a people professing a national established religion, having all the forms of godliness without a particle of its power. Politically speaking, was ever any thing more ill-advised?
A whole nation called to fast to implore G-d's blessing on wars carried on for the purposes of wrath and ambition. How can any nation pretend to fast or worship G-d at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O you most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our
L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach, while ye continue in this traffic!
G-d sets forth the malice and disdain of the hypocrites, who grudge against Him, if their works are not accepted. He convinces the hypocrites by the second table and by their duty toward their neighbor, that they have neither faith nor religion. So long as you use contention and oppression, you’re fasting and prayers will not be heard.
When L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach promised to send the Comforter He added, When He shall come He shall convince (John 16:7,8); for conviction must prepare for comfort, and must also separate between the precious and the vile, and mark out those to whom comfort does not belong.
When the prophet went about to show them their transgressions they pleaded that they could see no transgressions which they were guilty of; for they were diligent and constant in attending on G-d's worship--and what more would he have of them?
He owns the matter of fact to be true. As far as hypocrites do that which is good, they shall not be denied the praise of it; let them make their best of it. It is owned that they have a form of godliness.
1. They go to church, and observe their hours of prayer: They seek G-d daily; they are very constant in their devotions and never omit them nor suffer any thing to put them by.
2. They love to hear good preaching; They delight to know My ways, and the stony ground, that received the seed of the word with joy; it is to them as a lovely song, Ezekiel 33:32.
3. They seem to take great pleasure in the exercises of religion and to be in their element when they are at their devotions: They delight in approaching to G-d, not for His sake to whom they approach, but for the sake of some pleasing circumstance, the company, or the festival.
4. They are inquisitive concerning their duty and seem desirous only to know it, making no question but that then they should do it: They ask of Ne the ordinances of justice, the rules of piety in the worship of G-d, the rules of equity in their dealings with men, both which are ordinances of justice.
5. They appear to the eye of the world as if they made conscience of doing their duty: They are as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their G-d; others took them for such, and they themselves pretended to be such. Nothing lay open to view that was a contradiction to their profession, but they seemed to be such as they should be. Men may go a great way towards heaven and yet come short; nay, may go to hell with a good reputation.
The displeasure which these hypocrites conceived against G-d for not accepting the services which they themselves had a mighty opinion of, having gone about to put a cheat upon G-d by their external services, here they go about to pick a quarrel with G-d for not being pleased with their services, as if He had not done fairly or justly by them. How they boast of themselves, and magnify their own performances! They pretended to search for those sins which provoked God to threaten them with his judgments, the shows of religion, though they show ever so fair in the eye of the world, will not be accepted of G-d without the substance of it.
The heritage of believers that have developed a relationship with G-d, is what they shall not only be portioned with hereafter, but fed with now, fed with the hopes of it, and not flattered, fed with the earnests and foretastes of it; and those that are so fed have reason to say that they are well fed. In order that we may depend upon it, it is added, "The mouth of the L-rd has spoken it; you may take G-d's word for it, for He cannot lie nor deceive; what His mouth has spoken His hand will give, His hand will do, and not one iota or tittle of His good promise shall fall to the ground. Blessed, therefore, thrice blessed, is He that does this, and lays hold on it, that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it.
[Isa. 58:13] If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the L-RD, honorable; and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words:
To keep the Sabbath in an idle manner is the Sabbath of oxen and asses; to keep the Sabbath in joviality (pleasure, sports, etc) is the Sabbath of the golden calf; and to keep it in immorality, drunkenness, and licentiousness is the Sabbath of Satan, the devil's holiday.
Foreign Invasions
[Isa. 57:1] The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
In the midst of the excesses of the unfaithful watchmen, most of the few that are godly perish: partly by displeasure at the prevailing ungodliness; partly by violent death in persecution, the evils about to come in punishment of the national sins, foreign invasions. The removal of righteous persons as an awful symptom of the approach of Divine judgments, we have today become a nation of invasions, invasions I may say we have allowed.
The prophetess Huldah likewise promised Josiah that, You shalt be gathered to your grave in peace, neither shall your eye see all the evil which I will bring upon this place (2 Kgs. 22:20). Though the righteous were ignored and persecuted by the wicked leaders, G-d would not forsake them. When they perished, when merciful men were taken away, G-d used it to bless the righteous, to take them away from evil and to allow them to enter into peace. By their death, the righteous would escape the temptations of their godless environment, and they would not have to witness the awful punishment that would fall upon the godless nation. They were actually saved from the horrors of siege and captivity; and they entered into the peace of `Abraham's bosom' (Lk. 16:22), there to await Messiah's resurrection.
Do we not deserve Divine judgments since we left the ‘one nation’ under G-d? G-d uses the elements sometimes to carry out His judgments. There are evil times coming, great calamities, and sore judgments upon men; and therefore righteous ones are gathered out of the world, and are gathered home, and safely housed in heaven, that they may escape the evil coming upon a wicked generation.
G-d challenges evil-doers; simply asking "Who do you think you are? Who are you mocking? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of falsehood?" This speaks to a common sin of human nature - to see the sins or the problems of others, while being blind to our own sins or problems.
In opposition to such vain confidence, the prophet enjoins trust in G-d, with whom the penitent and humble are sure to find acceptance, and from whom they should obtain temporal and spiritual deliverances. “And of whom have you been afraid, or feared, that you have lied and not remembered Me”: Here, G-d confronts the fact that people do not fear Him, and that they do fear someone or something else. Nor taken it to your heart: Their superficial relationship was connected to a low view of G-d, and their lack of respect for Him. Why did people lack respect for Him? In part, because He showed mercy and did not punish their sin immediately. They made a crucial error, common to fallen humanity: they mistook G-d's mercy and forbearance for weakness or lack of resolve. G-d says: “he who puts his trust in Me shall possess the land, and shall inherit My holy mountain”. Trust in G-d makes a person secure, while trust in one's self or in idols ends in ruin.
Awful condition of the wicked and finally impenitent, prepare the way, “take the stumbling block out of the way of My people”: Whatever gets in the way of our getting right with G-d must be taken out of the way.
"I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will also lead him, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners." "I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near," says the Father, "And I will heal him." But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. "There is no peace," says my G-d, "for the wicked."
2 Chron. 7:14 “If my people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
In the midst of the excesses of the unfaithful watchmen, most of the few that are godly perish: partly by displeasure at the prevailing ungodliness; partly by violent death in persecution, the evils about to come in punishment of the national sins, foreign invasions. The removal of righteous persons as an awful symptom of the approach of Divine judgments, we have today become a nation of invasions, invasions I may say we have allowed.
The prophetess Huldah likewise promised Josiah that, You shalt be gathered to your grave in peace, neither shall your eye see all the evil which I will bring upon this place (2 Kgs. 22:20). Though the righteous were ignored and persecuted by the wicked leaders, G-d would not forsake them. When they perished, when merciful men were taken away, G-d used it to bless the righteous, to take them away from evil and to allow them to enter into peace. By their death, the righteous would escape the temptations of their godless environment, and they would not have to witness the awful punishment that would fall upon the godless nation. They were actually saved from the horrors of siege and captivity; and they entered into the peace of `Abraham's bosom' (Lk. 16:22), there to await Messiah's resurrection.
