{"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":3,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["a certain man lame from his mother's womb--and now \"above forty years old\" (Act 4:22). \n\nwas carried--was wont to be carried.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["Peter fastening his eyes on him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed--that, through the eye, faith might be aided in its birth.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee--What a lofty superiority breathes in these words! \n\nIn the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk--These words, uttered with supernatural power, doubtless begat in this poor man the faith that sent healing virtue through his diseased members.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["And he took . . . and lifted him up--precisely what his Lord had done to his own mother-in-law (Mar 1:31). \n\nhis feet--\"soles.\" \n\nand ankle bones, &c.--the technical language of a physician (Col 4:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["leaping up, stood . . . walked . . . entered the temple walking, leaping, and praising God--Every word here is emphatic, expressing the perfection of the cure, as Act 3:7 its immediateness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["all the people saw him, &c.--as they assembled at the hour of public prayer, in the temple courts; so that the miracle had the utmost publicity.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["they knew that it was he which sat for alms, &c.--(Compare Joh 9:8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["the lame man . . . held, &c.--This is human nature. \n\nall the people ran together unto them in the porch, &c.--How vividly do these graphic details bring the whole scene before us! Thus was Peter again furnished with a vast audience, whose wonder at the spectacle of the healed beggar clinging to his benefactors prepared them to listen with reverence to his words.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["why marvel at this?--For miracles are marvels only in relation to the limited powers of man. \n\nas though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk--Neither the might nor the merit of the cure are due to us, mere agents of Him whom we preach.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["The God of Abraham, &c.--(See on Act 2:22; Act 2:36). \n\nhath glorified his Son Jesus--rather, \"his Servant Jesus,\" as the same word is rendered in Mat 12:18, but in that high sense in which Isaiah applies it always to Messiah (Isa 42:1; Isa 49:6; Isa 52:13; Isa 53:11). When \"Son\" is intended a different word is used. \n\nwhom ye delivered up, &c.--With what heroic courage does Peter here charge his auditors with the heaviest of all conceivable crimes, and with what terrific strength of language are these charges clothed!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["killed the Prince of life--Glorious paradox, but how piercing to the conscience of the auditors.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, &c.--With what skill does the apostle use the miracle both to glorify his ascended Lord and bring the guilt of His blood more resistlessly home to his audience!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["And now, brethren--Our preacher, like his Master, \"will not break the bruised reed.\" His heaviest charges are prompted by love, which now hastens to assuage the wounds it was necessary to inflict. \n\nI wot--\"know.\" \n\nthrough ignorance ye did it--(See marginal references, Luk 23:34; Act 13:27; Act 26:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["that Christ--The best manuscripts read, \"that His Christ.\" \n\nshould suffer--The doctrine of a SUFFERING MESSIAH was totally at variance with the current views of the Jewish Church, and hard to digest even by the Twelve, up to the day of their Lord's resurrection. Our preacher himself revolted at it, and protested against it, when first nakedly announced, for which he received a terrible rebuke. Here he affirms it to be the fundamental truth of ancient prophecy realized unwittingly by the Jews themselves, yet by a glorious divine ordination. How great a change had the Pentecostal illumination wrought upon his views!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["when the times of refreshing shall come--rather, \"in order that the times of refreshing may come\"; that long period of repose, prosperity and joy, which all the prophets hold forth to the distracted Church and this miserable world, as eventually to come, and which is here, as in all the prophets, made to turn upon the national conversion of Israel.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["he shall send Jesus Christ--The true reading is, \"He shall send your predestinated (or foreordained) Messiah, Jesus.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["until the times--embracing the whole period between the ascension and the second advent of Christ. \n\nrestitution of all things--comprehending, probably, the rectification of all the disorders of the fall.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["a prophet . . . like unto me--particularly in intimacy of communication with God (Num 12:6-8), and as the mediatorial Head of a new order of things (Heb 3:2-6). Peter takes it for granted that, in the light of all he had just said, it would be seen at once that One only had any claim to be that Prophet. \n\nhim shall ye hear in all things, &c.--This part of the prediction is emphatically added, in order to shut up the audience to the obedience of faith, on pain of being finally \"cut off\" from the congregation of the righteous (Psa 1:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["foretold of these days--of Messiah; all pointing to \"the time of reformation\" (Heb 9:10), though with more or less distinctness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["Ye are the children . . . of the covenant--and so the natural heirs of its promises. \n\nin thy seed, &c.--(See on Gal 3:8, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["God, having raised up--not from the dead, but having provided, prepared, and given. \n\nhis Son Jesus--\"His Servant Jesus\" (see on Act 3:13). \n\nsent him to bless you--literally, \"sent Him blessing you,\" as if laden with blessing. \n\nin turning away every one of you from his iniquities--that is, \"Hitherto we have all been looking too much for a Messiah who should shed outward blessings upon the nation generally, and through it upon the world. But we have learned other things, and now announce to you that the great blessing with which Messiah has come laden is the turning away of every one of you from his iniquities.\" With what divine skill does the apostle, founding on resistless facts, here drive home to the conscience of his auditors their guilt in crucifying the Lord of Glory; then soothe their awakened minds by assurances of forgiveness on turning to the Lord, and a glorious future as soon as this shall come to pass, to terminate with the Personal Return of Christ from the heavens whither He has ascended; ending all with warnings, from their own Scriptures, to submit to Him if they would not perish, and calls to receive from Him the blessings of salvation.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 4\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PETER HEALS A LAME MAN AT THE TEMPLE GATE--HS ADDRESS TO THE WONDERING MULTITUDE. (Acts 3:1-26)\n\nPeter and John--already associated by their Master, first with James (Mar 1:29; Mar 5:37; Mar 9:2), then by themselves (Luk 22:8; and see Joh 13:23-24). Now we find them constantly together, but John (yet young) only as a silent actor. \n\nwent up--were going up, were on their way.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/3.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":3},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/4.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":4},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/2.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":2},"numberOfVerses":21}