{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ACT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Acts","commonName":"Acts","introduction":"THIS book is to the Gospels what the fruit is to the tree that bears it. In the Gospels we see the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying: in the Acts we see it bringing forth much fruit (Joh 12:24). There we see Christ purchasing the Church with His own blood: here we see the Church, so purchased, rising into actual existence; first among the Jews of Palestine, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, until it gains a footing in the great capital of the ancient world--sweeping majestically from Jerusalem to Rome. Nor is this book of less value as an Introduction to the Epistles which follow it, than as a Sequel to the Gospels which precede it. For without this history the Epistles of the New Testament--presupposing, as they do, the historical circumstances of the parties addressed, and deriving from these so much of their freshness, point, and force--would in no respect be what they now are, and would in a number of places be scarcely intelligible.\n\nThe genuineness, authenticity, and canonical authority of this book were never called in question within the ancient Church. It stands immediately after the Gospels, in the catalogues of the Homologoumena, or universally acknowledged books of the New Testament (see Introduction to our larger Commentary, Vol. V, pp. iv, v). It was rejected, indeed, by certain heretical sects in the second and third centuries--by the Ebionites, the Severians (see EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.29), the Marcionites, and the Manicheans: but the totally uncritical character of their objections (see Introduction above referred to, pp. xiii, xiv) not only deprives them of all weight, but indirectly shows on what solid grounds the Christian Church had all along proceeded in recognizing this book.\n\nIn our day, however, its authenticity has, like that of all the leading books of the New Testament, been made the subject of keen and protracted controversy. DE WETTE, while admitting Luke to be the author of the entire work, pronounces the earlier portion of it to have been drawn up from unreliable sources (New-Testament Introduction, 2a, 2C). But the Tubingen school, with BAUR at their head, have gone much farther. As their fantastic theory of the post-Joannean date of the Gospels could not pretend even to a hearing so long as the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles remained unshaken, they contend that the earlier portion of this work can be shown to be unworthy of credit, while the latter portion is in flat contradiction to the Epistle to the Galatians--which this school regard as unassailable--and bears internal evidence of being a designed distortion of facts for the purpose of setting up the catholic form which Paul gave to Christianity in opposition to the narrow Judaic but original form of it which Peter preached, and which after the death of the apostles was held exclusively by the sect of the Ebionites. It is painful to think that anyone should have spent so many years, and, aided by learned and acute disciples in different parts of the argument, should have expended so much learning, research, and ingenuity in attempting to build up a hypothesis regarding the origination of the leading books of the New Testament which outrages all the principles of sober criticism and legitimate evidence. As a school, this party at length broke up: its head, after living to find himself the sole defender of the theory as a whole, left this earthly scene complaining of desertion. While some of his associates have abandoned such heartless studies altogether for the more congenial pursuits of philosophy, others have modified their attacks on the historical truth of the New Testament records, retreating into positions into which it is not worth while to follow them, while others still have been gradually approximating to sound principles. The one compensation for all this mischief is the rich additions to the apologetical and critical literature of the books of the New Testament, and the earliest history of the Christian Church, which it has drawn from the pens of THIERSCH, EBRARD, and many others. Any allusions which it may be necessary for us to make to the assertions of this school will be made in connection with the passages to which they relate--in Acts, First Corinthians, and Galatians.\n\nThe manifest connection between this book and the third Gospel--of which it professes to be simply the continuation by the same author--and the striking similarity which marks the style of both productions, leave no room to doubt that the early Church was right in ascribing it with one consent to Luke. The difficulty which some fastidious critics have made about the sources of the earlier portion of the history has no solid ground. That the historian himself was an eye-witness of the earliest scenes--as HUG concludes from the circumstantiality of the narrative--is altogether improbable: but there were hundreds of eye-witnesses of some of the scenes, and enough of all the rest, to give to the historian, partly by oral, partly by written testimony, all the details which he has embodied so graphically in his history; and it will appear, we trust, from the commentary, that De Wette's complaints of confusion, contradiction, and error in this portion are without foundation. The same critic, and one or two others, would ascribe to Timothy those later portions of the book in which the historian speaks in the first person plural--\"we\"; supposing him to have taken notes of all that passed under his own eye, which Luke embodied in his history just as they stood. It is impossible here to refute this gratuitous hypothesis in detail; but the reader will find it done by EBRARD (The Gospel History, sect. 110, Clark's translation; sect. 127 of the original work, Wissenschaftliche Kritik der Evangelische Geschichte, 1850), and by DAVIDSON (Introduction to New Testament, Vol. II, pp. 9-21).