Do we not deserve Divine judgments since we left the ‘one nation’ under G-d? G-d uses the elements sometimes to carry out His judgments. There are evil times coming, great calamities, and sore judgments upon men; and therefore righteous ones are gathered out of the world, and are gathered home, and safely housed in heaven, that they may escape the evil coming upon a wicked generation.
G-d challenges evil-doers; simply asking "Who do you think you are? Who are you mocking? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of falsehood?" This speaks to a common sin of human nature - to see the sins or the problems of others, while being blind to our own sins or problems.
In opposition to such vain confidence, the prophet enjoins trust in G-d, with whom the penitent and humble are sure to find acceptance, and from whom they should obtain temporal and spiritual deliverances. “And of whom have you been afraid, or feared, that you have lied and not remembered Me”: Here, G-d confronts the fact that people do not fear Him, and that they do fear someone or something else. Nor taken it to your heart: Their superficial relationship was connected to a low view of G-d, and their lack of respect for Him. Why did people lack respect for Him? In part, because He showed mercy and did not punish their sin immediately. They made a crucial error, common to fallen humanity: they mistook G-d's mercy and forbearance for weakness or lack of resolve. G-d says: “he who puts his trust in Me shall possess the land, and shall inherit My holy mountain”. Trust in G-d makes a person secure, while trust in one's self or in idols ends in ruin.
Awful condition of the wicked and finally impenitent, prepare the way, “take the stumbling block out of the way of My people”: Whatever gets in the way of our getting right with G-d must be taken out of the way.
"I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will also lead him, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners." "I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near," says the Father, "And I will heal him." But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. "There is no peace," says my G-d, "for the wicked."
2 Chron. 7:14 “If my people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Rejection of Paul
[Acts 23:2] And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.
The high priesthood was in a state of great confusion and constant change at this time (as appears from Josephus), and the missionary's long absence from Jerusalem, and perhaps the manner in which he was habited or the seat he occupied, with other circumstances to us unknown, may account for such a speech. But if he was thrown off his guard by an insult which touched him to the quick, "what can surpass the grace with which he recovered his self-possession, and the frankness with which he acknowledged his error?
When Paul perceived from the discussion which plainly had by this time arisen between the parties, he raised his voice above both parties trying to justify himself.
I am a Pharisee; the son of a Pharisee, the true reading seems to be, "the son of Pharisees," that is, belonging to a family who from father to son had long been such.
Of the hope and resurrection of the dead that is, not the vague hope of immortality, but the definite expectation of the resurrection.
I am called in question, by this clever stroke, perceiving the assembly to consist of Sadducees and Pharisees, he thought it best thus to divide the council, by introducing a question on which they different and were at issue. Paul engages the whole Pharisaic section of the council in his favor; the doctrine of a resurrection being common to both, though they would totally differ in their application of it. This was, of course, quite warrantable, and the more so as it was already evident that no impartiality in trying his cause was to be looked for from such an assembly.
‘Let us not fight against G-d,’ seem not to belong to the original text. In this case, either the meaning is, "If he has had some divine communication, what of that?" or, the conclusion of the sentence may have been drowned in the hubbub.
The Sanhedrim trying the cause, the proceedings quickly consisted in the one politic party attempting to seize the prisoner, and the other to protect him.
The Jewish political party hated Paul that they said: we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul. What will not unscrupulous and hypocritical religionists do under the mask of religion?
If the Paul’s sisters young son was at this time residing at Jerusalem for his education, like Paul himself, he may have got at the schools those hints of the conspiracy on which he so promptly acted. Thus, as is so often the case with G-d's people, not till the last moment, when the plot was all prepared, did deliverance come. An alarming guard for such an occasion; but Roman officials felt their honor concerned in the preservation of the public peace, and the danger of an attempted rescue would seem to require it. The force at Jerusalem was large enough to spare this convoy, at midnight.
Claudius was the Roman name Paul would take on purchasing his citizenship. And Lysias was his Greek family name.
Amidst all the governors difficulty in getting at the charges laid against Paul, enough, no doubt, come out to satisfy him that the whole was a question of religion, and that there was no case for a civil tribunal. They took Paul to Antipatris that was nearly forty miles from Jerusalem, on the way to Cæsarea; so named by Herod in honor of his father, Antipater. Paul's father was Roman, making Paul a citizen of that city. He lived in Tarsus which is southeast of Asia Minor in what is now modern-day Turkey. He was Jewish (2 Cor 11:22) of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5) and educated as a Pharisee by the well-known Gamaliel, so he was familiar with Hebrew and Greek languages. Paul being a half-breed, his father Roman and his mother Jewish, could contribute to his sway to the Gentile side. The Jews accepted Paul as a missionary but never as an apostle. Could also be why the gentiles preach more from Paul’s letters than any where else.
Unlike the original 12 apostles of the New Testament who had first-hand knowledge of Y’Shua, Paul's faith rests primarily on the resurrected L-rd. Spiritual renewal by grace and understanding forgiveness are imperative to the success of Paul's ministry and Christian walk.
The high priesthood was in a state of great confusion and constant change at this time (as appears from Josephus), and the missionary's long absence from Jerusalem, and perhaps the manner in which he was habited or the seat he occupied, with other circumstances to us unknown, may account for such a speech. But if he was thrown off his guard by an insult which touched him to the quick, "what can surpass the grace with which he recovered his self-possession, and the frankness with which he acknowledged his error?
When Paul perceived from the discussion which plainly had by this time arisen between the parties, he raised his voice above both parties trying to justify himself.
I am a Pharisee; the son of a Pharisee, the true reading seems to be, "the son of Pharisees," that is, belonging to a family who from father to son had long been such.
Of the hope and resurrection of the dead that is, not the vague hope of immortality, but the definite expectation of the resurrection.
I am called in question, by this clever stroke, perceiving the assembly to consist of Sadducees and Pharisees, he thought it best thus to divide the council, by introducing a question on which they different and were at issue. Paul engages the whole Pharisaic section of the council in his favor; the doctrine of a resurrection being common to both, though they would totally differ in their application of it. This was, of course, quite warrantable, and the more so as it was already evident that no impartiality in trying his cause was to be looked for from such an assembly.
‘Let us not fight against G-d,’ seem not to belong to the original text. In this case, either the meaning is, "If he has had some divine communication, what of that?" or, the conclusion of the sentence may have been drowned in the hubbub.
The Sanhedrim trying the cause, the proceedings quickly consisted in the one politic party attempting to seize the prisoner, and the other to protect him.
The Jewish political party hated Paul that they said: we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul. What will not unscrupulous and hypocritical religionists do under the mask of religion?
If the Paul’s sisters young son was at this time residing at Jerusalem for his education, like Paul himself, he may have got at the schools those hints of the conspiracy on which he so promptly acted. Thus, as is so often the case with G-d's people, not till the last moment, when the plot was all prepared, did deliverance come. An alarming guard for such an occasion; but Roman officials felt their honor concerned in the preservation of the public peace, and the danger of an attempted rescue would seem to require it. The force at Jerusalem was large enough to spare this convoy, at midnight.
