Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 28:30
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
30. And Paul ] The proper name is omitted in the oldest MSS., and this omission supports the rejection of Act 28:29. It is only the insertion of that verse which rendered the word “Paul” here needful to the sense.
two whole years ] Of these years we have no history, except such as we can gather from the four Epistles which were written from Rome during the time (see above on Act 28:16). We know that from first to last the chain galled both his body and mind (Eph 3:1; Eph 4:1; Php 1:13; Php 1:16; Col 4:18; Philem. Act 28:1; Act 28:9-10), and that his case was at times an object of much anxiety (Php 2:23-24). We also learn from the same letters that beside Luke and Aristarchus (Act 27:27), he had also the fellowship, for some time at least, of Tychicus, who (Eph 6:21) was the bearer of his letter to Ephesus; of Timothy, whom (Php 1:1; Col 1:1; Phm 1:1) he joins with himself in the greeting to the Churches of Philippi and Coloss and also in that to Philemon. In the former of these Churches Timothy had been a fellow-labourer with the Apostle. Epaphroditus came with the Philippian contributions to the need of the imprisoned Apostle (Php 4:18). Onesimus found out St Paul when in flight from his master he made his way to Rome (Col 4:9; Phm 1:10) Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, was also there, and another Jewish convert, Jesus, called Justus, of whom we only know that the Apostle considered him worthy to be called a fellow-worker unto the kingdom of God (Col 3:12). Epaphras, from the churches in Laodicea and Hierapolis, had come to visit Paul, and to bring him the greetings doubtless of the Christians there, and carry back some words of earnest counsel and advice from the Roman prisoner (Col 3:12). Last of all Demas was there, soon after to be mentioned as having forsaken the good way through love of this present world (Col 3:14; 2Ti 4:10). More than this and the few words in this verse we do not know of this first imprisonment.
in his own hired house ] [ R. V. dwelling] The means for such hiring were provided by the liberality of the Philippians and others, for the Apostle could no longer with his own hands minister even to his own wants.
all that came [ R. V. went] in unto him ] For the fulness of Gospel freedom had now been reached, and the word of God and the kingdom of God were open to all who sought unto them.
with all confidence, no man forbidding him ] The word rendered “confidence” [ R. V. “boldness”] implies that “freedom of speech” which was looked upon by the Athenians as the great mark of their liberty. For Englishmen there must arise the thought that perhaps from some of those Roman soldiers who heard Paul in his prison the message of the Gospel came first to our island.
The historian had now reached the end of his work, and does not even tell the manner of the Apostle’s release, though as he mentions the duration of the imprisonment, he must have known how he came to be liberated. But that concerned not the purpose of his record, and so he has no word more. “ Victoria Verbi Dei. Paulus Rom. Apex Evangelii. Actorum Finis ” (Bengel).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Paul dwelt two whole years – Doubtless in the custody of the soldiers. Why he was not prosecuted before the emperor during this time is not known. It is evident, however Act 28:21, that the Jews were not disposed to carry the case before Nero, and the matter, during this time, was suffered quietly to sleep. There is great probability that the Jews did not dare to prosecute him before the emperor. It is clear that they had never been in favor of the appeal to Rome, and that they had no hope of gaining their cause. Probably they might remember the former treatment of their people by the emperor (see the notes on Act 18:2); they might remember that they were despised at the Roman capital, and not choose to encounter the scorn and indignation of the Roman court; and as there was no prosecution, Paul was suffered to live in quietness and safety. Lardner, however, supposed (vol. v. p. 528, 529, ed. 8vo, London, 1829) that the case of Paul was soon brought before Nero and decided, and that the method of confinement was ordered by the emperor himself. Lightfoot also supposes that Pauls accusers, who had come from Judea to lay their charge against him, would be urgent to get their business despatched, that they might be returning to their own home again, and so would bring him to trial as soon as they could. But nothing certainly is known on the subject. It is evident, indeed, from 2Ti 4:16, that he was at some time arraigned before the emperor; but when it was, or what was the decision or why he was at last set at liberty, are all involved in impenetrable obscurity.
In his own hired house – In a house which he was permitted to hire and occupy as his own. Probably in this he was assisted by the kindness of his Roman friends.
And received all … – Received all hospitably and kindly who came to him to listen to his instructions. It is evident from this that he was still a prisoner, and was not permitted to go at large.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 28:30-31
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house.
Pauls two years ministry in his own hired house
Here his biographer takes leave of Paul. The curtain falls on the great actor. The greatest life has a close. These verses suggest–
I. The essence of Christianity.
1. Those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ–not the things which concern religious speculations or organisations.
2. The reign of God over the human soul, the kingdom of God. The grand aim of Christs mission was to establish this, and nothing lay so near His heart. This was what He urged men to seek and to pray for, and what He illustrated in His parables. For this He works now, and will work until the kingdoms of this world shall be the kingdoms of our God.
II. The trials of its disciples.
1. That the best of us are not to expect exemption from trials. Let us not murmur. Paul felt that his were for his good, and gloried in tribulations.
2. That the most useful minister is not essential to Christ. He who laboured more than all is now under restraint. Let no man overrate his services.
III. The mission of Christs ministers.
1. Pauls preaching was teaching–not declamation, or a repetition of platitudes however logically or rhetorically put. This implies learning on the part of the hearer, and superior intelligence on the part of the minister.
2. His teaching was the indoctrinating of men in Christian essentials.
IV. The force of its influence.
1. Of its soul sustaining influence–With all confidence–in the midst of enemies.
2. Of its aggressive influence (Php 1:12-14; Phm 1:10). (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Christs finished and unfinished work
(with Act 1:1-2):–So begins and so ends this book. I connect the commencement and the close, because I think that the juxtaposition throws great light upon the purpose of the writer, and suggests some very important lessons. The reference to the former treatise (which is, of course, the Gospel according to Luke) implies that this book is to be regarded as its sequel, and the terms of the reference show the writers own conception of what he was going to do in his second volume. The former treatise have I made of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which He was taken up. Is not the natural inference that the latter treatise will tell us what Jesus continued to do and teach after He was taken up? So, then, the name the Acts of the Apostles, which is not coeval with the book itself, is somewhat of a misnomer. Most of the apostles are never heard of in it. There are, at the most, only three or four of them concerning whom anything in the book is recorded. But our first text supplies a deeper reason for regarding that title as inadequate, and even misleading. For, if the theme of the story be what Christ did, then the book is, not the Acts of the Apostles, but the acts of Jesus Christ through His servants. That conception of the purpose of the book seems to me to have light cast upon it by, and to explain, the singular abruptness of the conclusion which must strike every reader. The historian lays down his pen, possibly because he had brought his narrative up to date. But a word of conclusion explaining that it was so would have been very natural, and its absence must have had some reason. It is also possible that the arrival of the apostle in the imperial city, and his unhindered liberty of preaching there, in the very centre of power, the focus of intellectual life, and the hot bed of corruption for the known world, may have seemed to the writer an epoch which rounded off his story. But I think that the reason for the abruptness of the records close is to be found in the continuity of the work of which it tells a part. It is the unfinished record of an incomplete work. The theme is the work of Christ through the ages, of which each successive depository of His energies can do but a small portion, and must leave that portion unfinished, the book does not so much end as stop. It is a fragment because the work of which it tells of is not yet a whole.
I. First, then, we have here the suggestion of what Christ began to do and teach on earth. Now, at first sight, the words of our text seem to be in strange and startling contradiction to the solemn cry which rang out of the darkness upon Calvary. Jesus said, It is finished! and gave up the ghost. Luke says He began to do and teach. Is there any contradiction between the two? Certainly not. It is one thing to lay a foundation; it is another thing to build a house. And the work of laying the foundation must be finished before the work of building the structure upon it can be begun. The former is the work of Christ which was finished on earth; the latter is the work which is continuous throughout the ages. He began to do and teach, not in the sense that any should come after Him and do–as the disciples of most great discoverers and thinkers have had to do: systematise, rectify, and complete the first glimpses of truth which the Master had given. He began to do and teach, not in the sense that after He had passed into the heavens any new truth or force can for evermore be imparted to humanity in regard of the subjects which He taught and the energies which He brought. But whilst thus His work is complete His earthly work is also initial. And we must remember that whatever distinction my text may mean to draw between the work of Christ in the past and that in the present and the future, it does not mean to imply that when He ascended up on high He had not completed the task for which He came, or that the world had to wait for anything more, either from Him or from others, to eke out the imperfections of His doctrine or the insufficiencies of His work.
II. But then, secondly, we have to notice what Christ continues to do and to teach after his ascension. I have already suggested that the phraseology of the first of my texts naturally leads to the conclusion that the theme of this book of the Acts is the continuous work of the ascended Saviour, and that the language is not forced by being thus interpreted is very obvious to anyone who will glance even cursorily over the contents of the book itself. For there is nothing in it more obvious and remarkable than the way in which, at every turn in the narrative, all is referred to Jesus Christ Himself. He only is the Actor; men are His implements and instruments. The same point of view is suggested by another of the characteristics of this book, which it shares in common with all Scripture narratives, and that is the stolid indifference with which it picks up and drops men, according to the degree in which, for the moment, they are the instruments of Christs power. As long as God uses a man the man is of interest to the writer of the Scripture. When God uses another one, they drop the first, and have no more care about him, because their theme is not men and their doings, but Gods doings through men. On us, and in us, and by us, and for us, if we are His servants, Jesus Christ is working all through the ages. He is the Lord of providence, He is the King of history, in His hand is the book with the seven seals; He sends His Spirit, and where His Spirit is He is; and what His Spirit does He does. And thus He continues to teach and to work from His throne in the heavens. Now these truths of our Lords continuous activity in teaching and working from heaven may yield us some not unimportant lessons. What a depth and warmth and reality the thoughts give to the Christians relation to Jesus Christ! What a sweetness and sacredness such thoughts impart to all external events, which we may regard as being the operation of His love, and moved by the hands that were nailed to the Cross for us, and now hold the sceptre of the universe for the blessing of mankind. What a fountain of hope they open in estimating future probabilities of victory for truth and goodness!
III. Lastly, we note the incompleteness of each mans share in the great work. As I said, the book which is to tell the story of Christs continuous work from heaven must stop abruptly. There is no help for it. If it was a history of Paul it would need to be wound up to an end and a selvage put to it, but as it is the history of Christs working, the web is not half finished, and the shuttle stops in the middle of a cast. The book must be incomplete because the work of which it is the record does not end until He shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all in all. So the work of each man is but a fragment of that great work. Every man inherits unfinished tasks from his predecessors, and leaves unfinished tasks to his successors. It is, as it used to be in the middle ages, when the men that dug the foundations, or laid the first courses of some great cathedral, were dead long generations before the gilded cross was set on the apex of the needle spire, and the glowing glass filled in to the painted windows. Enough for us if we lay a stone, though it be but one stone in one of the courses of the great building. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Pauls two years in Rome
By this time we ought to be independent of the historian and to be able to write Pauls diary with our own hand. There are some friends we need not consult because we know exactly how they would address themselves to every embarrassment. The historian pays us a compliment in condensing into two little verses the industry of two years in Rome, as if he should say, You know how the years would be occupied. A prisoner who has a case on appeal, how will he occupy himself during that period of waiting? If you inquire about a stranger, you will say, He will spend his time in setting up his case. Is Paul occupied in getting up his case? Read verse 31. At the last as at the first–just the same. In other cities Paul went about finding opportunities, opening doors and boldly entering in. Is he doing that now during those two years in Rome? Observe the construction of the sentence and make your own inference. Paul dwelt–Paul received all that came in unto him. But Paul occupied his two years in doing something more than preaching. He would have been but a name today had he not occupied his time in writing his immortal epistles. Only a few can ever hear the living voice; but the writing lives. What should we have known of Paul but for the Epistles?
I. Let us look into Philippians. What an insight that gives us into his life at Rome.
1. In Act 1:12 we read: I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me–he makes nothing of them where we should have made a great moan–have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. In prison or out of prison Paul was occupied with one theme. Read verse 28, in nothing terrified by your adversaries, etc. The encouragement comes from the man with whom we were about to sympathise. Read Act 4:4. When we opened the letter we said: Where is there a man amongst us with voice plaintive enough to read the minor music? Read, again, Act 1:21, and you will find the basis line upon which the whole is built. There is not a word about the appeal; the only reference is to Christ and to the Church. Was there not great basis of doctrine under all this high sentiment? Read Act 2:5-11. But was Paul speaking after the manner of a man who had counted the cost of this? Did he really know what he was doing? Read Act 3:7-11. But was he one who had nothing to lose? Hear him in the same chapter: If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more, etc. Reading this letter, I have no hesitation in saying that men with such views cannot be in prison. The views themselves are like a great firmament. Such men cannot want (Act 4:11, etc.). Nero is a poor man compared with his prisoner, and such men cannot die (Act 3:20-21). Do you admire Paul in these circumstances? Paul was only Paul because Christ was Christ. When Paul receives our homage he points us in one direction, and says, God forbid that I should glory, etc.
II. Let us now look into Ephesians. In Act 3:1 he describes himself as the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, in Act 4:1 as the prisoner of the Lord, in chap. viz 20 as an ambassador in bonds. This is the way in which to use a chain, an infirmity of any kind. Paul does not whine about himself being a prisoner; but says, It is the Lords chain. He is not a prisoner of Caesar, but a prisoner of Christ. Look at his care of souls (Eph 1:16-23). He asked no mean gifts for the Christian soul, but all heavens riches. Then his care for the Church as a whole (Eph 4:32). He lays an infinite line even upon social relations, differences, and controversies, and rules them into order by the very grandeur of his appeal. People have admired the apostles logic; my own feeling is that none could love like Paul. Next we have his care for the family. Not one member of the household is omitted (Eph 5:25, etc.).