\n\nThe undesigned coincidences between this History and the Apostolic Epistles have been brought out and handled, as an argument for the truth of the facts thus attested, with unrivalled felicity by PALEY in his HorÃ&brvbr PaulinÃ&brvbr, to which Mr. BIRKS has made a number of ingenious additions in his HorÃ&brvbr ApostolicÃ&brvbr. Exception has been taken to some of these by JOWETT (St. Paul's Epistles, Vol. I, pp. 108 ff.), not without a measure of reason in certain cases--for our day, at least--though even he admits that in this line of evidence the work of PALEY, taken as a whole, is unassailable.\n\nMuch has been written about the object of this history. Certainly \"the Acts of the Apostles\" are but very partially recorded. But for this title the historian is not responsible. Between the two extremes--of supposing that the work has no plan at all, and that it is constructed on an elaborate and complex plan, we shall probably be as near the truth as is necessary if we take the design to be to record the diffusion of Christianity and the rise of the Christian Church, first among the Jews of Palestine, the seat of the ancient Faith, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, with Antioch for its headquarters, until, finally, it is seen waving over imperial Rome, foretokening its universal triumph. In this view of it, there is no difficulty in accounting for the almost exclusive place which it gives to the labors of Peter in the first instance, and the all but entire disappearance from the history both of him and of the rest of the Twelve after the great apostle of the Gentiles came upon the stage--like the lesser lights on the rise of the great luminary. \n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 1\n\n","order":44,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"c94aad3dd7e20061c0935f668f020beecd42d660333a1ba60e42c592e5a6a94e","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":775},"chapter":{"number":26,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["I know thee to be expert, &c.--His father was zealous for the law, and he himself had the office of president of the temple and its treasures, and the appointment of the high priest [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 20.1.3]. \n\nhear me patiently--The idea of \"indulgently\" is also conveyed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["from my youth, which was at the first . . . at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; which knew me from the beginning--plainly showing that he received his education, even from early youth, at Jerusalem. See on Act 22:3.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["if they would--\"were willing to\" \n\ntestify--but this, of course, they were not, it being a strong point in his favor. \n\nafter the most straitest--\"the strictest.\" \n\nsect--as the Pharisees confessedly were. This was said to meet the charge, that as a Hellenistic Jew he had contracted among the heathen lax ideas of Jewish peculiarities.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["I . . . am judged for the hope of the promise made . . . to our fathers--\"for believing that the promise of Messiah, the Hope of the Church (Act 13:32; Act 28:20) has been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Unto which promise--the fulfilment of it. \n\nour twelve tribes-- (Jam 1:1; and see on Luk 2:36). \n\ninstantly--\"intently\"; see on Act 12:5. \n\nserving God--in the sense of religious worship; on \"ministered,\" see on Act 13:2. \n\nday and night, hope to come--The apostle rises into language as catholic as the thought--representing his despised nation, all scattered thought it now was, as twelve great branches of one ancient stem, in all places of their dispersion offering to the God of their fathers one unbroken worship, reposing on one great \"promise\" made of old unto their fathers, and sustained by one \"hope\" of \"coming\" to its fulfilment; the single point of difference between him and his countrymen, and the one cause of all their virulence against him, being, that his hope had found rest in One already come, while theirs still pointed to the future. \n\nFor which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews--\"I am accused of Jews, O king\" (so the true reading appears to be); of all quarters the most surprising for such a charge to come from. The charge of sedition is not so much as alluded to throughout this speech. It was indeed a mere pretext.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Why should it be thought a thing incredible . . . that God should raise the dead?--rather, \"Why is it judged a thing incredible if God raises the dead?\" the case being viewed as an accomplished fact. No one dared to call in question the overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, which proclaimed Him to be the Christ, the Son of God; the only way of getting rid of it, therefore, was to pronounce it incredible. But why, asks the apostle, is it so judged? Leaving this pregnant question to find its answer in the breasts of his audience, he now passes to his personal history.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["(See on Act 9:1, &c.; and compare Act 22:4, &c.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["But rise, &c.