Claudius was the Roman name Paul would take on purchasing his citizenship. And Lysias was his Greek family name.
Amidst all the governors difficulty in getting at the charges laid against Paul, enough, no doubt, come out to satisfy him that the whole was a question of religion, and that there was no case for a civil tribunal. They took Paul to Antipatris that was nearly forty miles from Jerusalem, on the way to Cæsarea; so named by Herod in honor of his father, Antipater. Paul's father was Roman, making Paul a citizen of that city. He lived in Tarsus which is southeast of Asia Minor in what is now modern-day Turkey. He was Jewish (2 Cor 11:22) of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5) and educated as a Pharisee by the well-known Gamaliel, so he was familiar with Hebrew and Greek languages. Paul being a half-breed, his father Roman and his mother Jewish, could contribute to his sway to the Gentile side. The Jews accepted Paul as a missionary but never as an apostle. Could also be why the gentiles preach more from Paul’s letters than any where else.
Unlike the original 12 apostles of the New Testament who had first-hand knowledge of Y’Shua, Paul's faith rests primarily on the resurrected L-rd. Spiritual renewal by grace and understanding forgiveness are imperative to the success of Paul's ministry and Christian walk.
Privileges of Adoption
[Isa. 56:6] Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;
Join to the L-rd you Gentiles, (Jer 50:6). "My people have become lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and have forgotten their resting place. “Conditions of admission to the privileges of adoption!
Often when people feel like foreigners or outcasts, the feelings become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is only be refusing to embrace such feelings, and choosing instead to trust in G-d's promise, that such feelings can be broken. If G-d says you belong, then you belong.
For many, this isn't good enough. They demand the recognition and honor of men. It isn't enough for G-d to give them a place and a name in His house. They must have a place and a name among men. Life is easier and more pleasant when we have a place and a name among men; but we must be able to find contentment having our place and name only with G-d.
G-d wanted His Temple - His house - to not only be a place where the Jewish people would worship Him, but to be a house of prayer for all nations. G-d wanted to expand the vision of Israel beyond her own borders, so they would know that G-d loved the perishing world and wanted them to love them also.
Three things are here promised them whom are adopted:
1. Assistance: "I will bring them to my holy mountain, not only bid them welcome when they come, but incline them to come, will show them the way, and lead them in it."
2. Acceptance: “The prayers and praises of devout Gentiles shall be as pleasing to Me as those of the pious Jews, and no difference shall be made between you; for, though you are Gentiles by birth, yet through grace you shall be looked upon as the believing seed of faithful Abraham and the praying seed of wrestling Jacob.”
3. Comfort: “They shall not only be accepted, but they themselves shall have the pleasure of it: I will make them joyful in My house of prayer. Though you came mourning to the house of prayer, you shall go away rejoicing, for you shall there find such ease, by casting your cares and burdens upon Me. You shall go away and your countenance shall be no more sad. Many a sorrowful spirit has been made joyful in the house of prayer.”
From words of comfort the prophet here, by a very sudden change of his style, passes to words of reproof and conviction.
His watchmen are blind: The leaders of G-d's people are blind; judgment is on the way, but they don't see it and warn His people. They don't fulfill their purpose as watchmen. They are ignorant, like dumb dogs, simply sleeping.
They are shepherds who cannot understand: These are unfaithful shepherds, who only look everyone for his own gain, or the gain of their personal churches.
The shepherds, who should have been the watchmen of the flock, to discover the approaches of the beasts of prey, to keep them off, and protect the sheep, were treacherous and careless, minded not their business, nor made any conscience of the trust reposed in them, and so the sheep became an easy prey to the wild beasts.
Many times believers eat their young! How many have fallen away or ran off!
They were wretchedly ignorant of their work, and very unfit to teach, being so ill-taught themselves: His watchmen are blind, and therefore utterly unfit to be watchmen. If the seers see not, who shall see for us? If the light that is in us be darkness, how great is that darkness!
What little knowledge they had they made no use of it; no one was the better for it. As they were blind watchmen, that could not discern the danger, so they were dumb dogs that would not give warning of it. And why are the dogs set to guard the sheep if they cannot bark to waken the shepherd? They fill their selves with intoxicating drink: Worse than being passively ignorant and blind, they are actively wicked. As judgment approaches, they simply drink and get drunk in their own success. Tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant: Their blind faith in progress has replaced a reasoned faith in G-d. They are ripe for judgment, and unprepared for judgment. Since the picture of Isaiah 56:9 relates to the pictures in the Book of Revelation regarding the return of Y’Shua, we can see this as a picture of the leaders of the unprepared world - perhaps even the unprepared church - at the return of the Messiah. “But boast not thyself of to-morrow when perhaps this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
If you have been adopted into the family of G-d, you receive all G-d’s promises. You are included in to celebrate His entire appointed Feast. You are subject to follow all the Noahide Laws. When you are adopted you are to follow everything He has written and spoken. What better family could you find to be adopted into?
Enjoy the privileges of adoption!
Join to the L-rd you Gentiles, (Jer 50:6). "My people have become lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and have forgotten their resting place. “Conditions of admission to the privileges of adoption!
Often when people feel like foreigners or outcasts, the feelings become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is only be refusing to embrace such feelings, and choosing instead to trust in G-d's promise, that such feelings can be broken. If G-d says you belong, then you belong.
For many, this isn't good enough. They demand the recognition and honor of men. It isn't enough for G-d to give them a place and a name in His house. They must have a place and a name among men. Life is easier and more pleasant when we have a place and a name among men; but we must be able to find contentment having our place and name only with G-d.
G-d wanted His Temple - His house - to not only be a place where the Jewish people would worship Him, but to be a house of prayer for all nations. G-d wanted to expand the vision of Israel beyond her own borders, so they would know that G-d loved the perishing world and wanted them to love them also.
Three things are here promised them whom are adopted:
1. Assistance: "I will bring them to my holy mountain, not only bid them welcome when they come, but incline them to come, will show them the way, and lead them in it."
2. Acceptance: “The prayers and praises of devout Gentiles shall be as pleasing to Me as those of the pious Jews, and no difference shall be made between you; for, though you are Gentiles by birth, yet through grace you shall be looked upon as the believing seed of faithful Abraham and the praying seed of wrestling Jacob.”
3. Comfort: “They shall not only be accepted, but they themselves shall have the pleasure of it: I will make them joyful in My house of prayer. Though you came mourning to the house of prayer, you shall go away rejoicing, for you shall there find such ease, by casting your cares and burdens upon Me. You shall go away and your countenance shall be no more sad. Many a sorrowful spirit has been made joyful in the house of prayer.”
From words of comfort the prophet here, by a very sudden change of his style, passes to words of reproof and conviction.
His watchmen are blind: The leaders of G-d's people are blind; judgment is on the way, but they don't see it and warn His people. They don't fulfill their purpose as watchmen. They are ignorant, like dumb dogs, simply sleeping.
They are shepherds who cannot understand: These are unfaithful shepherds, who only look everyone for his own gain, or the gain of their personal churches.