III. Let us now look into Colossians. In the last line he says, Remember my bonds. A word is enough to those whose hearts are in right tune. How did the great apostle regard his fellow labourers? Did he so tower above them as to be unconscious of their existence? (Read Act 4:10; Act 4:12; Act 4:14.) Paul did not forget anybody. No touch of a gentle hand ever escaped his notice, who stands next to Christ in the wisdom and penetration of his love. And if the servant does not forget, can He forget who is Master? The Lord is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labour of love.
IV. Let us look into Philemon. Paul entreats Philemon as Paul the aged. Cunning writer! He was not Paul the aged when labour was to be done, when suffering was to be undergone, when tyrants were to be faced; but when a slave was to be reinstated, Paul thought that if he represented himself as an old man, it would have a happy effect upon the sensibilities of Philemon. I do not know that Paul would have cared to have been called Paul the aged, yet he is willing to describe himself as such, because that might count for something and moisten the eyes of Philemon. Talk about the equality of men, and the over getting of social difficulties; read verse 17. This is said about a runaway, penitent slave! Why, he could not have given a nobler introduction to Caesar. This is what Christianity would do today: bring back every man that had wronged you, bring back every wanderer and reconstruct the household circle. Christianity harmonises the classes, not by dragging any class down, but by lifting all classes up. Paul said, with the audacity of an invincible faith, If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account–a man who had not where to lay his head! But he knew he could pay all such obligations as that: Albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. Yes, these are the great debts that exist between man and man–not a debt of gold, but the debt of self. This is the debt which people owe to the great authors, thinkers, and preachers of the day. Conclusion: These are the letters; is the writer a fanatic? I will believe it when fanatics reason as he does. Is he a self-seeker? I will believe it when self-seekers suffer as he did. When you want to know what Christians are, do not look at us, but look at Paul. We ought to follow him as he followed Christ. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Pauls two years residence at Rome
I. The time which the apostle spent at Rome. Two years complete.
1. The emperor was too much occupied with his guilty pleasures to be in haste to attend to this serious business, and the officers of state were not authorised to dismiss untried an appellant to Caesar; while the chiefs of the Jewish nation durst not appear as prosecutors.
2. So long an abode at Rome, with liberty of action, whatever indignity was put upon his person, was a high privilege. There were at Rome so many men of inquisitive minds, and abundant leisure, that his house must have been thronged. He received all that came, with open arms and heart.
3. The Church, however, I conclude, continued to meet in its former place; its own pastor or bishop, and other officers. Of Pauls being bishop there is not the most distant hint. The apostles are never called bishops; for they held a higher office, incompatible with that of bishop or pastor, and to call an apostle a bishop, was as left-handed a compliment as it would be to call a king a mayor. Had any apostle been bishop of Rome, unquestionably it was Paul; but, strange to tell, Peter has been paraded as such. Had he been there, he would have been out of his diocese, for he was the apostle–not of the Gentiles, which was Pauls office–but of the Jews. Accordingly, the last time Peter is seen he is pursuing his vocation to the twelve tribes, scattered abroad through Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Nor is it recorded in Scripture that he ever was at Rome. Numerous circumstances make it incredible that he had been there up to this. Paul had, a few years before, written to the Romans, but no mention is made of Peter. Paul gave this reason for longing to see them, that he might impart to them some spiritual gift, which Peter, had he been there, must have imparted. Paul arrives at Rome, and the Christians come out to meet him; but not a word is said then, or during the two years he spent there, of Peter. Letters were written from Rome by Paul, but not one of them contains a salutation from Peter. What! was he such a nonentity that his coming to Rome was so unimportant that of this the Divine oracles are dumb, while Pauls voyage and journey thither form the most conspicuous portion of the inspired history? The world is filled with Pauls letters from Rome; but it never hears a word from Peter, except from the Church at Babylon! Verily, Peter may say to the Romans, Save me from my friends. I have, however, asserted nothing concerning Peters suffering martyrdom at Rome, which is just barely possible. But that he did not found the Apostolic See is certain, for he was engaged in Syria till near the time when Aquila and Priscilla, members of that Church, were driven from Rome by Claudius. The strangers from Rome, who were at Jerusalem at the day of Pentecost, seem to have carried the first tidings of the gospel to Rome; and, therefore, it was no apostolic see, even if Peter and Paul, on a visit, presided there; for this apostles did at many places which are never called apostolic sees.
II. The employment of the apostle.
1. It was that of a herald proclaiming, as the original signifies, the kingdom of God. For the Sovereign of that kingdom sent forth His apostles to proclaim His ascension to the throne, and to call upon all nations to bow to His sceptre. A dangerous theme at Rome, under the eye of Nero! But it should be recollected that the apostle had already taught the Roman Church obedience to civil government. The Romans had learned from the Stoics, and especially Nero, from Seneca, that a good man is a king. Pilate, having received Christs good confession, I am a King, showed no jealous alarm, but said, I find no fault in Him. Such a kingdom as Paul preached could create no fear of its being hurtful to governors and kings. Civil government will be rendered more easy and more safe, as it certainly will be more equitable and more beneficial, by the universal prevalence of the kingdom of God. But had Pauls proclamation of the kingdom included such a domination as popes afterwards set up at Rome, he would never have been permitted to act as its herald, where Nero reigned.
2. But he was teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. While he was on this theme, a prison was to him a paradise.
3. That he spake with all boldness, or freedom, we are assured. A chain on his arm, and a soldier by his side, would have intimidated some men. It is a shame to us to speak of the Lord Jesus as if we were ashamed of Him. (J. Bennett, D. D.)
Paul at Rome: the preacher in chains, or the Word of God not bound
It is bound–
I. To no place. Thrust out of Jerusalem, the old city of God, the apostle erects his pulpit in the Gentile capital of the world.
II. By no power. The might of Rome was as little able as the hatred of the Jews to close the mouth of the apostle.
III. To no man. After Paul had finished his course, and sealed his testimony with his blood, the preaching of the Cross proceeded victoriously over the earth. (K. Gerok.)
Paul a prisoner at Rome today as he was eighteen hundred years ago
1. Paul the herald of evangelical liberty, bound by the fetters of human ordinances.
2. Paul the preacher of justification by faith, bound under the law of external righteousness of works.
3. Paul the man of apostolic poverty and humility, bound beside the splendour and pomp of the Popish dominion. (K. Gerok.)
Pattis situation
It is obvious that he would not have been allowed to seek a lodging in the Jewish quarter beyond the Tiber, since he would be obliged to consult the convenience of the successions of soldiers who kept guard over him; and it is most likely therefore that his hired apartment was within close range of the Praetorian camp. Amongst the prisoners there he might have seen the Jewish priests who had been sent to Rome by Felix, and who won from their nation so much approval by their sufferings through abstinence from unclean meats. Here, too, he may have seen Caradoc, the British prince whose heroic resistance and simple dignity extorted praise even from Roman enemies. Considering that he was a prisoner his life was not dull. He had to put up with the laws delays, perhaps through the loss, during shipwreck, of the eulogium of Festus, the non-appearance of his accusers, or the inhuman carelessness of Nero. But he was safe from the perils and tumults of the past twenty years, and exempt from the hard necessity of earning his daily bread. And if he was neglected by Jews he was acceptable to many Gentiles; if his gospel was mutilated by unworthy preachers, still Christ was preached; if his bonds were irksome they inspired others with zeal and courage; if one form of activity had been restrained, others were still open to him, and while he was strengthening distant Churches by his letters and emissaries, he was making Gods message known more and more widely in imperial Rome. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
The quiet disappearance of Paul at the close of the apostolic history
It points to–
1. The exalted Lord of the Church who abides, although His servants disappear.
2. The blessed rest into which Gods faithful servants are permitted to enter after the well-concluded day of work.
3. The work of faith and labour of love left behind to us from these first chosen witnesses.
4. The great day which will bring to light all that is now dark in the history of the kingdom of God. (K. Gerok.)
The Acts no fragment
The conclusion indeed comes to us too early; there are many things we would wish to know, yet we have enough. We have–
1. The laying of the foundation stone of the Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
2. The mighty acts of the Saviour, who is with His people always, even unto the end of the world.
3. A mine of wholesome doctrine, secure comfort, and impressive example for the Church of all ages. (K. Gerok.)
The close of the Acts
Note–
I. The eras of a wonderful history.
1. The close of one chapter in Church history. The book began with Peters sermon at Jerusalem, and now closes with Pauls ministry in Rome. What a marvellous history it is. The course of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, says Lange, is–
(1) A painful course, full of shame and persecution.
(2) A heroic course, full of the power of faith and love.
(3) A victorious course, full of mighty acts and Divine wonders.
(4) A blessed course, full of salvation and grace for the present and the future.
2. The beginning of a new chapter in Church history. From Rome the gospel starts on a new course, and fulfils the promise at the commencement of the book. Ye shall be My witness both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
II. The mightiness of a Christ-inspired man. Who can read this account of Paul without feeling that he was animated by a spirit, not of earth, nor of any human school of religion or morals, but by the Spirit of Him who gave His life a ransom to save the lost? He acknowledged this. The love of Christ constraineth me. I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. By sin we have lost our manhood; we are mean and cowardly. The Spirit of Christ can alone restore the true heart of humanity.
III. The mysterious method of Divine working. It was Gods purpose that the gospel should be preached in Rome. But how was this purpose fulfilled?
1. By one man. One might have expected an army of messengers. Numbers, however, in moral campaigns are secondary considerations. The one true man does the work.
2. One man, who is a prisoner. One might have thought that the Almighty Master would have guarded His messenger, and made his path straight and illustrious. But Gods ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts.
IV. The fragmentary character of sacred history. Here the curtain drops upon the unfinished life of Paul. Curiosity craves for minute information concerning the closing scenes in the life of this wonderful man, but Scripture offers no gratification. Fuller details are–
1. Unnecessary. Luke has given sufficient memoranda of this mans life to enable us to judge how sublimely he passed through the last scenes. The acts of a mans daily life, and not the details of his death bed, are the best criteria of his soul life.
2. Would, perhaps, have been inexpedient. God is as kind in concealing as He is in revealing. Were the Bible to give us a full account of all the men it refers to, it would be a volume of unreadable dimensions, and would rather pander to the curiosity than advance the culture of humanity. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The prison literature of the Christian Church
To Pauls prison life in Rome we owe some of the most important and consolatory Epistles. And he is not the only Christian prisoner who has been busy for God and man. Savonarola wrote his commentaries on Psa 31:1-24; Psa 51:1-19 during his month of imprisonment before his execution, which show that though he had much spiritual conflict, neither his faith nor his comfort yielded. The gentle Anne Askew, who was burnt at Smithfield , wrote the night before she suffered–
Like as an armed knight appointed to the field
With this world will I fight, and faith shall be my shield.
Faith is that weapon strong which will not fail at need,
My foes therefore among therewith will I proceed.
I now rejoice in heart, and hope bids me do so,
That Christ will take my part, and ease me of my woe.
Tyndale, to whom more than any other we owe our English Bible, wrote, during his imprisonment at Vilvorde, to the governor of the castle, asking for some articles of dress in a style that reminds us of Pauls request that Timothy should bring his cloak from Troas; and then goes on to say: But above all I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Grammar, and Dictionary, that I may spend my time with my study. Ridley wrote in the interval between his condemnation and execution, a long farewell to all his true and noble friends in God, which contains these sentences: I warn you all, my well-beloved kinsfolk and countrymen, that ye be not amazed or astonished at the kind of my departure and dissolution, for I assure you I think it is the greatest honour that ever I was called unto in my life. For you know I no more doubt but that the causes whereof I am put to death are Gods causes and the causes of truth, than I doubt that Johns Gospel is the gospel of Christ, or that Pauls Epistles are the very Word of God. And only a short time before Lady Jane Grey, in sending, on the eve of her execution, her Greek Testament to her sister, wrote: I am assured that I shall for the losing of a mortal life find an immortal felicity, the which I pray God grant you and enable you of His grace to live in His fear and die in the true Christian faith, from the which, in Gods name, I exhort you that you never swerve, neither for hope of life nor fear of death. The hymn Jerusalem, my happy home, was, in one of its versions, composed by Francis Baker while a prisoner in the Tower, and in the same fortress Sir Walter Raleigh composed his History of the World, and wrote poems, of which the following is a specimen:–
Rise my soul, with thy desires, to heaven,
And with divinest contemplation use
Thy time, where times eternity is given.
And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse,
But down in midnight darkness let them lie;
So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die
And thou, my soul, inspired with sacred flame,
View and review, with most regardful eye,
Thy holy Cross, whence thy salvation came;
On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die;
For in that sacred object is much pleasure,
And in that Saviour is thy life, thy treasure.
Everybody knows that Bunyans Pilgrims Progress was the fruit of his labours in Bedford Gaol; and as the joy bells of the new Jerusalem kept ringing in his ears he forgot the vileness of the cage wherein he was confined. Not so well known are the letters of Samuel Rutherford, so unique for their unction and holy rapture, yet many of them were written from Aberdeen, to which city he had been confined by the Court of High Commission. George Wither, the Puritan poet, whose quaint motto was, I grow and wither, both together, had a chequered career, and many of his best pieces were composed in prison. His Prison Meditation has preserved his experiences for us:–
While here I bide, though I unworthy be,
Do Thou provide all needful things for me,
And though friends grow unkind in my distress,
Yet leave not Thou Thy servant comfortless.
So, though in thrall my body must remain,
In mind I shall some freedom still retain;
And wiser made by this restraint shall be
Than if I had, until my death, been free.
Who, having read, can ever forget the lines of Madam Guyon under similar circumstances?–
My cage confines me round, abroad I cannot fly,
But though my wing is closely bound, my hearts at liberty.
My prison walls cannot control the flight, the freedom of the soul.