--Here the apostle appears to condense into one statement various sayings of his Lord 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 [ALFORD]. \n\na minister . . . both of these things which thou hast seen--putting him on a footing with those \"eye-witnesses and ministers of the word\" mentioned in Luk 1:2. \n\nand of those in which I will appear to thee--referring to visions he was thereafter to be favored with; such as Act 18:9-10; Act 22:17-21; Act 23:11; Co2 12:1-10, &c. (Gal 1:12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["Delivering thee from the people--the Jews. \n\nand from the Gentiles--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. \n\nunto whom now I send thee--The emphatic \"I\" here denotes the authority of the Sender [BENGEL].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light--rather, \"that they may turn\" (as in Act 26:20), that is, as the effect of their eyes being opened. The whole passage leans upon Isa 61:1 (Luk 4:18). \n\nand from the power of Satan--Note 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.\" See on Co2 4:4. \n\nthat they may receive forgiveness . . . and inheritance among the sanctified by faith that is in me--Note: 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 the faith which introduces the soul to all this is emphatically declared by the glorified Redeemer to rest upon Himself--\"FAITH, even THAT WHICH IS IN ME.\" And who that believes this can refrain from casting his crown before Him or resist offering Him supreme worship?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision--This musical and elevated strain, which carries the reader along with it, and doubtless did the hearers, bespeaks the lofty region of thought and feeling to which the apostle had risen while rehearsing his Master's communications to him from heaven.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["showed . . . to them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem--omitting Arabia; because, beginning with the Jews, his object was to mention first the places where his former hatred of the name of Christ was best known: the mention of the Gentiles, so unpalatable to his audience, is reserved to the last. \n\nrepent and return to God, and do works meet for repentance--a brief description of conversion and its proper fruits, suggested, probably, by the Baptist's teaching (Luk 3:7-8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["having obtained help--\"succor.\" \n\nfrom God--\"that [which cometh] from God.\" \n\nI continue--\"stand,\" \"hold my ground.\" \n\nunto this day, witnessing, &c.--that is, This life of mine, so marvellously preserved, in spite of all the plots against it, is upheld for the Gospel's sake; therefore I \"witnessed,\" &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["That Christ should suffer, &c.--The construction of this sentence implies that in regard to the question \"whether the Messiah is a suffering one, and whether, rising first from the dead, he should show light to the (Jewish) people and to the Gentiles,\" he had only said what the prophets and Moses said should come.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Festus said with a loud voice--surprised and bewildered. \n\nPaul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad--\"is turning thy head.\" 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.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["I am not mad, most noble Festus, but, &c.--Can anything surpass this reply, for readiness, self-possession, calm dignity? Every word of it refuted the rude charge, though Festus, probably, did not intend to hurt the prisoner's feelings.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["the king knoweth, &c.--(See on Act 26:1-3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest--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.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["Almost--or, \"in a little time.\" \n\nthou persuadest me to be a Christian--Most modern interpreters think the ordinary translation inadmissible, and take the meaning to be, \"Thou thinkest to make me with little persuasion (or small trouble) a Christian\"--but I am not to be so easily turned. But the apostle's reply can scarcely suit any but the sense given in our authorized version, which is that adopted by CHRYSOSTOM and some of the best scholars since. 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.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["I would to God, &c.--What unequalled magnanimity does this speech breathe! Only his Master ever towered above this. \n\nnot only . . . almost . . . but altogether--or, \"whether soon or late,\" or \"with little or much difficulty.\" \n\nexcept these bonds--doubtless holding up his two chained hands (see on Act 12:6): which in closing such a noble utterance must have had an electrical effect.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["when he had thus spoken, the king rose--not over-easy, we may be sure.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed to CÃ&brvbrsar--It would seem from this that such appeals, once made, behooved to be carried out.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 27\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PAUL'S DEFENSE OF HIMSELF BEFORE KING AGRIPPA, WHO PRONOUNCES HIM INNOCENT, BUT CONCLUDES THAT THE APPEAL TO CÆSAR MUST BE CARRIED OUT. (Acts 26:1-32)\n\nAgrippa said--Being a king he appears to have presided. \n\nPaul stretched forth the hand--chained to a soldier (Act 26:29, and see on Act 12:6).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/26.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":26},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/27.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":27},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/25.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":25},"numberOfVerses":22}