The shepherds, who should have been the watchmen of the flock, to discover the approaches of the beasts of prey, to keep them off, and protect the sheep, were treacherous and careless, minded not their business, nor made any conscience of the trust reposed in them, and so the sheep became an easy prey to the wild beasts.
Many times believers eat their young! How many have fallen away or ran off!
They were wretchedly ignorant of their work, and very unfit to teach, being so ill-taught themselves: His watchmen are blind, and therefore utterly unfit to be watchmen. If the seers see not, who shall see for us? If the light that is in us be darkness, how great is that darkness!
What little knowledge they had they made no use of it; no one was the better for it. As they were blind watchmen, that could not discern the danger, so they were dumb dogs that would not give warning of it. And why are the dogs set to guard the sheep if they cannot bark to waken the shepherd? They fill their selves with intoxicating drink: Worse than being passively ignorant and blind, they are actively wicked. As judgment approaches, they simply drink and get drunk in their own success. Tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant: Their blind faith in progress has replaced a reasoned faith in G-d. They are ripe for judgment, and unprepared for judgment. Since the picture of Isaiah 56:9 relates to the pictures in the Book of Revelation regarding the return of Y’Shua, we can see this as a picture of the leaders of the unprepared world - perhaps even the unprepared church - at the return of the Messiah. “But boast not thyself of to-morrow when perhaps this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
If you have been adopted into the family of G-d, you receive all G-d’s promises. You are included in to celebrate His entire appointed Feast. You are subject to follow all the Noahide Laws. When you are adopted you are to follow everything He has written and spoken. What better family could you find to be adopted into?
Enjoy the privileges of adoption!
Call of the Gentiles
[Isa. 5:5] Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.
This chapter first displays the fullness, freeness, excellence, and everlasting nature and foretells again the enlargement of Messiah's kingdom, 1-5; it was the call of the Gentle world to faith the result of G-d’s grace to the Jew first. The universal invitation to the Gentiles. This view leads the prophet to exhort all to seize the precious opportunity of sharing in such blessings, which were not, however, to be expected without repentance and reformation, 6, 7. And as the things now and formerly predicted were so great as to appear incredible, the prophet points to the omnipotence of G-d, who would infallibly accomplish His word, and bring about those glorious deliverances which He had promised; the happy effects of which are again set forth by images beautiful and poetical in the highest degree, 8-13.
Ho! This is a short, significant appeal, urging you to be wise enough to attend to your own interests.
Water is a metaphor for the Law and Wisdom: as the world cannot subsist without water, so it is impossible that it can subsist without wisdom. The Law is also compared to wine and milk: to wine because wine rejoices the heart, as it is written: 'The statutes of the L-rd are right, rejoicing the heart,' Psalms 19:8. It is compared also to milk, because milk is the subsistence of the child; so are the words of the Law the nourishment of his soul who walks in the Divine teaching, and grows up under it.
No money? Yet, in verse 2, it is said, "ye spend money." A seeming paradox. Ye are really spiritual bankrupts: but thinking yourselves to have money, namely, a devotion of your own making, ye lavish it on that "which is not bread," that is, on idols, whether literal or spiritual. Why do we spend money for what can't satisfy? This is a remarkably relevant question, in light of all the things we can pour our time and money and effort into things which will never satisfy they way G-d can satisfy.
Buy . . . without money is another paradox. We are bought, but not with a price paid by ourselves (1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Pet. 1:18, 19). In a different sense we are to "buy" salvation, namely, by parting with everything which comes between us and Messiah who has bought it for us and by making it our own (Matt 13:44, 46; Lk. 12:33; Rev. 3:18).
Not bread? (Hab 2:13). It is the “bread of deceit” (Pr 20:17). Contrast this with the "bread of life" (John 6:32, 35; also LK. 14:16-20). Hearken . . . and eat; When two imperatives are joined, the second expresses the consequence of obeying the command in the first (Gen. 42:18). By hearkening ye shall eat "buy and eat." By buying, and so making it your own. Why should ye be so zealously attached to a doctrine from which your souls derive neither comfort nor nourishment?
First, we must listen diligently. The satisfaction G-d promises doesn't come to those who don't listen, and listen diligently. It takes time, attention, and effort to listen diligently, and some aren't willing do this.
Second, we must eat what is good. This requires some discernment. We must choose what is good, and then eat that. Many just simply eat whatever spiritual meal is set before them, without taking care to see that it is good.
Third, we must let your soul delight itself in abundance. Even when we listen, even when we eat what is good, we still must let our soul delight itself in abundance. You can sit down at a great spiritual meal, but by your stubborn or bad attitude, simply not let your soul delight itself in abundance.
I will make an everlasting covenant (Jer 32:40; 2 Sam 23:5) even the sure mercies of David, the mercies of grace (63:7; John 1:16) which I covenanted to give to David, and especially to Messiah, his antitype. Quoted in Acts 13:34. David did not lead through popularity polls or just giving the people what they wanted. He witnessed something from G-d, and he gave testimony of it to the people. Notice that David was a leader and a commander for the people. Not a leader and a commander of the people, but for the people.
The Messiah bore witness even unto death and claims, and plan of redeeming love (John 18:37; Rev. 1:5). Revelation is a "testimony"; because it is propounded to be received on the authority of the Giver, and not merely because it can be proved by arguments. The Commander is the "lawgiver".
Nations are gradation; from Israel, one nation, the Gospel spread to many nations, and will do so more fully on Israel's conversion.
Casting yourselves wholly on His mercy, unrighteous man! Hebrew, "man of iniquity"; true of all men. The "wicked" sins more openly in "his way"; the "unrighteous" refers to the more subtle workings of sin in the "thoughts." All are guilty in the latter respect, thought many fancy themselves safe, because not openly "wicked in ways" (Ps 94:11). The parallelism is that of gradation. The progress of the penitent is to be from negative reformation, "forsaking his way," and a farther step, "his thoughts," to positive repentance, "returning to the L-rd" (the only true repentance, Zec 12:10), and making G-d his G-d, along with the other children of G-d (the crowning point; appropriation of G-d to ourselves: "to our G-d"). "Return" implies that man originally walked with G-d, but has apostatized. Isaiah saith, "Our G-d," the G-d of the believing Israelites; those themselves redeemed desire others to come to their G-d (Ps 34:8; Rev. 22:17).
Abundantly pardon, means literally, "multiply to pardon," still more than "have mercy"; G-d's graciousness is felt more and more the longer one knows Him (Ps 130:7).
G-d's "thoughts" and "ways" in pardoning are not regulated by the proportion of the former, as men would be towards his fellow man who offended him. The hearts of men, once barren of spirituality, shall be made, by the outpouring of the Spirit under Messiah, to bear fruits of righteousness (5:6; Deut. 32:2; 2 Sam. 23:4; Ps 72:6).
The Word falling on the hard heart; it sometimes works a change at last; and even if so, it leaves men without excuse. The full accomplishment of this verse, and 55:12, 13, is, however, to be at the Jews' final restoration and conversion of the world (11:9-12; 60:1-5, 21).
These are general poetical images, expressing a great and happy change for the better. The thorn is an emblem of the wicked (2 Sam. 23:6; Mic 7:4).