James Montgomery, wrote a whole volume of Prison Amusements while he was confined in York Castle, the victim of political injustice; and the hymn beginning Spirit, leave thy house of clay was composed in the same place on the occasion of the death of one of his fellow prisoners, who with seven others had suffered the loss of all worldly goods for conscience sake. And to mention no more, what an interesting record is that of the imprisonment in Burma of the sainted Judson for two years, during which he composed the beautiful paraphrase of the Lords Prayer, commencing, Our Father God, who art in heaven. Now compare all this with the melancholy lines of Ovid and the letters of Cicero during their exile. The latter discover a pusillanimity humiliating to contemplate, and it would have been better for the orators reputation if they had been destroyed. The same thing has come out in the prison experiences of many others who, being without God, were also without hope in the world, Now how shall we account for the difference? Simply by the sustaining grace of the Lord Jesus. One of the greatest triumphs of modern horology is the construction of a chronometer with a compensation balance which keeps it moving at the same rate in every temperature. What that balance is to the timepiece, the grace of God is to the believers heart. It gives him equanimity in all experiences. It makes prosperity safe and adversity salutary. It puts for him a rainbow in every cloud, opens a fountain in every wilderness, and gives a song for every night. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 30. Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house] As a state prisoner, he might have had an apartment in the common prison; but peculiar favour was showed him, and he was permitted to dwell alone, with the soldier that guarded him, Ac 28:16. Finding now an opportunity of preaching the Gospel, he hired a house for the purpose, and paid for it, St. Chrysostom observes, by the fruits of his own labour. Here he received all that came unto him, and preached the Gospel with glorious success; so that his bonds became the means of spreading the truth, and he became celebrated even in the palace of Nero, Php 1:12, Php 1:13; and we find that there were several saints, even in Caesar’s household, Php 4:22, which were, no doubt, the fruits of the apostle’s ministry. It is said that during his two years’ residence here he became acquainted with Seneca, the philosopher, between whom and the apostle an epistolary correspondence took place. In an ancient MS. of Seneca’s epistles in my own possession, these letters are extant, and are in number fourteen and have a prologue to them written by St. Jerome. That they are very ancient cannot be doubted; but learned men have long ago agreed that they are neither worthy of Paul nor of Seneca.
While he was in captivity, the Church at Philippi, to which he was exceedingly dear, sent him some pecuniary assistance by the hands of their minister, Epaphroditus, who, it appears, risked his life in the service of the apostle, and was taken with a dangerous malady. When he got well, he returned to Philippi, and, it is supposed, carried with him that epistle which is still extant; and from it we learn that Timothy was then at Rome with Paul, and that he had the prospect of being shortly delivered from his captivity. See Php 1:12-13; Php 2:25; Php 4:15-16, Php 4:18, &c.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Of what nation or quality soever they were, Paul preached salvation to them upon the gospel condition of faith and holiness; and in that imitated God and our Saviour, who refuse none that thus come unto him. And though Paul might have had greater security from trouble by the Jews if he would have desisted, yet a necessity was laid upon him, and a woe unto him if he did not preach the gospel, as 1Co 9:16, which may abundantly excuse and justify him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. in his own hired house(Seeon Ac 28:23), yet still incustody, for he only “received all that came to him“;and it is not said that he went to the synagogue or anywhere else.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house,…. In a house which he hired with his own money; in which his friends Luke, Aristarchus, and others, dwelt with him; where he was guarded by a soldier: whether at the expiration of these two years he was set at liberty, and for ten years afterwards travelled into Italy, France, and Spain, preaching the Gospel, as some think; or whether he then suffered martyrdom, is not certain; the latter is most probable:
and received all that came in unto him; there, as the Syriac version reads, that is, into his lodging, as the Ethiopic version expresses it; which is not to be understood of his hospitality, for it cannot be thought that he should provide food and lodging for all that came unto him; but that be admitted all that would to come and hear him, and freely preached the Gospel to them: it should seem by this, as well as by what is said Ac 28:23; that many of the Jews came into his lodging, and heard him expound, that it was a large house he had hired and dwelt in; and such an one Jerom y thinks it was, like that he supposes he would have Philemon provide for him, which he desires in his epistle to him, #Phm 22; namely, a house in the most noted place in the city, for the conveniency of those that came to him; large enough to hold many; free from noise and disturbance; and not situated in a scandalous neighbourhood, nor near to shows and plays; and that the lodging should rather be on the floor than in an upper room: and such a house, with all the conditions that Jerom mentions, the Papists pretend to show at Rome to this day; where, as their tradition is, Luke composed, or however finished this his history; which, as the above writer observes z, reaches to the two years of Paul’s stay at Rome; that is, until the fourth year of Nero; from whence, adds he, we learn that in the same city this book was composed: and it is certain, that Luke was with him, when the apostle wrote his second epistle to Timothy from Rome, and when the time of his martyrdom seemed to himself to be at hand, 2Ti 4:7.
y Comment in Philemon v. 22. Tom. 9. fol. 116. I. z Catalog. Script. Eccl. sect. 17. fol. 91. C.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Paul Preaches Two Years at Rome. |
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30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
We are here taking our leave of the history of blessed Paul; and therefore, since God saw it not fit that we should know any more of him, we should carefully take notice of every particular of the circumstances in which we must here leave him.
I. It cannot but be a trouble to us that we must leave him in bonds for Christ, nay, and that we have no prospect given us of his being set at liberty. Two whole years of that good man’s life are here spent in confinement, and, for aught that appears, he was never enquired after, all that time, by those whose prisoner he was. He appealed to Csar, in hope of a speedy discharge from his imprisonment, the governors having signified to his imperial majesty concerning the prisoner that he had done nothing worthy of death or bonds, and yet he is detained a prisoner. So little reason have we to trust in men, especially despised prisoners in great men; witness the case of Joseph, whom the chief butler remembered not, but forgot, Gen. xl. 23. Yet some think that though it be not mentioned here, yet it was in the former of these two years, and early too in that year, that he was first brought before Nero, and then his bonds in Christ were manifest in Csar’s court, as he says, Phil. i. 13. And at this first answer it was that no man stood by him, 2 Tim. iv. 16. But it seems, instead of being set at liberty upon this appeal, as he expected, he hardly escaped out of the emperor’s hands with his life; he calls it a deliverance out of the mouth of the lion, 2 Tim. iv. 17, and his speaking there of his first answer intimates that since that he had a second, in which he had come off better, and yet was not discharged. During these two years’ imprisonment he wrote his epistle to the Galatians, then his second epistle to Timothy, then those to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon, in which he mentions several things particularly concerning his imprisonment; and, lastly, his epistle to the Hebrews just after he was set at liberty, as Timothy also was, who, coming to visit him, was upon some account or other made his fellow-prisoner (with whom, writes Paul to the Hebrews, xiii. 23, if he come shortly, I will see you), but how or by what means he obtained his liberty we are not told, only that two years he was a prisoner. Tradition says that after his discharge he went from Italy to Spain, thence to Crete, and so with Timothy into Judea, and thence went to visit the churches in Asia, and at length came a second time to Rome, and there was beheaded in the last year of Nero. But Baronius himself owns that there is no certainty of any thing concerning him betwixt his release from this imprisonment and his martyrdom; but it is said by some that Nero, having, when he began to play the tyrant, set himself against the Christians, and persecuted them (and he was the first of the emperors that made a law against them, as Tertullian says, Apol. cap. 5), the church at Rome was much weakened by that persecution, and this brought Paul the second time to Rome, to re-establish the church there, and to comfort the souls of the disciples that were left, and so he fell a second time into Nero’s hand. And Chrysostom relates that a young woman that was one of Nero’s misses (to speak modishly) being converted, by Paul’s preaching, to the Christian faith, and so brought off from the lewd course of life she had lived, Nero was incensed against Paul for it, and ordered him first to be imprisoned, and then put to death. But to keep to this short account here given of it, 1. It would grieve one to think that such a useful man as Paul was should be so long in restraint. Two years he was a prisoner under Felix (ch. xxiv. 27), and, besides all the time that passed between that and his coming to Rome, he is here two years more a prisoner under Nero. How many churches might Paul have planted, how many cities and nations might he have brought over to Christ, in these five years’ time (for so much it was at least), if he had been at liberty! But God is wise, and will show that he is not debtor to the most useful instruments he employs, but can and will carry on his own interest, both without their services and by their sufferings. Even Paul’s bonds fell out to the furtherance of the gospel, Phil. i. 12-14. 2. Yet even Paul’s imprisonment was in some respects a kindness to him, for these two years he dwelt in his own hired house, and that was more, for aught I know, than ever he had done before. He had always been accustomed to sojourn in the houses of others, now he has a house of his own–his own while he pays the rent of it; and such a retirement as this would be a refreshment to one who had been all his days an itinerant. He had been accustomed to be always upon the remove, seldom staid long at a place, but now he lived for two years in the same house; so that the bringing of him into this prison was like Christ’s call to his disciples to come into a desert place, and rest awhile, Mark vi. 31. When he was at liberty, he was in continual fear by reason of the lying in wait of the Jews (ch. xx. 19), but now his prison was his castle. Thus out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness.
II. Yet it is a pleasure to us (for we are sure it was to him) that, though we leave him in bonds for Christ, yet we leave him at work for Christ, and this made his bonds easy that he was not by them bound out from serving God and doing good. His prison becomes a temple, a church, and then it is to him a palace. His hands are tied, but, thanks be to God, his mouth is not stopped; a faithful zealous minister can better bear any hardship than being silenced. Here is Paul a prisoner, and yet a preacher; he is bound, but the word of the Lord is not bound. When he wrote his epistle to the Romans, he said he longed to see them, that he might impart unto them some spiritual gift (Rom. i. 11); he was glad to see some of them (v. 15), but it would not be half his joy unless he could impart to them some spiritual gift, which here he has an opportunity to do, and then he will not complain of his confinement. Observe,
1. To whom he preached: to all that had a mind to hear him, whether Jews or Gentiles. Whether he had liberty to go to other houses to preach does not appear; it is likely not; but whoever would had liberty to come to his house to hear, and they were welcome: He received all that came to him. Note, Ministers’ doors should be open to such as desire to receive instruction from them, and they should be glad of an opportunity to advise those that are in care about their souls. Paul could not preach in a synagogue, or any public place of meeting that was sumptuous and capacious, but he preached in a poor cottage of his own. Note, When we cannot do what we would in the service of God we must do what we can. Those ministers that have but little hired houses should rather preach in them, if they may be allowed to do that, than be silent. He received all that came to him, and was not afraid of the greatest, nor ashamed of the meanest. He was ready to preach on the first day of the week to Christians, on the seventh day to Jews, and to all who would come on any day of the week; and he might hope the better to speed because they came in unto him, which supposed a desire to be instructed and a willingness to learn, and where these are it is probable that some good may be done.
2. What he preached. He does not fill their heads with curious speculations, nor with matters of state and politics, but he keeps to his text, minds his business as an apostle. (1.) He is God’s ambassador, and therefore preaches the kingdom of God, does all he can to preach it up, negotiates the affairs of it, in order to the advancing of all its true interests. He meddles not with the affairs of the kingdoms of men; let those treat of them whose work it is. He preaches the kingdom of God among men, and the word of that kingdom; the same that he defended in his public disputes, testifying the kingdom of God (v. 23), he enforced in his public preaching, as that which, if received aright, will make us all wise and good, wiser and better, which is the end of preaching. (2.) He is an agent for Christ, a friend of the bridegroom, and therefore teaches those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ–the whole history of Christ, his incarnation, doctrine, life, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension; all that relates to the mystery of godliness. Paul stuck still to his principle–to know and preach nothing but Christ, and him crucified. Ministers, when in their preaching they are tempted to diverge from that which is their main business, should reduce themselves with this question, What does this concern the Lord Jesus Christ? What tendency has it to bring us to him, and to keep us walking in him? For we preach not ourselves, but Christ.
3. With what liberty he preached. (1.) Divine grace gave him a liberty of spirit. He preached with all confidence, as one that was himself well assured of the truth of what he preached–that it was what he durst stand by; and of the worth of it–that it was what he durst suffer for. He was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. (2.) Divine Providence gave him a liberty of speech: No man forbidding him, giving him any check for what he did or laying any restraint upon him. The Jews that used to forbid him to speak to the Gentiles had no authority here; and the Roman government as yet took no cognizance of the profession of Christianity as a crime. Herein we must acknowledge the hand of God, [1.] Setting bounds to the rage of persecutors; where he does not turn the heart, yet he can tie the hand and bridle the tongue. Nero was a bloody man, and there were many, both Jews and Gentiles, in Rome, that hated Christianity; and yet so it was, unaccountably, that Paul though a prisoner was connived at in preaching the gospel, and it was not construed a breach of the peace. Thus God makes the wrath of men to praise him, and restrains the remainder of it, Ps. lxxvi. 10. Though there were so many that had it in their power to forbid Paul’s preaching (even the common soldier that kept him might have done it), yet God so ordered it, that no man did forbid him. [2.] See God here providing comfort for the relief of the persecuted. Though it was a very low and narrow sphere of opportunity that Paul was here placed in, compared with what he had been in, yet, such as it was, he was not molested nor disturbed in it. Though it was not a wide door that was opened to him, yet it was kept open, and no man was suffered to shut it; and it was to many an effectual door, so that there were saints even in Csar’s household, Phil. iv. 22. When the city of our solemnities is thus made a quiet habitation at any time, and we are fed from day to day with the bread of life, no man forbidding us, we must give thanks to God for it and prepare for changes, still longing for that holy mountain in which there shall never be any pricking brier nor grieving thorn.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Two whole years ( ). Only here in N.T. and 24:27 which see. During these busy years in Rome Paul wrote Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, Epistles that would immortalize any man, unless, forsooth, one or more of them was written from Ephesus or Caesarea, which has not yet been proven.
In his own hired dwelling ( ). Old word, here only in N.T., that which is hired for a price (from and that from , hire).
Received (). Imperfect middle of , received from time to time as they came, all that came () from time to time.
Preaching (),
teaching (), the two things that concerned Paul most, doing both as if his right hand was not in chains, to the amazement of those in Rome and in Philippi (Php 1:12-14).