Fir tree is the godly (60:13; Ps 92:12). Compare as to the change wrought, Rom. 6:19.
Brier is an emblem of uncultivation (5:6).
Myrtle in Hebrew, Hedes, from which comes Hedassah, the original name of Esther. Type of the Messianic Church; for it is a lowly, though beautiful, fragrant, and evergreen shrub (Ps 92:13, 14).
For a name for an everlasting sign is a perpetual memorial to the glory of Jehovah (Jer 13:11; 33:9). Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
How far is the distance between G-d's thoughts and ours?
How far is the distance between His ways and ours?
This chapter first displays the fullness, freeness, excellence, and everlasting nature and foretells again the enlargement of Messiah's kingdom, 1-5; it was the call of the Gentle world to faith the result of G-d’s grace to the Jew first. The universal invitation to the Gentiles. This view leads the prophet to exhort all to seize the precious opportunity of sharing in such blessings, which were not, however, to be expected without repentance and reformation, 6, 7. And as the things now and formerly predicted were so great as to appear incredible, the prophet points to the omnipotence of G-d, who would infallibly accomplish His word, and bring about those glorious deliverances which He had promised; the happy effects of which are again set forth by images beautiful and poetical in the highest degree, 8-13.
Ho! This is a short, significant appeal, urging you to be wise enough to attend to your own interests.
Water is a metaphor for the Law and Wisdom: as the world cannot subsist without water, so it is impossible that it can subsist without wisdom. The Law is also compared to wine and milk: to wine because wine rejoices the heart, as it is written: 'The statutes of the L-rd are right, rejoicing the heart,' Psalms 19:8. It is compared also to milk, because milk is the subsistence of the child; so are the words of the Law the nourishment of his soul who walks in the Divine teaching, and grows up under it.
No money? Yet, in verse 2, it is said, "ye spend money." A seeming paradox. Ye are really spiritual bankrupts: but thinking yourselves to have money, namely, a devotion of your own making, ye lavish it on that "which is not bread," that is, on idols, whether literal or spiritual. Why do we spend money for what can't satisfy? This is a remarkably relevant question, in light of all the things we can pour our time and money and effort into things which will never satisfy they way G-d can satisfy.
Buy . . . without money is another paradox. We are bought, but not with a price paid by ourselves (1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Pet. 1:18, 19). In a different sense we are to "buy" salvation, namely, by parting with everything which comes between us and Messiah who has bought it for us and by making it our own (Matt 13:44, 46; Lk. 12:33; Rev. 3:18).
Not bread? (Hab 2:13). It is the “bread of deceit” (Pr 20:17). Contrast this with the "bread of life" (John 6:32, 35; also LK. 14:16-20). Hearken . . . and eat; When two imperatives are joined, the second expresses the consequence of obeying the command in the first (Gen. 42:18). By hearkening ye shall eat "buy and eat." By buying, and so making it your own. Why should ye be so zealously attached to a doctrine from which your souls derive neither comfort nor nourishment?
First, we must listen diligently. The satisfaction G-d promises doesn't come to those who don't listen, and listen diligently. It takes time, attention, and effort to listen diligently, and some aren't willing do this.
Second, we must eat what is good. This requires some discernment. We must choose what is good, and then eat that. Many just simply eat whatever spiritual meal is set before them, without taking care to see that it is good.
Third, we must let your soul delight itself in abundance. Even when we listen, even when we eat what is good, we still must let our soul delight itself in abundance. You can sit down at a great spiritual meal, but by your stubborn or bad attitude, simply not let your soul delight itself in abundance.
I will make an everlasting covenant (Jer 32:40; 2 Sam 23:5) even the sure mercies of David, the mercies of grace (63:7; John 1:16) which I covenanted to give to David, and especially to Messiah, his antitype. Quoted in Acts 13:34. David did not lead through popularity polls or just giving the people what they wanted. He witnessed something from G-d, and he gave testimony of it to the people. Notice that David was a leader and a commander for the people. Not a leader and a commander of the people, but for the people.
The Messiah bore witness even unto death and claims, and plan of redeeming love (John 18:37; Rev. 1:5). Revelation is a "testimony"; because it is propounded to be received on the authority of the Giver, and not merely because it can be proved by arguments. The Commander is the "lawgiver".
Nations are gradation; from Israel, one nation, the Gospel spread to many nations, and will do so more fully on Israel's conversion.
Casting yourselves wholly on His mercy, unrighteous man! Hebrew, "man of iniquity"; true of all men. The "wicked" sins more openly in "his way"; the "unrighteous" refers to the more subtle workings of sin in the "thoughts." All are guilty in the latter respect, thought many fancy themselves safe, because not openly "wicked in ways" (Ps 94:11). The parallelism is that of gradation. The progress of the penitent is to be from negative reformation, "forsaking his way," and a farther step, "his thoughts," to positive repentance, "returning to the L-rd" (the only true repentance, Zec 12:10), and making G-d his G-d, along with the other children of G-d (the crowning point; appropriation of G-d to ourselves: "to our G-d"). "Return" implies that man originally walked with G-d, but has apostatized. Isaiah saith, "Our G-d," the G-d of the believing Israelites; those themselves redeemed desire others to come to their G-d (Ps 34:8; Rev. 22:17).
Abundantly pardon, means literally, "multiply to pardon," still more than "have mercy"; G-d's graciousness is felt more and more the longer one knows Him (Ps 130:7).
G-d's "thoughts" and "ways" in pardoning are not regulated by the proportion of the former, as men would be towards his fellow man who offended him. The hearts of men, once barren of spirituality, shall be made, by the outpouring of the Spirit under Messiah, to bear fruits of righteousness (5:6; Deut. 32:2; 2 Sam. 23:4; Ps 72:6).
The Word falling on the hard heart; it sometimes works a change at last; and even if so, it leaves men without excuse. The full accomplishment of this verse, and 55:12, 13, is, however, to be at the Jews' final restoration and conversion of the world (11:9-12; 60:1-5, 21).
These are general poetical images, expressing a great and happy change for the better. The thorn is an emblem of the wicked (2 Sam. 23:6; Mic 7:4).
Fir tree is the godly (60:13; Ps 92:12). Compare as to the change wrought, Rom. 6:19.
Brier is an emblem of uncultivation (5:6).
Myrtle in Hebrew, Hedes, from which comes Hedassah, the original name of Esther. Type of the Messianic Church; for it is a lowly, though beautiful, fragrant, and evergreen shrub (Ps 92:13, 14).
For a name for an everlasting sign is a perpetual memorial to the glory of Jehovah (Jer 13:11; 33:9). Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
How far is the distance between G-d's thoughts and ours?
How far is the distance between His ways and ours?
Vanity of Vows
[Ecc. 5:1] Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
[2] Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
[3] For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
[4] When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
[5] Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
[6] Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
[7] For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
[8] If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.
[9] Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
[10] He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
[11] When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
[12] The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
[13] There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
[14] But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
[15] As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
[16] And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
[17] All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
[18] Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.
[19] Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.
[20] For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.
[2] Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
[3] For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
[4] When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
[5] Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
[6] Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
[7] For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
[8] If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.
[9] Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
[10] He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
[11] When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
[12] The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
[13] There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
[14] But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
[15] As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
[16] And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
[17] All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
[18] Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.
[19] Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.
[20] For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.
Morning Star
Isa: 14:12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Rev. 2:28 And I will give him the morning star.
This morning: 1) pertaining to the morning. Him is the one who overcomes.
Rev. 22:16 I Y’Shua have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
This morning: 1) early
G-d's Bride
[Isa. 58:5] For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
Israel converted is compared to a wife (54:5; 62:5) put away for unfaithfulness, but now forgiven and taken home again. The converted Gentiles are represented as a new offspring of the long-forsaken but now restored wife. The pre-eminence of the Hebrew Church as the mother Church of Messianic is the leading idea; the conversion of the Gentiles is mentioned only as part of her felicity.
The whole chapter is G-d’s restored love for His bride. In ancient Israel, the barren woman carried an enormous load of shame and disgrace. Here, G-d likens captive Israel to a barren woman who can now sing - because now more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman. The children mention are the Gentiles that were adopted by special grace into the original Messianic church (54:3; 49:20, 21). Israel and her children, are distinguished from ‘the Gentiles’, the adopted chidren. They were the married wife’s spiritual children, when Israel was still a married wife (under the Law, before the Babylonian exile), before G-d put her away. (Gal. 4:27), but the full accomplishment of it is yet future.
The Babylonian exile and captivity meant more than oppression for Israel; it meant shame, disgrace, and humiliation. G-d promises a glorious release from not only the exile and captivity, but also from the shame, disgrace, and humiliation. The Hebrew verbs of shame, disgrace, and humiliation are sharing the fundamental idea of disappointed hopes, the embarrassment of expecting - even publicly announcing - one thing and then reaping another.
Not until He manifests Himself as G-d of Israel shall He appear as G-d of the whole earth (Ps 102:13, 15, 16; Zec 14:5, 9).
[17] No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.“
Their enemies would "condemn" them, but I justify and vindicate them, and so they condemn their enemies.”
Though Israel might have been regarded as forsaken as a widow, G-d promises to stand in the place of her husband. Through the centuries, many a hurting woman has taken this promise for herself. Forsaken by a husband, or forsaken of a husband, they have found beautiful comfort in the promise that G-d would be a husband to them, when all others forsook them. The principle is true; G-d will supply and meet our emotional needs, and rescue us from our disgrace and shame, when others forsaken us. Not only does G-d supply a husband, but a great one - Himself!
The L-RD G-d can be a greater husband than any man can be. This is something for every single woman to remember; and something no married woman should forget. An earthly husband can never fulfill every need that the great Heavenly Husband can.
Israel converted is compared to a wife (54:5; 62:5) put away for unfaithfulness, but now forgiven and taken home again. The converted Gentiles are represented as a new offspring of the long-forsaken but now restored wife. The pre-eminence of the Hebrew Church as the mother Church of Messianic is the leading idea; the conversion of the Gentiles is mentioned only as part of her felicity.
The whole chapter is G-d’s restored love for His bride. In ancient Israel, the barren woman carried an enormous load of shame and disgrace. Here, G-d likens captive Israel to a barren woman who can now sing - because now more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman. The children mention are the Gentiles that were adopted by special grace into the original Messianic church (54:3; 49:20, 21). Israel and her children, are distinguished from ‘the Gentiles’, the adopted chidren. They were the married wife’s spiritual children, when Israel was still a married wife (under the Law, before the Babylonian exile), before G-d put her away. (Gal. 4:27), but the full accomplishment of it is yet future.
The Babylonian exile and captivity meant more than oppression for Israel; it meant shame, disgrace, and humiliation. G-d promises a glorious release from not only the exile and captivity, but also from the shame, disgrace, and humiliation. The Hebrew verbs of shame, disgrace, and humiliation are sharing the fundamental idea of disappointed hopes, the embarrassment of expecting - even publicly announcing - one thing and then reaping another.
Not until He manifests Himself as G-d of Israel shall He appear as G-d of the whole earth (Ps 102:13, 15, 16; Zec 14:5, 9).
[17] No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.“
Their enemies would "condemn" them, but I justify and vindicate them, and so they condemn their enemies.”
Though Israel might have been regarded as forsaken as a widow, G-d promises to stand in the place of her husband. Through the centuries, many a hurting woman has taken this promise for herself. Forsaken by a husband, or forsaken of a husband, they have found beautiful comfort in the promise that G-d would be a husband to them, when all others forsook them. The principle is true; G-d will supply and meet our emotional needs, and rescue us from our disgrace and shame, when others forsaken us. Not only does G-d supply a husband, but a great one - Himself!
The L-RD G-d can be a greater husband than any man can be. This is something for every single woman to remember; and something no married woman should forget. An earthly husband can never fulfill every need that the great Heavenly Husband can.
Mystery of Paul
Mystery of Paul's witness??
Acts 22 is a repeat of chapter 9. In this chapter Paul’s defense from the stars of the fortress, the rage of the audience bursting forth. The Commandant has him brought into the fort to be examined by scourging. But learning that he is a Roman, he orders his release and commands the Samhedrim to try him.
This thrilling dialogue between the glorified Redeemer and his chosen vessel is nowhere else related, no second witness to the Scripture.
All Scripture is back up with at less a second witness, sorry folks I can not find one, can you? I know what we were taught, but not all that we were taught turns out true!
Paul says: Hear the voice of his mouth - in order to place him on a level with the other apostles, who had ‘seen and walked with the risen L-rd’. As you have noticed the other true Apostles did not except Paul as being one for he did not meet the criteria. But he was sent out as a missionary to help plant many churches.
Paul calls their attention to the fact that after his conversion he kept up his connection with the Temple as before.
Being rejected by the Apostles, Paul claims he was sent to the Gentiles: Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. If you remember Peter was the one sent to the Gentiles. Paul went because the Hebrews did not validate what he said.
Peter being the ‘head’ of the Apostles butted heads with Paul and what changes Paul was trying to make.
I believe Paul was a good missionary; he was well learned in his religion and knew the Words of G-d. In that day all they had was the Torah.
Paul was a good teacher, the Gentiles did not always understand what he was saying, even to this day, for they did not know the times and custom’s of G-d’s people!
Paul did stay mainly with the Gentiles and many were converted out of occult and pagan religion. Who tried cooperating in their holidays in under the name of Christian, and we bought them hook line and sinker.
As to what happen to Paul and his testimony – it could be all true but we seem to have only ‘his’ word on it. Where are the witnesses that were with him to back him up?
If you can find it, and not repeats of what others have heard him say – Please let me know so I can solve this mystery.
Acts 22 is a repeat of chapter 9. In this chapter Paul’s defense from the stars of the fortress, the rage of the audience bursting forth. The Commandant has him brought into the fort to be examined by scourging. But learning that he is a Roman, he orders his release and commands the Samhedrim to try him.
This thrilling dialogue between the glorified Redeemer and his chosen vessel is nowhere else related, no second witness to the Scripture.
All Scripture is back up with at less a second witness, sorry folks I can not find one, can you? I know what we were taught, but not all that we were taught turns out true!