None forbidding him (). Old adverb from privative and the verbal adjective (from , to hinder), here only in the N.T. Page comments on “the rhythmic cadence of the concluding words.” Page rejects the notion that the book is an unfinished work. It closes with the style of a concluded work. I agree with Harnack that Luke wrote the Acts during this period of two years in Rome and carried events no further because they had gone no further. Paul was still a prisoner in Rome when Luke completed the book. But he had carried Paul to “Rome, the capital of the world, Urbi et Orbi” (Page). The gospel of Christ has reached Rome. For the fate of Paul we must turn elsewhere. But Luke had the presence of Paul while he carried the Acts to its triumphant conclusion. Ramsay can give a good deal in proof of his claim that Luke is the greatest of all historians. Beyond a doubt his rank is high and the world can never repay its debt to this cultured physician who wrote the Gospel and the Acts.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Hired house [] . Probably different from the xenia, or lodging – place, where he resided for the first few days, perhaps as the guest of friends, though under custody, and where he received the Jews (ver. 23). ===Rom1
CHAPTER I
Superscription (vers. 1, 2). Dr. Morison observes that the superscription is peerless for its wealth of theological idea.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And Paul dwelt two whole years,” (enemeined de dietian holen) “Then he (Paul) remained for a period of two full years;” The aorist tense of this passage indicates that Paul had received liberty of two years for this testimony and teaching, a period that had then ended when Luke wrote the letter. Whether the finished period was terminated by his death, or more serious confinement, Luke does not record.
2) “In his own hired house,” (en idio misthomati) “in his own rented, leased or paid for apartment:” Whether he paid for the house-hire, by gifts from helping churches and individual brethren, or by having been given liberty under restricted parole or probation to work with his own hands to pay from his own wages for the hired house where he taught, is not clear, Php_4:10; Php_4:14; Php_4:18.
3) “And received all that came in unto him,” (kai apedecheto pantas tous eisporeuomenos pros auton) “And he welcomed (greeted gladly) all those continually coming to him, of their own will, choice, and accord;” This indicates his zeal for God, to the last inspired earthly report we have on his life, as he had formerly expressed to Timothy, 2Ti 4:7-14. He not only taught during these two years but also perhaps wrote the Prison Epistles of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and perhaps even 1 & 2 Timothy.
There is much dispute whether Paul had one or two Roman imprisonments around 62 to 68 A.D.- with an extended degree of probation of liberty, even for travel, between the two imprisonments in Rome, if there were two, 2Ti 4:20; Act 20:4; Act 21:29.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
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30. He received all. The apostle showed an excellent example of constancy, in that he offered himself so willingly to all those which were desirous to hear him. Surely he was not ignorant what great hatred he did purchase; and that this was his best way, if by holding his peace he might appease the hatred of his adversaries. For a man being desirous to provide for himself alone would not have done thus; but because he remembered that he was no less the servant of Christ, and a preacher of the gospel, when he was in prison, than if he had been at liberty, he thought it was not lawful for him to withdraw himself from any which was ready to learn, lest he should foreslow [neglect] the occasion which was offered him by God, and therefore he did more regard the holy calling of God than his own life. And that we may know that he did incur danger willingly, Luke doth shortly after expressly commend his boldness, as if he should say, that setting all fear aside, he did faithfully obey the commandment of God, neither was he terrified with any danger, − (689) but did proceed to take pains with whomsoever he met. −
Preaching the kingdom of God. He doth not separate the kingdom of God, and those things which belong to Christ, as diverse things, but doth rather add the second thing by way of exposition, that we may know that the kingdom of God is grounded and contained in the knowledge of the redemption purchased by Christ. Therefore, Paul taught that men are strangers − (690) and foreigners from the kingdom of God, until having their sins done away they be reconciled to God, and be renewed into holiness of life by the Spirit; and that the kingdom of God is then erected, and doth then flourish among them, when Christ the Mediator doth join them to the Father, having both their sins freely forgiven them, and being also regenerate unto righteousness, that beginning the heavenly life upon earth, they may always have a longing desire to come to heaven, where they shall fully and perfectly enjoy glory. Also, Luke setteth forth a singular benefit of God, in that Paul had so great liberty granted him. For that came not to pass through the winking and dissimulation of those who could hinder it, seeing they did detest religion, but because the Lord did shut their eyes. Wherefore, it is not without cause that Paul himself doth boast that the Word of God was not bound with his bonds ( 2Ti 2:9).
(689) −
“
Ullis difficultatibus,” by any difficulties.
(690) −
“
Exules,” exiles.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(30) And Paul dwelt two whole years . . .On the probable incidents of this period, see Excursus on the Later Years of St. Pauls Life. The word translated hired house (the exact equivalent for the Latin meritorium, or conductum) means rather a lodging (as in Act. 28:23) or apartment, and does not imply that he occupied a whole house. The words that follow exactly describe his position. He was a prisoner, and therefore was not allowed to go out to preach in the synagogues, or the churches in the houses of this or that disciple, or the open places of the city, but his friends were allowed free access to him, and in this way there was probably a wider and more effectual opening for his personal influence than if he had spoken publicly, and so exposed himself to the risk of an organised antagonism. What seemed at first a hindrance to his work was so ordered, as he afterwards acknowledged, that it fell out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel (Php. 1:12).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Roman Residence and Ministry , Act 28:30-31 .
30. Two whole years A whole two-year. It is clear from this that Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment at the close of two years.
Own hired house For the payment for which, as he seems not to have had the means of labouring at his occupation, he was doubtless aided by the Christian Churches. Whether this hired house was the same as the lodging in Act 28:23 is uncertain and very unimportant.
Received all Was ready to give his attention to every coming inquirer, preaching to the full congregation, and teaching the individual inquirer.
No forbidding The Romans not having the wish, and the Jews not having the courage, to interfere. Here then in the imperial city the Jew rejects and is rejected, and Christianity has struck her immovable root in representative Gentile soil.
As Luke’s purpose is not to write a biography of Paul, but a history of this great transition, his task is now complete, and his pen ceases its work. (See page 10.)
If we wish to know the spirit with which Paul was animated during this imprisonment we must study his four Epistles then written, remembering the bonds, fettered as he was to a soldier in his own hired house, or in the prison, in which he wrote:
1 . His EPISTLE TO THE Colossians.
2 . His fraternal note to Philemon.
3 . His EPISTLE TO THE Ephesians.
4 . His EPISTLE TO THE Philippians.
Two opinions exist, as we have already noted, as to the date of the martyrdom of St. Paul. One (as Conybeare and Howson and Alford) maintains that after his first imprisonment and trial (62-64) he was acquitted, travelled, preached, wrote his Epistles to TIMOTHY and to TITUS, and was again arrested, tried, and executed in A.D. 66-68. The other (Schaff and Pressense) that he was martyred upon his first trial before the fulness of the Neronian persecution, A.D. 64. It is agreed that he was not crucified, but, as a Roman citizen, executed with the axe. He was led for death to the Aquae Salviae and buried in the road to Ostia. Peter, it is said, was on the same day crucified at Rome and buried in the Vatican. Caius, a Roman presbyter, about A.D. 212 could make the Christian boast, “I am able to point out the Christian trophies of the apostles, for if you go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way you will find the mementoes of those who founded this Church.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Conclusion: The Church’s Rest (Rest) Act 28:30-31 serves as a conclusion to the book of Acts, reflecting the theme of divine rest. The apostle Paul stands as the towering example of the office of the New Testament apostle in the book of Acts. He finds rest in fulfilling his destiny of taking the Gospel to Rome, which testifies of the divine commission of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ (Act 1:8).
Paul’s Two-Year Imprisonment (A.D. 61-62) Act 28:30-31 is considered a somewhat abrupt ending to the book of Acts, which leaves Paul in Roman imprisonment and his fate unresolved. If we consider the third imperative theme of Luke/Acts, we easily see these concluding remarks as a fulfillment of the office and ministry of the prophet and apostle. Ananias had prophesied that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear Christ’s name to the Gentiles and kings and children of Israel (Act 9:15-16). Paul fulfilled this prophecy as an apostle to the Gentiles, by planting many churches in the Roman Empire, and by standing before the Emperor to appeal his case for recognition of the Christian faith, and by writing the book of Hebrews towards the end of his ministry.
Comments on the Abrupt Ending to the Book of Acts – Many explanations for such an abrupt ending for the book of Acts have been proposed by scholars; for the story ends with Paul sitting in prison preaching the Gospel and receiving all who came to him. Could Luke have intended on writing a third volume and failed, or did Luke’s death bring an abrupt end to his writing of the book of Acts? Perhaps Luke’s underlying intent was to write Acts as a defense for Paul’s upcoming trial, since this writing clearly shows events that prove the innocence of those who lived and preached Christian faith. Eusebius tells us that Luke continued “his history down to the period when he was with Paul.” ( Ecclesiastical History 2.22.6) [336] Thus, Luke did not write after Paul’s first imprisonment because Luke no longer traveled with him. The most likely explanation lies in the understanding of the purpose of this book and of how of how historians of this period of history wrote not only to provide information about historical events, but also to teach a moral or ethical lesson. It is important to understand the literary structure of the Gospels and Acts, that they are not just historical records, but that they were intended to be teaching tools for the early Church. The book of Acts is not intended to be a biography of Peter or Paul. Luke ends where he does because his purpose has been accomplished, which is to show that the early apostles had been empowered by the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Act 1:8) Ending in Rome, Paul had taken the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Jeffrey Arthurs says that this ending “creates a sense of forward momentum. The gospel has reached the capital. Nothing can stop it! Stay tuned for updates.” [337]
[336] Eusebius writes, “And Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, brought his history to a close at this point, after stating that Paul spent two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and preached the word of God without restraint.” ( Ecclesiastical History 2.22.1)
[337] Jeffery D. Arthurs, Preaching With Variety (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2007), 82.
Perhaps Paul’s missionary journeys after his two-year Roman imprisonment are not recorded (although the Pastoral Epistles reveal some of his later ministry) because he finished his course, fulfilled his purpose and plan upon earth. Thus, this later material of Paul’s life would serve no redemptive purpose in the overall scheme of the Holy Scriptures.
Finally, we know that the outcome of Paul’s trial would not destroy the foundation that Paul had laid. The Church was now established and the gates of Hell could not prevail upon it nor overcome it.
Mat 16:18, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Paul Writes Some of His Greatest Epistles During His Two-Year Imprisonment – It was during Paul’s two-year imprisonment in Rome that he wrote some of his greatest epistles. William Burkitt said, “Satan had better have let these two holy men alone [referring to Paul and Luke], than have them cast into prison, for by their pens they battered the walls of his kingdom and made them shake about his ears.” [338]
[338] William Burkitt, The Acts of the Holy Apostles, in Expository Notes, with Practical Observations, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Sorin & Ball, 1844), 589.
The Prison Epistles of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon reveal how much freedom Paul had to visit and discuss issues with fellow Jews and believers. On one of these occasions when guests arrived to visit Paul, he received news from Epaphras about the believers at Colossi. This faithful messenger and perhaps the founding missionary of the church at Colossi (Col 1:7) had recently come to Rome and briefed Paul about the progress of the Gospel in this church that Paul had never actually visited. He informed Paul about their faith in Christ and of their love for one another (Col 1:4; Col 1:8). We know from the context of the short epistle of Philemon that Onesimus, a slave that belonged to Philemon, had fled to Paul for freedom. We do not know the cause of his flight nor why he sought Paul. During his exile in Rome Paul had led him to the Lord (Act 1:10). The need to bring reconciliation to this situation resulted in Paul’s letter to his owner named Philemon. From these two occasions, Paul also took the opportunity to write his less personal letter to the church at Ephesus, which he intended to be circulated among the other churches in this region. At a later date, the church at Philippi sent Epaphroditus to Paul with a love offering and with instructions to minister to his needs (Php 4:18; Php 2:25). The events of this visit could have occasioned Paul’s letter to the Philippians. For we assume that Epaphroditus brought news of the progress of church growth at Philippi and any pending problems. While in Rome this messenger becomes gravely ill, near unto death. When he was strong enough to return, Paul sent him back to inform the church of this illness (Php 2:26-30). This return gave Paul the opportunity to write them a thank you letter for their offering to him and to give Epaphroditus the praise the he was worthy of receiving for his deed. Therefore, he is most likely the one who carried this epistle to the Philippian church. In addition, Paul was now intending to send Timothy to Philippi to deal with several issues that Epaphroditus has reported to him. Paul would first send Timothy and then follow up with a personal visit (Php 2:19; Php 2:24). This letter thus serves to notify the church at Philippi to prepare for such visits.
Php 4:18, “But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.”
Php 2:25, “Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.”
Paul’s Anointing in Relation to His Imprisonments – In May 2001 I had a dream one night in which I was told that in each of Paul’s imprisonments, he received a greater anointing of the Spirit in which to walk. When Paul writes his second epistle to the church at Corinth, he reveals to them the secret of his strength. He explains that it is in the midst of his persecutions that the grace of God rests upon him.
2Co 12:10, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
The Author’s Rhetorical Use of Chiasm Chiasm is a literary device used in antiquity that arranges thoughts and words into a symmetrical order. David Allen notes how Luke uses the rhetorical device of “chiasm” in the prologue and conclusion to the book of Acts. In his prologue to Acts, we find the key words “Jesus,” “teach,” and “kingdom of God” mentioned in this order, while the conclusion reverses this word order as “kingdom of God,” “teaching,” and “Jesus.” Allen says this structure served as a “linguistic signature” of Luke. [339] Ancient literature used such rhetorical devices for emphasis or for the purpose of persuading one’s listeners towards a particular view. [340] In this rhetorical device, Luke is testifying to the expansion of the Kingdom of God through the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the apostolic office of Paul and others.
[339] David L. Allen, “Class Lecture,” Doctor of Ministry Seminar, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 25 July to 5 August 2011.