Paul says: Hear the voice of his mouth - in order to place him on a level with the other apostles, who had ‘seen and walked with the risen L-rd’. As you have noticed the other true Apostles did not except Paul as being one for he did not meet the criteria. But he was sent out as a missionary to help plant many churches.
Paul calls their attention to the fact that after his conversion he kept up his connection with the Temple as before.
Being rejected by the Apostles, Paul claims he was sent to the Gentiles: Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. If you remember Peter was the one sent to the Gentiles. Paul went because the Hebrews did not validate what he said.
Peter being the ‘head’ of the Apostles butted heads with Paul and what changes Paul was trying to make.
I believe Paul was a good missionary; he was well learned in his religion and knew the Words of G-d. In that day all they had was the Torah.
Paul was a good teacher, the Gentiles did not always understand what he was saying, even to this day, for they did not know the times and custom’s of G-d’s people!
Paul did stay mainly with the Gentiles and many were converted out of occult and pagan religion. Who tried cooperating in their holidays in under the name of Christian, and we bought them hook line and sinker.
As to what happen to Paul and his testimony – it could be all true but we seem to have only ‘his’ word on it. Where are the witnesses that were with him to back him up?
If you can find it, and not repeats of what others have heard him say – Please let me know so I can solve this mystery.
Days of Purification
[Acts 21:21] And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
It appears in the course of this book to the contrary, this information was incorrect: we do not find Paul preaching thus to the Jews. It is true that, in his letters, some of which had been written before this time, he showed that circumcision and un-circumcision were equally unavailable for the salvation, of the soul, and that by the deeds of the Law no man could be justified; but he had not yet said to any Jew, forsake Moses, and do not circumcise your children. He told them that Y’Shua HaMashiach had delivered them from the yoke of the Law; but they had, as yet, liberty to wear that yoke, if they pleased. He had shown them that their ceremonies were useless but not destructive; that they were only dangerous when they depended on them for salvation. This is the sum of what Paul had taught on this subject.
Whether this refers to a regular convocation of the Church, or to a tumult that would infallibly take place when it was heard that the missionary was come, we cannot pretend to say; but it is evident that James and the elders wished some prudent steps to be taken, in order to prevent an evil that they had too much reason to fear.
[24] Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
It is evident that the four men in question were under the vow of Nazariteship; and that the days of their vow were nearly at an end, as they were about to shave their heads; for, during the time of the Nazariteship, the hair was permitted to grow, and only shaven off at the termination of the vow. Josephus observes that Agrippa, on his being advanced from a prison to a throne, by the Emperor Claudius, came to Jerusalem; and there, among other instances of his religious thankfulness shown in the Temple, he ordered very many Nazarites to be shaven, he furnishing them with money for the expenses of that, and of the sacrifices necessarily attending it.
Show them, by such means as are now in thy power, that thou art not an enemy to Moses; that thou dost still consider the law to be holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. Paul did so, and bore the expenses of those who, from a scruple of conscience, had made a vow, and perhaps were not well able to bear the expense attending it. Had they done this in order to acquire justification through the Law, Paul did assist them, it is a proof that they had not taken this vow on them for this purpose. Indeed, vows rather referred to a sense of obligation, and the gratitude due to G-d for mercies already received, than to the procuring of future favors of any kind.
Paul, the missionary who was most instrumental in taking Israel’s Messianic light to the nations, never wavered from his identity. “I am a Pharisee.” He declared, affirming in the Holy Temple that he had been faithful to the Torah and to the traditions of his fathers. It was only through the error of subsequent centuries that Messiahianity was wrenched from its Hebraic moorings and compromise with the traditions of Hellenic philosophy and Latin systems that finally severed its Jewish connection.
Be at charges with them, that is, defraying the expense of the sacrifices legally required of them, along with his own, which was deemed a mark of Jewish generosity.
[25] As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
As touching the Gentiles, in regard to the Gentile converts. It might be expedient for Paul to do what could not be enjoined on the Gentiles. They could not command the Gentile converts to observe those ceremonies; while yet it might be proper, for the sake of peace, that the converts to Messianic from among the Jews should regard them. The conduct of the Christians at Jerusalem in giving this advice, and of Paul in following it, may be easily vindicated. If it be objected, as it has been by infidels, that it looks like double-dealing--that it was designed to deceive the Jews in Jerusalem, and to make them believe that Paul actually conformed to the ceremonial Law.
The Gentiles were only to follow the Noahid Laws.
[26] Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purifcation, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.
He publicly declared to the priests that he would observe the separation of a Nazarite, and continue it for seven days, at the end of which he would bring an offering for himself and the other four men, according to what the law prescribed in that case.
Besides their typical and religious use, sacrifices were also intended for the support of the state and civil government; inasmuch as the ministers of state were chiefly maintained by them: so that the allotments to the priests out of the sacrifices may be considered as designed, like the civil-list money in other nations, for the immediate support of the crown and the officers of state.
He reflects with comfort on his having complied with the customs of the Jews in order to remove their prejudices against him and his ministry, and against the Gospel which he preached, and to win them over to embrace it: 'Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; and this I do for the Gospel's sake.' 1 Corinthians 9:20, 23. Paul paid the tribute due to the magistrate by Law, which the missionary enjoins upon all other Christians in all other nations, Romans 13:6.
Do we need to observer the ceremonies connected with the rite of purification, also if we are born again into the family of G-d?
It appears in the course of this book to the contrary, this information was incorrect: we do not find Paul preaching thus to the Jews. It is true that, in his letters, some of which had been written before this time, he showed that circumcision and un-circumcision were equally unavailable for the salvation, of the soul, and that by the deeds of the Law no man could be justified; but he had not yet said to any Jew, forsake Moses, and do not circumcise your children. He told them that Y’Shua HaMashiach had delivered them from the yoke of the Law; but they had, as yet, liberty to wear that yoke, if they pleased. He had shown them that their ceremonies were useless but not destructive; that they were only dangerous when they depended on them for salvation. This is the sum of what Paul had taught on this subject.
Whether this refers to a regular convocation of the Church, or to a tumult that would infallibly take place when it was heard that the missionary was come, we cannot pretend to say; but it is evident that James and the elders wished some prudent steps to be taken, in order to prevent an evil that they had too much reason to fear.
[24] Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
It is evident that the four men in question were under the vow of Nazariteship; and that the days of their vow were nearly at an end, as they were about to shave their heads; for, during the time of the Nazariteship, the hair was permitted to grow, and only shaven off at the termination of the vow. Josephus observes that Agrippa, on his being advanced from a prison to a throne, by the Emperor Claudius, came to Jerusalem; and there, among other instances of his religious thankfulness shown in the Temple, he ordered very many Nazarites to be shaven, he furnishing them with money for the expenses of that, and of the sacrifices necessarily attending it.
Show them, by such means as are now in thy power, that thou art not an enemy to Moses; that thou dost still consider the law to be holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. Paul did so, and bore the expenses of those who, from a scruple of conscience, had made a vow, and perhaps were not well able to bear the expense attending it. Had they done this in order to acquire justification through the Law, Paul did assist them, it is a proof that they had not taken this vow on them for this purpose. Indeed, vows rather referred to a sense of obligation, and the gratitude due to G-d for mercies already received, than to the procuring of future favors of any kind.