[340] Gaston Boissier, trans. W. G. Hutchison, Tacitus and Other Roman Studies (London: Archibald Constable and Company, Ltd., 1906), 3.
Act 28:30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
Act 28:30
Act 28:31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Act 28:31
[341] G. V. Lechler and K. Gerok, Theological and Homiletical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Specially Designed and Adapted for the Use of Ministers and Students, vol. 2, trans. Paton J. Gloag, ed. John P. Lange, in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library, third series, vol. 25 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1864), 456.
Luk 24:52-53, “And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Two years at Rome:
v. 30. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
v. 31. preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. Paul may, at this time, have been able to purchase many conveniences for himself, or the liberality of the various congregations made it possible; at any rate, he was able to rent and live in his own lodgings for two whole years, this probably being the length of time required for his case to come up to trial and be disposed of. And he certainly was not hard to find or difficult to get to, for he received all that came to him; no matter from what congregation the brethren came, they were always welcome. He was still in custody, Php_1:13-17 , but it certainly was of the very lightest kind. And just at this time God opened a door for His Word. For Paul spent his entire time in proclaiming the kingdom of God, not only by spoken words, but also in letters, for we have from this time of his life the epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Philippians, and to Philemon. In inviting men to become members of the kingdom of God, of the wonderful communion of saints, Paul always taught and repeated without rest or weariness the message concerning the Lord Jesus. With all confidence, with all open cheerfulness he preached; his sermons and private discussions were all redolent with the oil of the same bold joy with which the Lord had anointed him. And by the mercy of God he could do this unmolested, without hindrance. This must have been a great comfort to him and greatly increased his willingness and the enjoyment of his work for the Lord. The entire story shows how the Gospel of Christ gains its victories. For the same Gospel which Paul proclaimed in the capital of the world has since taken its course through the countries and is preached among the Gentiles to this day. The Church, which is established upon Jesus, the Rock of Ages, is standing today, and will stand to the end of time, and the portals of hell will not prevail against it.
Summary. The journey from Melita to Rome is completed without mishap, and Paul takes the opportunity in the capital to speak to the Jews and afterward, to many others, preaching to them the kingdom of God and their Savior Jesus Christ.
A Summary of the Latter Part of Paul’s Life
Giving a fairly exact chronological summary of the last part of Paul’s life is attended with some difficulties, as the many varying lists, especially those given by Meyer, indicate. Even the most careful study cannot claim absolute exactness, mainly because the Biblical account permits of so wide a latitude. The list here offered is therefore intended merely as an aid in orientation and may, in this respect, claim as much historical accuracy as any other list.
Conversion of Paul. 32 or 33 A. D.
First visit to Jerusalem after conversion. 35 or 36 A. D. Gal 1:18.
Beginning of first missionary journey. 46 A. D.
“Return to Antioch. About August, 48 A. D.
Second trip to Jerusalem and resolutions concerning Judaistic teaching. 49 A. D. Gal 2:1.
Beginning of second missionary journey;
Syria and Cilicia. Autumn, 49 A. D.
Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch. Winter, 49-50 A. D.
Troas, Philippi. Spring, 50 A. D.
Thessalonica and Berea. Summer, 50 A. D.
Athens and Corinth. Early autumn, 50 A. D.
Rising of Jews. Gallic. Late summer, 51 A. D.
Jerusalem and Antioch. Spring and early summer, 52 A. D.
Beginning of third journey. Syria, Cilicia, Galatia. 52-53 A. D.
In Ephesus. Summer, 53 A. D. to June, 56 A. D.
Macedonia and Illyricum. Summer and autumn, 56 A. D.
In Corinth. End of 57 A. D. and beginning of 58 A. D.
Jerusalem. Pentecost, 58 A. D.
Prisoner at Caesarea. June, 58 A. D. to June, 60 A. D.
Voyage to Rome. August, 60 A. D. to February or March, 61 A. D.
Prisoner in Rome. Spring, 61 A. D. to spring, 63 A. D.
Later journeys. 63-66 A. D. Second arrest. 66 A. D. or 67 A. D. Execution. 67 A. D. or 68 A. D
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Act 28:30. And Paul dwelt two whole years, &c. Before he was heard by Caesar, or his deputy, upon his appeal. As St. Luke concludes his history with St. Paul’s abode at Rome, before his journey into Spain, we may infer, that he wrote both his gospel and the Acts while the apostle was living. Dr. Lardner proves from Ulpian, that the proconsul was to judge whether a person under accusation was to be thrown into prison, or delivered to a soldier to guard, or committed to sureties, or trusted on his parole of honour. It appears from this passage, that the persecution against the Christians at Rome was not then begun: the Romans had not yet made any laws against the disciples of the Lord Jesus; for what is here related, happened within the first ten years of the reign of Nero, before his cruelty against the Christians broke out; and it is most likely that St. Paul’s friends in Nero’s family (Php 4:22.) used their interest with the emperor, to procure him the liberty which he now enjoyed.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.PAUL PROCLAIMS THE KINGDOM OF GOD DURING TWO YEARS AT ROME, WITHOUT HINDERANCE, ALTHOUGH HE IS A PRISONER
Act 28:30-31
30And [But] Paul21 dwelt [remained, ] two whole years in his own hired house,and received all the came in unto him, 31Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern [teaching concerning] the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him [confidence, without hinderance, ].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act 28:30-31. a. As Paul was a prisoner, he could earn no money by manual labor; the rent of his own hired house was, doubtless, paid by the Christians of Rome, although other congregations also, like that at Philippi [Phil. Acts 4], assisted in supporting him.
b. This book was, unquestionably, not left unfinished, as Schleiermacher supposed, in consequence of some hinderance which Luke accidentally encountered; it is equally improbable that the concluding part of the book should have been lost, as Schott conjectured. The remark, on the other hand, which Meyer here makes, corresponds to all the circumstances, and is in accordance with the truth, viz. that the last two verses, as far as the style is concerned, are rounded and sonorous, and constitute a fitting conclusion of the whole narrative. For precisely as at the close of Lukes Gospel, Luk 24:52-53, the occupations of the apostles during a certain period, are described in a sentence exhibiting a participial construction, so here, too, the account of the labors of Paul during a still longer period, terminates with two clauses, in which a similar participial construction is introduced. [See Introduction, 2.On the subsequent history of Paul, his supposed journey to Spain, etc., the time of the composition of the three Pastoral Epistles (Tit.; I. and II. Tim.) etc. etc., see, in addition to J. J. van Oosterzees Commentary on these Epistles, in a subsequent volume, also Conyb and H.: Life, etc. of St. Paul, Vol. II. p. 450, Acts 27 (written by Conyb.), and p. 551, Appendix.See, especially, among the most recent authorities, Wiesingers General Introduction to the Pastoral Epistles, and the special Introductions to each one of the threein his Commentary, constituting Vol. V. 1 Abth. of the continuation of Olshausens Commentary on the New Testament.Tr.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is true that, as far as the facts are concerned, we painfully feel the want of all positive and direct information with regard to the manner in which the case of Paul was ultimately decided. However, while he exhibited a noble spirit and great fidelity as an apostle, still, he was merely the herald, and not the Lord and King Himself. Jesus Christ reigns as the Kingsuch is the conclusion of this book. While we contemplate the great fact that the kingdom of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are proclaimed by the apostle of the Gentiles during so long a period, and with no hinderance whatever, in Rome, the central city of the world, the person of Paul himself imperceptibly recedes from our view.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act 28:30. And Paul dwelt two whole years and received all that came in unto him.If Paul was permitted to hire a house for himself, and enjoyed the privilege of remaining in it, we may regard the whole circumstance as one of the favorable results of the full reports which Festus had made of his case, and as a blessing which followed his faithful testimony to the truth, at Cesarea. At the same time, he was subjected to expense, which, however, the voluntary contributions of the Philippians assisted him in bearing, Php 4:10-14. (Rieger).There are no hardships which can justify us in neglecting the duties of our calling; Mat 11:2; 1Co 7:20. (Starke).Received all that came in unto him.What a noble character that servant of Christ possesses, who is made all things to all men [1Co 9:22], who kindly receives all that seek counsel and comfort for their souls, and who opens his house and his heart to all who desire to be saved! It is not well, when it is reported of a pastor, that he is difficult of access. Our Lord Jesus often encountered hypocrites and deceivers; nevertheless, he always sought their spiritual welfare, and his language was: Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. [Joh 6:37]. (Ap. Past.).
Act 28:31. Preaching the kingdom of God, etc.God opens a door for his word in a wonderful and unexpected manner, Act 14:27; Col 4:3. When the church enjoys peace, we should the more diligently proclaim the truth, and prepare for future trials, Act 9:31. After Christ had sent the Holy Spirit, he caused his Gospel to be made known to the whole world, not, however, with the aid of carnal weapons, but by the preaching of the word, and He has, even to the present time, been its almighty Protector. May He continue to cause His word to be every where proclaimed, no man forbidding, unto the salvation of many souls, and unto the glory of His great name! (Starke).Teaching with all confidence.Of this confidence of the apostle at Rome, we have additional evidence in the Epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and to Philemon, which were written in that city; they are all fragrant with the oil of joy, wherewith Jesus had anointed him. (Besser).No man forbidding him.It was, in those times, considered a very great mercy, when the Gospel could be preached without hinderance; it was a source of comfort to teachers, and they diligently employed the time during which they could enjoy it. But we, on the contrary, whose liberty has so long been established, have well nigh forgotten how great this mercy is. As we have therefore opportunity, let us labor, and do good! [Gal 6:10]. (Ap. Past.)What a noble themethe progress of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Romethe writer of the book of THE Acts has chosen! When will it be carried back to Jerusalem? God employed even his most richly endowed servants in doing His will only in their own sphere. It was given to no one to survey the whole field of labor; that knowledge the Lord reserved unto Himself. O God! Thy kingdom come! (Rieger).Notwithstanding all these persecutions, the Gospel advanced with such success, that Luke is enabled to conclude his narrative of the Acts of the Apostles in these terms, which resemble an Amen! appended to all the promises of God. Thus this reference at the close of the book to the kingdom of God, most happily corresponds to the beginning, Act 1:3. (Williger).In the vast and wealthy capital of that great empire, Paul proclaims the might and glory of the kingdom of God, as a kingdom of the Spirit, whose fruit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance [Gal 5:22-23]. The tidings concerning Christ, the Prince of peace, around whom all things in the kingdom of God, both small and great, revolve, penetrate even into the palace of the emperor (Php 1:13). Thus Paul employed the time during which he was a prisoner, in establishing that important congregation at Rome, which was destined to be the mother-church and, indeed, the missionary church of all the congregations which, after this period, were gathered among the Gentiles. (Leonh and Sp.).Luke does not speak of subsequent events, as it was not his intention to write a biography of St. Paul. He had now exhibited the riches of divine grace, and the power of the Lord Jesus, as revealed in the progress of the Church, from the Mount of Olives to the city of the seven hills; greater things he could not relate, and Theophilus had now read enough in order to close with Hallelujah. (Besser).Let us, then, imitate Paul, and take his noble, adamantine, soul as our pattern, so that, following in his wake, we may safely sail over the stormy ocean of life, and enter the waveless haven of peace, and thus obtain that salvation which God has prepared for those who love him, through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the, Father and the Holy Ghost, in like majesty and glory, blessed forever. (Chrysostom, quoted by Leonh. and Sp.).
ON THE WHOLE SECTION.Paul, preaching the kingdom of God in Rome: I. A glorious fulfilment of the promise which the Lord had, at the beginning, given to his servant, Act 9:15; II. A solemn and impressive prediction of the future victories of the kingdom of God on earth.
Paul, at Rome: I. A living monument of divine mercy; II. A shining example of apostolic fidelity; III. A joyful herald of Christs reign over the whole world; IV. A messenger, addressing the effete heathenism of the times, and uttering solemn warnings respecting the judgments of God.
Pauls ministry of two years at Rome, the crown of his apostolic labors: I. In the centre of the heathen world he erects the cross of Christ, before which all heathen temples are to sink into the dust; II. Although subjected to bodily restraint, he provides with true pastoral fidelity and love even for his distant congregations (the Epistles written during this imprisonment); III. While waiting for the call of his Lord, he prepares to seal the work of his life with his blood.
From Jerusalem to Rome! Such was the course of the Gospel, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Its path was marked, I. By the sufferings and ignominy of its heralds; II. By their heroic faith and ardent love; III. By the victories gained through mighty deeds, and divine miracles; IV. By the diffusion of the blessings of grace and salvation, designed for the present and future generations.
Paul, the preacher bound with a chain, or, The word of God is not bound [2Ti 2:9]: I. Bound to no one spot on earth; when it was cast out of Jerusalem, the ancient city of God, Paul erected his pulpit in the capital of the Gentile world; II. Restrained by no earthly power; the power of Rome was as little able as the hatred of the Jews, to close the mouth of the apostle; III. Confined to no particular individual; even after Paul had finished his course, and sealed his testimony with his blood, the preaching of the cross continued its victorious course over the world.
Paul, still a prisoner at Rometo-day, as well as 1800 years ago: although his imprisonment may now, as well as formerly, under the Roman emperor, be mild and not ignominious, still, he continues to be a prisoner under the spiritual ruler in Rome; for, I. Paul, the herald of evangelical liberty, is bound with the chain of human traditions; II. Paul, the preacher of that righteousness which is by faith, is bound by the law of righteousness by outward works; III. Paul, the man of apostolic poverty and humility, is bound by the pomp and display of papal claims to the government of the world.
No man forbidding him [without hinderance] the significant concluding words of the book of the Acts of the Apostles: I. They are words proclaiming the victory gained over ancient Romea victory alike over hostile Jews and hostile Gentiles; II. They are words of warning, addressed to modern Rome, warning it against any impious and vain attempt to quench the word of God; III. They are words of admonition, addressed to the Evangelical Church, exhorting it to apply with a grateful spirit the free and unhindered word of God; IV. They are words of promise, intended for the church of the future, directing attention to the time of consummation, when the Gospel will have subdued the world.
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, not a mere fragment! It is true that we reach the end sooner than we would have desired, for there are many interesting subjects of which it does not speak in detail; at the same time it furnishes us with all that we really need. I. It exhibits the founding of a Church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail; II. It describes the wonderful works of an exalted Saviour, who is with his people alway, even unto the end of the world; III. It is a rich mine, furnishing wholesome doctrine, efficient consolations, and encouraging examples for the church in all ages.
The transition from the history of the Apostles, to the history of the Church: I. It is, undoubtedly, a retrogression from the pentecostal season of the first miracles of the Spiritfrom the period when faith began to flourishfrom the early period of the first love [Rev 2:4]; II. It is, nevertheless, according to the divinely appointed order, an advance from a patriarchal, narrow, sphere, to the length and breadth of the worldfrom the joy and animation of a festival, to the labor and toil of common lifeand, through the struggle of thousands of years, to a final victory, when, in the church triumphant, the primitive pentecostal congregation will re-appear, glorified, enlarged, and perfected.
The silent disappearance of the apostle Paul at the conclusion of THE Acts of the Apostles: it directs our attention, I. To the exalted Lord of the Church, who abides, even when His servants disappear; Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. [Heb 13:8]; II. To that happy rest, into which the faithful servants of God may enter, when they have completed the work assigned to them; III. To that labor of faith and of love [1Th 1:3], which those witnesses who were first chosen, have left behind for us; IV. To that great day of eternity, which will bring to light all that still remains dark in the divine guidance of the children of God, and in the history of His kingdom.
[Paul now ceases to preach the Gospel; nevertheless, that Gospel abides; the word of the Lord endureth for ever. (1Pe 1:25; Isa 40:8). The permanence of the Gospel: I. Illustrations of this permanence; (a) the ravages of time; (b) the assaults of its enemies; (c) the corruption of its friendsare alike unable to affect it. II. The causes of this permanence of the Gospel; (a) its truth; (b) its correspondence to the wants of men; (c) the divine protection. III. The effect which it should produce on the minds of men; (a) to awaken a salutary alarm in those who reject it; (b) to convince the minds of those who doubt; (c) to strengthen the faith of the humble believer.Tr.]
Footnotes:
[21]Act 28:30 [The words , of text. rec., with G.H., Syr., etc. are omitted in A.B.E. Vulg., and are dropped by Lach., Tisch., and Alf., as a supplementary insertion.Cod.Sin., which omits ., originally read ; the letter , smaller in size, appears abovein . Tisch. says; prima manu suprascriptum videtur.C corrected the word to .Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, (31) Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
This was a blessed season to the Church at Rome, which the Lord Jesus granted them. And, from the awful character of the then emperor Nero, under whose cruelty afterwards, both Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom, we can only ascribe it to the Lord Jesus, that he lulled this wretched prince asleep, while Paul thus for two whole years was preaching to the people of God. Supposing, what is generally believed, that Festus detained Paul a year; Felix, we know, confined him two; Act 24:27 , and, here again, two years at Rome; the whole made five. But, it was the Church’s mercy, that during the last confinement, he had not only time to preach, but leisure and direction from the Lord, to write those blessed Epistles, which have been made so blessed to the Church, and will be, till time shall be no more. The Epistle to the Ephesians, was evidently written at this time, see Eph 3:1 , and the date at the end. Colossians also, (Col 4:18 ) and date. To Philemon (Phm 1:9-10 ) and date. Philippians, Phi 1:16Phi 1:16 . and date. And, it is more than probable, that it was at the same time he wrote, and sent his Epistles to Galatia and the Hebrews. See the date of each. Some have supposed, that Paul at the end of the two years, was brought to trial, and suffered martyrdom. But this could not be. For his Epistle to Philippi speaks of the confidence he had of being freed, Phi 1:25 and Phi 2:16-24 . And his second Epistle to Timothy was written two years after, and is said in the date, to have been written from Rome, when Paul was brought before Nero the second time. And in this Epistle, Paul then speaks of his expectation of death, Act 4:6 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 105
Prayer
Almighty God, thou hast called us to sing songs in the wilderness. How can we sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land? But thou dost help us. By thy grace dwelling in our hearts and burning there like a sacred flame, we are enabled to sing even at the grave-side, and to triumph over death. There is no wilderness where thou art. Thy presence is heaven; thy touch is security; thy smile is freedom. This we know through Jesus Christ, thy Son, from whom we have all our best intelligence respecting thee; standing beside him, we can call thee “Father”; we can all say with one voice, “Our Father.” We can look up unto thee, and expect much from thee, when we stand beside the Cross of Christ. We say, If thou hast given unto us thy Son, what is there which thou canst keep back? Thou hast given all in him. May we think of this with a wise heart, and seize its precious truth with both hands, and live upon that truth as upon the bread which cometh down from heaven. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Having him, we have all things yea, now our spirits are in heaven. Show us more deeply this living truth! We are living upon the clouds; we are building in the dust; we are trying to arrest the wind and make a friend of it: we are in error, and our life is one succession of mistakes, unless we be in the Son of God as the branch is in the vine. Lead us into such sympathy with him as shall amount to identification, so that no one shall know which is the Christian and which the Christ, because of the ineffable purity, the sweet resignation, and the continual obedience of our lives. We would be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect; we would be holy as God the Holy One is holy. In this desire we live. It is so much its own answer; the prayer itself is liberty; the wish uplifts us to the skies. We praise thee for desires that are not earthly, for aspirations that scorn the boundaries of sense. Heaven is our origin declared. In these upliftings of the soul we know our Father, and we say, “This is the image of God and the likeness of the Eternal.” We are not children of the dust. Thou hast given us a habitation of clay which thou wilt take down and lay back again where thou didst find it; but the burning fire, the eternal flame, the spirit kindred to thine own, thou wilt also lift up to the source and fountain of its being. Thus are we drawn down with the one hand and lifted up with the other. May the lifting up be greater than the drawing down, that we may be conscious of an upward movement of the soul, a desire that will not be satisfied with the rivers of earth and the deceptions and vanities of time. Thou art taking us onward mile by mile along the fast-unfolding road. There are more mile-stones behind us than in front of us on this life-journey; we see the end; we see the opening grave. Teach us that this is not our rest, that the grave cannot detain the soul, but only our lower selves the dust gone back to dust. Inspire us with the Spirit of Christ; fill us with the Apostolic enthusiasm that said, “To die is gain”; then shall our life upon earth be the richer for our anticipations of immortality and our labour more continuous and more complete because of our assured rest. Pity us every one! We have done what we ought not to have done. The Lord look upon us from the Cross of his Son and publish this day an amnesty, through the righteousness which was magnified on the Cross and the condescension and the pity illustrated there, to all the souls burdened and chain-bound that sigh for liberty. Amen.
Act 28:30-31
30. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Two Years In Rome
This is an abrupt close. It is not the less suggestive on that account. By this time we ought to be independent of the historian and to be able to write Paul’s diary with our own hand. If we have made the most of our opportunities, we ought to be able now to say what Paul is doing every day in the week. There are some friends we need not consult because we know exactly what they would say under the circumstances which constitute our perplexity. They are with us for ever. We know precisely how they would address themselves to every embarrassment. Were the case one in which the least taint of meanness could be found, we could see, though they had been dead these dozen years, how their faces would burn with holy anger. Were we to lay before them some proposition that halted in its logic or that turned almost imperceptibly aside in its morality, we could hear their tones of judgment, direction, and inspiration, and see by the expressive eye where they would cry shame upon us if we yielded one millionth part of a second to the enemy. It is needless to go to them in the flesh and say, “Such and such are the circumstances; what would you advise?” We know their souls; they are in us, part of us; by a marvellous metempsychosis they have been transformed into us, and they are breathing and burning in the secret tabernacle of our own life. It is so with the Apostle Paul. The historian pays us a compliment in condensing into two little verses the industry of two years in Rome, as if he should say, “You know how the years would be occupied: count the hours, and set down every one of them as an act of industry; count the days, and see them shining every moment with some new hope, or singing every hour with some new or old but enlarging song.” We miss our advantages so much. We seem never to get to know our minister, our friend, our fellow-traveller: we have to be introduced to one another every time we meet. We have lost the faculty of observation. We ought not now having studied the Acts of the Apostles verse by verse these two years and more gone, every Sunday morning in this house we ought not now to be ignorant of how Paul would spend his two years. He has shown us his whole plan and scheme. You know where to find him within the shadow of the Cross; in what spirit he will be working the spirit of aspiration and self-sacrifice; with what hope he will be serving the hope of saving some. A prisoner who has a case on appeal having reached the city where the case is to be heard and having two years to spend before the case will come on how will he occupy himself during that period of waiting? If you inquire about a stranger, you will say, “He ought to be well prepared when the case does come on; he will spend his time in consulting the wisest authorities; there will be nothing wanting in his case; having all that time upon his hands, he will revise every point, reconstruct the whole, examine every link in the chain; and when Nero throws open the door of the court and says he is ready, the prisoner will also be ready with perfectness of preparation.” Is Paul occupied in getting up his case? Read the thirty-first verse: “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.” At the last as at the first, just the same. The first is the last, the last is the first, in all great personalities, in all infinite oaths and vows. He is not dying in those verses; he will succeed in his appeal, if the appeal be ever heard. Probably the appeal will never come on; should it come on, the respondents may not appear, and the case may be dismissed. Paul will certainly leave Rome this time, though he will be seized afterwards and brought back on another charge; and a little way beyond the city gates the gleaming sword will fall upon his neck and sever from him his head. But that crisis is not represented in those two verses. Paul is waiting: and waiting to him at Athens meant preaching; waiting in Rome means preaching. Holiday-taking means evangelisation in the case of a man who lived to die and who was never content unless the altar fire was burning up all that he counted dear in this present life. But in other cities Paul went about finding opportunities, opening doors and boldly entering in. Is he doing that now during those two years in Rome? Observe the construction of the sentence and make your own inference. “Paul dwelt” Paul “received all that came in unto him.” That is not the old speech; it was not customary for Paul to be described in passive moods. He was always active, energetic, aggressive, almost violent, almost mad; now he “receives all that come in unto him.” An incidental and grammatical way of indicating a very solemn fact: Paul was in prison; Paul could not go where he himself would choose. He had a lodging probably paid for him by kind friends, but he was bound to the soldier, and he could only receive the congregations that came to him. He could not now stand up in public places and make his own opportunity and create his own great responsibility: he was a prisoner-preacher, and could only expound the kingdom to the congregations that voluntarily came to him to hear what he had to say.
But Paul occupied his two years in Rome in doing something more than preaching. He would have been but a name today had he not occupied considerable portions of the term of his imprisonment in writing his immortal epistles. Writing lives. You cannot tell where a scrap of paper may be found again. Only a few can ever hear the living voice. Though a man should preach to thousands for forty or fifty years regularly, a very small portion of the human race can have come under the ministry of his voice; but the writing lives, waits, travels, represents him in some small degree; is a kind of body in which his thought-life lives for ever. What should we have known of Paul but for the Epistles? The Epistles may be said, in some considerable sense, to have created the theology of the Church. How wonderful that we should have in the Gospels but a narrative a narrative in which some persons can find discrepancies and incoherences; a narrative at the best full of gaps and disappointments, pausing where we want it to flow on like a river, stopping when our excitement is agony, and in the Epistles should have but a few letters. This is Divine; there is no scheme in this, or plan, or long-headed foresight; this is God’s nature, God’s method; this is the glory cf heavenly truth. Impostors write elaborate systems, watch the relation of parts, the distribution and proportion of what they are about; labour at their work so as to defy the critic. But in this New Testament why, there is no wild boar of an unbeliever who has not imagined himself capable of rushing through the Book and crushing it under his broad feet. This is God’s glorious way a little narrative, a beautiful parable, a sudden miracle, an outgoing and ejaculation of strength that startles the ignorant and the undevout, not being in harmony with the Infinite, to whom there can be no surprise, and a few letters written to scattered and persecuted believers. These are our documents; they have been torn, cut, proscribed, burned, damned; but they lift themselves up again and say, “Why do the heathen rage?” They are still with us, our sweetest comfort, bread that our hunger longs for, richest when we are poorest, gardens blooming and burning upon graves like the bush that enshrined the God of Abraham.
During the first year of his imprisonment at Rome, Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians. What an insight it will give us into his life at Rome if we can have a peep into that letter! We know that Paul will tell the Philippians everything, because they loved him so much, and gave him so much, and lived in him and he in them. So if we can get hold of that letter to Philippi, we shall not need Luke to write down for us, after the fashion of a diary, what the tireless worker was doing. The letter is at hand! Remember the writer is at Rome, may never leave it: may be slain in the city. Open the letter, and give us a word or two from it! In the twelfth verse we read: “I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me” he makes nothing of them where we should have made a great whine and moan “have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” He never leaves his subject; he had no outside engagements; in prison or out of prison, on the sea or in the city, Paul was occupied with one theme, which he called “the gospel.” Read another line from the letter if you can read the twenty-eighth verse: “in nothing terrified by your adversaries.” He speaks to the Philippians as if they were in prison; the encouragement comes from the man with whom we were about to sympathise. But he has suffered so much now that he has come to see the other side of the tragedy. It is possible to suffer so much, and to accept the suffering in the right spirit, that really the sorrow becomes the beginning of truest joy. So Paul, figuratively speaking, lifts up his head again, gives the chain another lurch as he lays the bound hand upon the paper, and says: “In nothing terrified by your adversaries…. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” Why, he might have been liberated. Whilst he was writing this he was feeling the burden of the chain.