Paul, the missionary who was most instrumental in taking Israel’s Messianic light to the nations, never wavered from his identity. “I am a Pharisee.” He declared, affirming in the Holy Temple that he had been faithful to the Torah and to the traditions of his fathers. It was only through the error of subsequent centuries that Messiahianity was wrenched from its Hebraic moorings and compromise with the traditions of Hellenic philosophy and Latin systems that finally severed its Jewish connection.
Be at charges with them, that is, defraying the expense of the sacrifices legally required of them, along with his own, which was deemed a mark of Jewish generosity.
[25] As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
As touching the Gentiles, in regard to the Gentile converts. It might be expedient for Paul to do what could not be enjoined on the Gentiles. They could not command the Gentile converts to observe those ceremonies; while yet it might be proper, for the sake of peace, that the converts to Messianic from among the Jews should regard them. The conduct of the Christians at Jerusalem in giving this advice, and of Paul in following it, may be easily vindicated. If it be objected, as it has been by infidels, that it looks like double-dealing--that it was designed to deceive the Jews in Jerusalem, and to make them believe that Paul actually conformed to the ceremonial Law.
The Gentiles were only to follow the Noahid Laws.
[26] Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purifcation, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.
He publicly declared to the priests that he would observe the separation of a Nazarite, and continue it for seven days, at the end of which he would bring an offering for himself and the other four men, according to what the law prescribed in that case.
Besides their typical and religious use, sacrifices were also intended for the support of the state and civil government; inasmuch as the ministers of state were chiefly maintained by them: so that the allotments to the priests out of the sacrifices may be considered as designed, like the civil-list money in other nations, for the immediate support of the crown and the officers of state.
He reflects with comfort on his having complied with the customs of the Jews in order to remove their prejudices against him and his ministry, and against the Gospel which he preached, and to win them over to embrace it: 'Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; and this I do for the Gospel's sake.' 1 Corinthians 9:20, 23. Paul paid the tribute due to the magistrate by Law, which the missionary enjoins upon all other Christians in all other nations, Romans 13:6.
Do we need to observer the ceremonies connected with the rite of purification, also if we are born again into the family of G-d?
Church of God
[Acts 20:28] Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Feed the church of God - or, "the Church of the L-rd." Which of these two readings of the text is the true one, is a question which has divided the best critics: The evidence of manuscripts preponderates in favor of "The L-rd"; some of the most ancient Versions, though not all, so read; and Athanasius, the great champion of the supreme Divinity of Messiah early in the fourth century, says the expression "Church of G-d" is unknown to the Scriptures. Which reading, then, does the internal evidence favor? As "Church of G-d" occurs nine times elsewhere in Paul's writings, and "Church of the L-rd" nowhere, the probability, it is said, is that he used his wonted phraseology here also. But if he did, it is extremely difficult to see how so many early transcribers should have altered it into the quite unusual phrase, "Church of the L-rd"; whereas, if the missionary did use this latter expression, and the historian wrote it so accordingly, it is easy to see how transcribers might, from being so accustomed to the usual phrase, write it "Church of G-d."
Feed the church of God - or, "the Church of the L-rd." Which of these two readings of the text is the true one, is a question which has divided the best critics: The evidence of manuscripts preponderates in favor of "The L-rd"; some of the most ancient Versions, though not all, so read; and Athanasius, the great champion of the supreme Divinity of Messiah early in the fourth century, says the expression "Church of G-d" is unknown to the Scriptures. Which reading, then, does the internal evidence favor? As "Church of G-d" occurs nine times elsewhere in Paul's writings, and "Church of the L-rd" nowhere, the probability, it is said, is that he used his wonted phraseology here also. But if he did, it is extremely difficult to see how so many early transcribers should have altered it into the quite unusual phrase, "Church of the L-rd"; whereas, if the missionary did use this latter expression, and the historian wrote it so accordingly, it is easy to see how transcribers might, from being so accustomed to the usual phrase, write it "Church of G-d."
Asleep in Church
[Acts 20:9] And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.
They gathered on Sunday evenings, because Sunday was a normal working day for them. Paul spoke to them and continued his message until midnight: Paul sensed the need to carry on long because he was ready to depart the next day; he knew he might never see these particular Christians again - so he preached for some six hours to them! The combination of the late hour and the heat and perhaps fumes from the oil lamps made the young man Eutychus fall asleep.
Some have supposed that he was merely stunned with the fall, and that he was still alive. But the obvious and therefore the safest interpretation is that he was actually killed by the fall, and was miraculously restored to life. This is an instance of sleeping in public worship that has some apology. No practice is more shameful, disrespectful, and abominable, than that so common of sleeping in the house of G-d.
Luke would not have devoted space to the raising up of somebody who was merely apparently dead.
Talked a long while, even till daybreak: Paul, obviously getting their attention back, continued preaching until daybreak!
Have you ever sat under a ‘long-winded’ preacher?
They gathered on Sunday evenings, because Sunday was a normal working day for them. Paul spoke to them and continued his message until midnight: Paul sensed the need to carry on long because he was ready to depart the next day; he knew he might never see these particular Christians again - so he preached for some six hours to them! The combination of the late hour and the heat and perhaps fumes from the oil lamps made the young man Eutychus fall asleep.
Some have supposed that he was merely stunned with the fall, and that he was still alive. But the obvious and therefore the safest interpretation is that he was actually killed by the fall, and was miraculously restored to life. This is an instance of sleeping in public worship that has some apology. No practice is more shameful, disrespectful, and abominable, than that so common of sleeping in the house of G-d.
Luke would not have devoted space to the raising up of somebody who was merely apparently dead.
Talked a long while, even till daybreak: Paul, obviously getting their attention back, continued preaching until daybreak!
Have you ever sat under a ‘long-winded’ preacher?
Sabbath vs Sunday
The last day of the week to honor got changed to the first day of the week.
[Acts 20:7] And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together - This, compared with 1 Cor. 16:2, and other similar allusions, plainly indicates that the Christian observance of the day after the Sabbath, ‘Sunday’ was already a fixed practice of the churches. The Gentile believers changed to Sunday, G-d did not.
Since the Hebrews honored G-d’s Sabbath, the Gentiles choose to honor Sunday.
Since the Hebrews honored G-d’s Passover, the Gentiles choose to honor Easter.
Y’Shua, Himself honored the Fathers set Festivals, I do not understand how Gentiles can justify changing G-d’s plans, though it is now a tradition that no one questions.
And no one chooses to return to G-d’s original plan.
[Acts 20:7] And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together - This, compared with 1 Cor. 16:2, and other similar allusions, plainly indicates that the Christian observance of the day after the Sabbath, ‘Sunday’ was already a fixed practice of the churches. The Gentile believers changed to Sunday, G-d did not.
Since the Hebrews honored G-d’s Sabbath, the Gentiles choose to honor Sunday.
Since the Hebrews honored G-d’s Passover, the Gentiles choose to honor Easter.
Y’Shua, Himself honored the Fathers set Festivals, I do not understand how Gentiles can justify changing G-d’s plans, though it is now a tradition that no one questions.
And no one chooses to return to G-d’s original plan.
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