Can we have another line from the letter? Take the fourth verse of the fourth chapter: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” When we opened the letter we said: “Where is there a man amongst us with voice plaintive enough to read the minor music?” We quieted ourselves into a deeper peace that we might listen to the voice of the man whose life was one long sorrow; and when we came to the very third verse of the letter speaking of it in its modern form we heard the man say, “I thank.” This is how we are disappointed in our expectations. He is the only cheerful man in the company; he gives the key note of the song; he says, “I have seen all the black sea, all the deep waters; I have seen all the devil can do, and after all he is a poor, poor enemy; a mean foe, with a sword all handle, and with an aim of a blind man.” Was all this merely sentiment? Was there anything like substance under it? Was this the foam which a child can make in a pool, or was it the foam that is found upon great billows, infinite volumes of water? Read Phi 1:21 , and you will find the basis line upon which the whole is built: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That reads like logic; there is the substance and sinuousness of reason about it. He uses reason: he says, “I am in a strait betwixt two fear ye the appeal may go against me?” Not a word about the appeal “I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful fur you.” There is not a word about the appeal; there is no reference to Nero, young fiend! The only reference is to Christ and to the Church. Was there not great basis of doctrine under all this high sentiment? Let us read in the second chapter from the fifth verse to the eleventh a passage which Paul himself alone could read in the right tone. This is a prisoner, and this is the prisoner’s exhortation: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” That is the Christian theology; that is the rock on which the Church is built. But was Paul speaking after the manner of a man who had counted the cost of this? Did he really know what he was doing? Was he in very deed quite sane? Read the third chapter from the seventh verse to the eleventh: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count” he was a reckoner; he was not going without book and pencil “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” But was he one of those men who had nothing to lose? Hear him in the same third chapter: “If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” In quoting those passages and dwelling mentally upon them, always remember the writer and the writer’s circumstances, and thus the letter will be multiplied a thousandfold in meaning and in influence. Reading this letter to the Philippians, I have no hesitation in saying that men with such views cannot be in prison. The views themselves are like a great firmament. A man who has great ideas never can be in prison, or in narrow circumstances, or in poverty, or in pain; he lives in another world; he has bread to eat that the world knoweth not of. Such men cannot want. Paul says in the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter, “Not that I speak in respect of want.” They had sent him something, and when he opened the little parcels out, he said, “Your care of me hath flourished again…. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” It is only for a moment; I tarry but a night; I shall be gone in the morning. “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Nero is a poor man, compared with his prisoner. Such men cannot die; when the body dies, they are lifted above the pain by great convictions and great hopes. “Brethren,” said Paul, “be followers together of me…. For our conversation [or our citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile [or common] body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Ask a child going home if he is sorry to go; ask the friend, who is anxiously awaiting the coming of the completing heart, whether, as the time draws near, the pain of sorrow deepens. No more can the Christian die; he has to speak of death as men speak a foreign tongue; there is an accent of strangeness in the very utterance of the word. Death is abolished; death is swallowed up in victory; death is gain.
Do you admire Paul in these circumstances? Do you say, “This is heroism, this is grandeur; this is a man the world ought to remember with gratitude”? Do you know how he came to be the man you admire? We shall lose much if we admire the servant and forget the Master. Paul was only Paul because Christ was Christ: “I am the Vine, ye are the branches…. Without me ye can do nothing.” We must not lose sight of the Son of Mary, Son of man, Son of God. We admire Paul; we uncover our heads before him; we say, “This is moral majesty.” What made it? The Cross. When Paul receives our homage and acknowledges it, he points us in one direction, and says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” If the Cross makes such men, preach it: it is the eternal doctrine.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Chapter 106
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art good unto us in Jesus Christ thy Son with eternal and unmeasurable goodness. We think we see it all, and, behold, we see but a little part thereof. Who can see, or search out, the Almighty unto perfection? Thou art able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. We bless thee for this infinity of goodness; its very grandeur overpowers us; its very sublimity makes us pray. We thank thee that we are in the house dedicated to the proclamation of this infinite goodness. This house of thine is better than any house of ours; it is our Father’s house; it is all good houses in one glorified into a centre of vital fellowship and immortal hope. From this great height we see the sun rise; we behold the proofs of its coming, and we are assured that the whole earth shall be filled with light and that the morning glory shall chase every shadow away. Grant unto us bright visions today. May we see clouds shaping themselves into radiant gates opening upon infinite mornings and summers. May we see heaven open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Then shall we know that all things are made secure in him. We shall not be without a centre, or a corner-stone, or a binding personality; but all things shall spring out of the Son of man and return to him and receive their glory from him, and we shall know the mystery which hath centred in the living Christ, the living kingdom of God. Uplift our minds to great eminence; broaden and heighten our understanding; send upon us the power of unutterable thought that shall make us dumb with a sense of sublimity and blind us with tears expressive of unworthiness and penitence. Thou givest great things; today give us great thinkings, great outlooks, great hopes and certainties of faith, so that today we may begin the better summer, the great brightness of the soul, the glory of the upper world that shall express itself in the abundance of a great harvest. We pray for one another. Thou dost regard the prayers that are intercessions, the cryings inspired by love and upheld by faith. We pray for the weary man that his strength may daily return; for the sated and outworn man that he may see such change of life and all the purpose of his being as shall create within him new appetences, higher, godlier desires, so that he may begin again and forget his satiety in a new and sacred hunger. We pray for the man who feels in himself the down-going of the body, who has lost the faith and force of earlier time and who is conscious of a decay he cannot express in terms; the Lord send him reviving of spirit that quickening and certitude of hope which can impart strength to the fainting heart. We pray for those whose purpose is good, but whose power of execution is small; whose veneration is high, but who fail to carry out that which is noblest in worship in that which is purest in sacrifice. The Lord look upon us every one, from every land speaking every language; whatsoever may be our estate and condition, may we know that we are enclosed by the same firmament of light, breathed upon by the same spirit of vitality, fed and nourished by roots which thou thyself hast made to grow. Grant us thy peace, grant us thy light; banish our sin as thou dost banish darkness by the dawn. Send us help from the sanctuary: even when faint, may we be pursuing; when laid down in the dust and the sword of God hanging above us, may we have the faith which says, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Lead us down the few remaining miles, through the few green lanes and blossoming places that lie between us and the grave, up a steep or two and across some highland, and then gently down into the valley at whose other end there is no gate opening upon this world, but a great door opening upon a better; and may we as we pass through that portal be enabled to say, “By the grace of God, I am what I am. I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus redeemed me and washed me in his precious blood. I die to live O death, where is thy sting?” Amen.
Act 28:30-31
30. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Apostolic Communications
We are now inquiring how Paul spent the two whole years which he remained in Rome awaiting the result of the appeal which he had made to Csar. We have read the general words: “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.” We have not felt satisfied with that general statement, and therefore we ventured to inquire somewhat into the detail of the Apostolic labour in Rome. We found, by the help of the Epistles and by the assistance of learned men, that during his two years’ residence in Rome Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, the letter to the Colossians, with its postscript note to Philemon, and also the letter to the Ephesians. No reference is made to those epistolary and immortal labours in the concluding verses of the Acts of the Apostles; we simply have a summary given in the words just quoted: “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.” Not a word is said about the letters; yet the letters constitute this day the corner-stones of all Christian theology. If we could see the letters, we have said, we should discover something respecting the man. We have looked into the Epistle to the Philippians: let us look into the Epistle to the Ephesians. In the third chapter of that epistle and the first verse, he describes himself as “Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.” In the fourth chapter of the same epistle and the first verse, he describes himself as “the prisoner of the Lord.” In the sixth chapter and the twentieth verse, he represents himself as “an ambassador in bonds.” He thus speaks of his chain and yet does not speak of it; he uses it for another purpose than merely to describe it. So much depends upon the emphasis, which is of course lost in reading the writing of another man. He is a prisoner, but he is “the prisoner of Jesus Christ”; he is a prisoner, but he is “the prisoner of the Lord”; he is in bonds, but he is “an ambassador” a king’s agent, a man sent with a seal and with an authority. This is the way in which to use a chain, a sign of degradation, an infirmity of any kind, whether of the flesh, or of the spirit, or of the estate; whether it be bodily weakness, whether it be penury, poverty, difficulty embarrassment of any kind: the way to use it is to attach it to the infinite name and power and grace. The chain would be very heavy if we could not hook it on at one end to the infinite strength of God. Paul does not whine about himself being a prisoner, a captive, a bondsman, a sufferer: he acknowledges the chain, but he says, “It is the Lord’s chain.” He is not a prisoner of Csar, but a prisoner of Christ. Thus by using great names and yielding himself to the inspiration of great thoughts, he shakes off the chain and stands up in Divine and illimitable liberty. That is the way to use Christian faith and to turn Christian doctrine to practical advantage. We dissociate ourselves from the current of power, from the streams of grace, yea, from the great Fountain of sustenance and comfort, and then mourn like lost things in the wilderness, and say, adding lies to ingratitude, “The Lord hath forgotten to be gracious.” The sweet Gospel coming up from Rome, the tender message sent by the Apostle’s voice and hand, we have before us. There is the chain, there is your infirmity; no mistake about the thorn in the flesh, no mistake about your poverty, embarrassment, and difficulty in life; no mistake either about the temptations that assail the sanctuary of the soul; but all things must be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, and the Lord’s place in the discipline and education and final perfecting of human life must be adoringly acknowledged and must be accepted as the one inspiration which alone can bear life’s burdens and sustain patiently life’s distressing mysteries.
But what a shepherd’s heart had Paul! His heart seems to spread itself right out in his letters to the Philippians, the Ephesians, and the Colossians. Look at his care of souls: Eph 1:16-23 ; there he says: “I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” What would he that the Ephesian Christians should have? “The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God”; he would have “the eyes of their understanding enlightened, that they might know what is the hope of Christ’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to them-ward who believe.” How the sentences roll from his eloquent tongue when he begins to speak of the “Father of glory,” and the “God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and the grace of Heaven! How language is lifted up into new dignities and made to assume the very majesty of thought! Paul’s shepherdly heart created great shepherdly expressions. He asked no mean gifts for the Christian soul, but all heaven’s riches. When we ask mean things, we do not pray; our request only becomes prayer when we claim the heavens. A mean prayer is not a prayer.
Then his care for the Church as a whole. In Eph 4:32 , he seems to sum up his desires in the words: “And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” He lays an infinite line even upon social relations, differences, and controversies, and rules them into order by the very grandeur of his appeal. Did any other apostle ever use the word “tender-hearted”? It is not a word: it is a speech, it is a poem, it is a theology. Yet people have admired the Apostle’s logic as if at the expense of his wondrous graciousness. My own feeling is, as a student of the Pauline life and doctrine, that none could love like Paul.
Not only have we care of souls and care for the Church as a whole, but we have care for the family. Not one member of the household is omitted: “Husbands, love your wives”; “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath”;” Children, obey your parents”; “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters”; “Masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.” What a bishop’s heart! what an illustration of Christianity! This religion takes care of us all; it will not omit one from its great prayer. The poor should know this, and the so-called working-man, and all persons who are in distress or are at a disadvantage; the weak and the lonely, the little child and the old man Christianity would gather all within its great arms and bless the whole world with peace and hope. Learn from the prayers of Paul what Christianity is always seeking to do.
Paul also wrote the Epistle to the Colossians during his imprisonment at Rome. In that letter he uses an appeal full of tenderness. In the very last line of the letter, he puts in a sentence of three words: “Remember my bonds.” “Remember my bonds” it was enough. A word is enough to those whose hearts are in right tune and who keep themselves abreast of the information which the history of the Church daily supplies. How did the great Apostle regard his fellow-labourers? Did he so tower above them as to be unconscious of their existence? Read Col 4:10 : “Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, if he come unto you, receive him.” You remember the controversy with John Mark; you remember Paul’s welcome to the young man at a given time in the Apostolic history; and. now, as the day is wearing westward, Paul says, “And Marcus, if he come unto you, receive him.” Then (twelfth verse), “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring” hotly, burningly, and “fervently for you in prayers.” And what was the burden of his prayers? Can they be summed up in one pregnant sentence? Yes: “that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” Then in the fourteenth verse, “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.” Paul did not forget anybody; Paul was looking when persons thought his eyes were closed. No touch of a gentle hand ever escaped his notice, who stands next to Christ in the wisdom and penetration of his love. And if the servant does not forget, can he forget who is Master? The Lord is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labour of love. You praise the minuteness of Paul’s recollection. Paul shone with a borrowed light. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, he will remember who visited him, who gave him drink when he was in thirst, food when he was in hunger, and rest when he was weary. Admire Paul, repeat with glowing emphasis everything that lifts up his memory as with the breadth of an inspiration; but remember that Paul himself lay down in humblest depths of lowliness before Another, and said that Other was King: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Paul also wrote the letter to Philemon. That letter was a kind of postscript to the letter to the Church at Colosse. It reveals a great deal, though in comparatively few words; it shows what a slave-owner’s power was in ancient days. Onesimus was a slave of Philemon. Philemon could have thrown him into the water, and there was no law to ask what had become of the slave. But Onesimus had been freed by the Apostle Paul during his two years’ imprisonment at Rome, and Paul would do nothing without the permission of Philemon; but he entreats Philemon as “Paul the aged.” Cunning writer! cunning user of words! He was not “Paul the aged” when labour was to be done, when suffering was to be undergone, when tyrants were to be faced; when lions were to be fought, he was Paul the immortal; but when a slave was to be reinstated, taken back in the old house, Paul thought that if he represented himself as an old man, it would have a happy effect upon the sensibilities of Philemon. Paul seemed to say, “You can use my circumstances in any way that will help a good cause: call me rich or poor, describe me under any names and titles you please that represent the actual facts of the case, providing I can soften human stubbornness, or make the way of a fellow-creature broader and easier in life.” I do not know that Paul would have cared to have been called “Paul the aged.” He looked very old sometimes; but at the touch of duty, at the sight of a new opportunity, under the spell of an awakened memory, he sprang into fire again young, lithe, strong, invincible. Yet he is willing to describe himself as Paul the aged, because that might count for something and moisten the eyes of Philemon. Talk about the equality of men, and the harmonisation of classes, and the over-getting of social difficulties; read the seventeenth verse of the letter to Philemon: “If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.” This is said about a run-away, penitent slave! Why, he could not have given a nobler introduction to Csar himself had Csar been going in the direction of Philemon’s dwelling-place. “Receive him as myself” what a delicate tribute that to old hospitalities and comradeships, to morning prayers and evening talks! “Receive him as myself” I remember how I used to be received, how the door was pushed back upon its hinges almost with anger that it was a door that could be construed into separating me from the house; I remember the warmth, the old talk, the genuine love, the free confidence receive Onesimus as if he were Paul. These are the eternal miracles of Christianity, these the marvels that make men open their eyes in unutterable astonishment. This is what Christianity would do today: bring back every man that had wronged you, and make him say, “I was wrong, pity me”; bring back every wanderer and reconstruct the household circle. Christianity harmonises the classes, not by dragging any class down, but by lifting all classes up. How much can be put into a postscript! This little note was written for the purpose of introducing a slave to his master. Paul said, with the audacity of an invincible faith, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account” a man who had not where to lay his head! But he knew he could pay all such obligations as that: “I Paul have written it with mine own hand” as if he had taken the pen out of the fingers of the amanuensis and had written this little piece himself “I Paul have written it with mine own hand; I will repay it” pay a slave’s debt! Then comes the touch of closest love with a touch also of righteousness in it, “Albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.” Yes, these are the great debts that exist between man and man not a debt of gold, as much of which can be put in one scale as in the other so that both shall be held in equipoise, but “thou owest unto me even thine own self.” These are the debts which people owe to the great authors, and the great thinkers, and the true preachers of the day they owe themselves. They never knew they were men till they were touched by fire from heaven, until they were reminded of their true quality by a voice inspired. “Thou owest unto me even thine own self” by the grace of God; I have prayed thee out of despair into hope; I have called thee out of weariness into strength; I have led thee from darkness to light; take it back: if he owe anything, call it my debt: I will put that right; but if we do make a balance sheet, I will write one line on the other side “Thyself.”‘
These are the letters; is the writer a fanatic? I will believe it when fanatics reason as he does. Is he a self-seeker? I will believe it when self-seekers suffer as he did. When you want to know what Christians are, do not look at us, but look at Paul. We ought to follow him as he followed Christ: he told us expressively to do so; but we dare not say, “Look upon us and behold Christianity”; but we dare say, “Read Paul’s life every line; study it night and day the year round; read his letters sentence by sentence; watch his endurances, sacrifices, activities; sum him up into the real total of quality and power, and look at him, and by his character and service we will risk the Christian controversy.” How he taught the doctrine of forgiveness! Why, that is the supreme doctrine of Christianity. If you have never forgiven anybody, you are not a Christian; if you have not forgiven everybody, you are not a Christian. In order to complete the work of forgiveness, there must be consent upon the other side; there must also be penitence upon the other side, where wrong has been done. Still we are called to the spirit of forgiveness, and if we ask why we should forgive, the answer is, “Because we have been forgiven.” If any man can stand up and say, “I have no desire to be forgiven, I have nothing for which to be forgiven; I am whiter than the snow, purer than the light, taintless as the morning new-born in heaven,” we have no speech to make to him; but if he stand in common clay on our footing, and know that he has wronged everybody that he ever came in contact with in some form or other in word, or thought, or deed if he say, “I am a sinner, but God has forgiven me,” Paul no sooner hears him say that than he adds, “Then forgive as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
I know not what agnosticism may teach, or what socialism may propagate and proclaim, or what atheism may have to say to the ages; but, oh, it will have to say more than I have ever heard of it saying before it silence this transcendent music or put to flight this radiant and healing angel of Christianity.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Chapter 107
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art our refuge and strength. They are strong who live in God; they are immortal who touch thine eternity with faith and love and hope. They cannot die: the sword cannot cut them to their destruction, nor can they be blown away by the great wind, nor can the lion devour them. Behold, they are hidden in God’s pavilion, and under the shadow of the wings Divine do they put their trust. We bless thee for the great strong ones who have led the way. We love their names; we love to think of their wonderful story and to read it until our hearts glow with the fire which made them hot. May we follow them as they followed Christ! May our hold upon Christ be complete! We do not now desire only to touch him: we would that he might dwell in us, abide with us, take up His abode with us, sup with us in lifelong festival. This desire is thy creation. This desire is not our own by origin, but it is now our own by adoption and conviction, and by all the delight that flows from its possession. Behold, this also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts. Fill us with this desire; may it be the supreme wish of our soul. Then shall it become its own answer, and the whole soul shall be filled with the light of God. We bless thee for all words that call us upward; we would answer all the challenges that draw our souls towards greater liberty and purer light. We know that these challenges are the voice of God in the soul. We bless thee that we are no longer deaf to thy calls. We hear them now as we never heard them before not only their great tones, telling of thy majesty, but their gentle whisperings, breathing the very tenderness of thy love. Blessed are they whose ears can hear, whose faculties are not dead, but are alive with prayer and burning with expectation. Let thy word be unto us various as the need of our life. Thine is an infinite word, and truly ours is an infinite necessity. Let thy word come to us according as we are able to bear it. We expect more from it; it is a great word, and no man hath ventured to name it, nor can the tongue of man tell it, or the heart of man conceive it. Thou wilt surprise us with greater revelations; thou wilt astonish the eye with light; thou wilt make the heart fill itself with reverent amazement in gazing upon the wonders of thy love. Yet the darkness is thine as well as the light. Thou hast a purpose in keeping us ignorant a while. We are growing even in the darkness; we are preparing even when we are not being surprised; the quietness is a mission; the standing still is progress; the waiting for God is the winning of a battle. Dry our tears when we dare not touch them with our own hand; speak comfortably to us when the affliction is too sore; make our bed; give us a song in the night time; cause the springs of water to burst forth when our thirst is hottest; lead us by the way that is right; never explain thyself to us, but fill us with thy love. The Lord’s mercy be brighter than the summer light; the Lord’s word come to us with the pomp of its own eternity and with the condescension of its infinite friendliness. Fill the house with thy glory. Let the angels all come; let the spirits of the just made perfect have some relation to us which we can, how dimly soever, realise; and may we feel that we are not orphans, waifs, lost things blown by the heedless wind, but part of the whole family in heaven and on earth.
We pray this prayer at the Cross, and at the Cross we tarry till the answer come. Amen.
Act 28:30-31
30. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
A Retrospect and a Prospect
For further light upon the fate of the Apostle Paul, we must be indebted to the labours of learned inquirers. There are men who have made a special study of this subject, and to them we must look for fact and guidance. In the year 63 Paul was released, and returned to the East to continue his evangelistic and apostolic work. In July, 64, a great fire occurred at Rome, the fire being enkindled by the emperor himself, according to the testimony of the most learned historians and witnesses, but falsely charged upon the Christians. A great anti-Christian persecution thereupon arose. Christians were scattered everywhere; many were arrested and slain. Some think that the Apostle Paul visited the Britannic Isles, and that the great cathedral church of London St. Paul’s points to that fact. His name would certainly be well known in England. Soldiers who had guarded him at Rome were drafted to London, Chester, York, and other military centres in England, and they could not but speak of the most illustrious prisoner ever given to their charge. About these movements we have no certain record. Paul was probably apprehended at Ephesus and conveyed to Rome, where he wrote his last letter, the Second Epistle to Timothy wrote it with his dying hand. It is something to have that last letter. It reads like the summary of a lifetime; it reads, too, like a will. A will! what had the Apostle to leave? To that letter we must turn for distinct information regarding our saintly hero. The days are few and solemn now; the hour of home-going is now chiming. We had better listen to him now, for presently the voice will cease. He knew that he was writing as a dying man. In chapter 2Ti 4:6 of the letter he says, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand” “I am bound like a thing that is going to be laid upon the fire: my limbs are bound to one another; my arms are lashed round my body with iron hoops I am just waiting to be flung.” What will he say now to a young minister? He will frighten the young man; he will utterly appal the rising youth who is supposed to be nearest to him and to have some kind of right to his mantle. Surely he will adopt another tone: he would hide the afflictions, say as little as possible about them, and would endeavour to allure rather by tender promise the young man who is to succeed him in the Apostolic function.
Even whilst the shadows were gathering around our hero he had a clear view of what he had done. In the seventh verse of the fourth chapter he says, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” What an epitaph! Truly we ourselves are witnesses of all these things. We could not have come upon this testimony from the outside with any familiarity or sympathy or recognition of the infinite scope and pathos of its meaning; but coming to it from our study of the whole record, having been with the Apostle night and day and seen him month after month in the great labour, we feel that he has at last selected the very words which most profoundly and most graphically describe the wonderful course through which he has passed. That is something. Were we to come upon a text like this from the outside, we might call it boastful, self-conscious, deeply dyed with the spirit of egotism; but when we come upon it along the historical line, when we know the man in and out intellectually, spiritually when we understand somewhat of his genius, and have felt the wonderfulness of his gracious temper, and have seen the long continuance of his inexhaustible patience, we feel that this is an inspired summary, that it is God that speaks rather than the mere man himself. We can testify he has well fought a good fight. He never shrank away from the contest; he was never wanting when the opportunity shaped itself into a crisis; he never said, “Pity me and let the blows be fewer and weaker”; he never asked for quarter; he will die a victor. You cannot kill such men!
Best of all, he says, “I have kept the faith.” That explains all the rest. But for the faith, the fighting would have been a squabble, a controversy without meaning, a conflict without dignity; the course would have been sentimental, romantic, extravagant, from the worldly point of view absurd; but having kept the faith, the fight is lifted up into a Divine battle, and the course takes rank with the movements of the planets an infinite sweep, full of majesty, full of light. We cannot fight, or run, or do anything good and worthy except in proportion as we keep the faith. The courage is not in the hand; it is in the inner being. The explanation of life is not in circumstances; it is within that mysterious thing you call your self a holy of holies into which even you cannot critically enter: you can only adoringly and wonderingly abide. Without the faith we may have huge pretensions, great and rushing cloud for a time, enthusiasm that looks as if it would last, but which really cannot last because of want of connection with Divine fountains and energies. Lord, increase our faith; our grip of doctrine do thou make stronger, our love of truth purer, our insight almost like thine own omniscience. This is how heroes die.
Then Paul had not only a retrospect, but a prospect. Heaven seemed to come down to meet him: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord… shall give me.” This world is not enough; the time comes when we want to lay hold upon another. This is the marvellous action of something within us which we cannot define, but which, being defined for us, we can realise, and say, “You have used the right word; you have put into articulate expression what I have been trying to say ever since I was born.” That is what inspiration does, and that is how inspiration proves itself to be of heaven. It interprets us to ourselves; it finds us opening a kind of heart-mouth, trying to say something which we cannot say, and it then tells us the word we are wanting to utter, and which the moment we hear we recognise. We never could have found it, but being found for us, we say, “This is none other than the gift of God.” So we have a supernatural language, a wonderful set of words which must be extremely foolish to people who do not live along the line which must necessarily complete itself in their meaning and brightness. Wonderful words they are! “crown of righteousness”; “white linen of the saints”; “palms of victory”‘; “heaven”; “home”; “New Jerusalem”; a “mountain that may not be touched,” “Zion” by name; “infinite”; “everlasting.” We do not use these words in the marketplace. No, but the marketplace is a small corner; it is hardly in the universe at all; it is only a little piece of the little world in which it is a speck, or is recognised by a mere name. But there comes a time in life when we want a new language great language: crowns, thrones, principalities, dominions, powers, heavens on heavens, infinite. O madness to the worldling necessity to the soul fire-touched, fire-stung. Do not speak of heaven till you feel your want of it, otherwise you will speak great words with a faltering tongue, and in their utterance you will spoil their meaning.
Some wonderful sources of consolation Paul opens even in this farewell letter. In the second chapter, ninth verse, he speaks of his “trouble” and of his “bonds”; but he instantly lifts up the subject as he was wont to do, saying, at the close of the verse, “but the word of God is not bound.” That is a Pauline expression; doubt the pastoral epistles as to their authenticity who may, every now and then there is a touch of the old master-hand; they are a splendid imitation so splendid as to be no imitation, but a reality. In the twelfth verse also he lifts up the subject, saying, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.” In the thirteenth verse he lays down the sovereign doctrine which redeems the whole situation of life: “He cannot deny himself.” That is the ground we occupy. We know that preaching is a failure, we know that sermons often go for nothing, we are perfectly well aware that many appeals die in the air without ever reaching the ears to which they were directed by the ardent speaker; we are perfectly aware of all this yet “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. We stand upon the word eternal; we do not rest upon the transient accident. What will Paul say now to his son in the faith? Surely he will say, “Child, return, I have led thee a weary way; I have spoken words to thee which must have the effect of falsehoods; let my suffering be an example to thee: return to domestic quietude and to natural obscurity.” What does the will say? Read the will! We applaud earthly heroes who dying bid men fight; we are proud of them; we call them great men, and we remember their name; we quote what they say and turn it into poetic form and recite it and applaud it.
Chapter 108
Prayer
Almighty God, speak unto us, for thou hast now given unto us the hearing ear and the understanding heart. This is thy holy gift; this, indeed, is the very miracle of grace. Our faculties are now of use; we begin to see the purpose of our creation. By thy grace in Christ Jesus, we are enabled to stand in thy light, and to see somewhat of the outline of thy truth. This is a great vision; for this we bless thee with ardent love. We knew not the great world before; but now we enter into larger spaces, and enjoy boundless liberties, and feel that we are no longer children of the earth and prisoners of time, but sons of God and born for eternity. So then we are lifted up with great elevation of thought and feeling; the world in all its littleness is far below us, and the great new sky revealed by thy grace heightens and brightens above us, and we are challenged to arise and take possession of the inheritance of the saints in light. We are no longer little in our thought and bounded in our feeling and hope: we have escaped the chain, we are captives no longer; we are out in God’s boundless firmament, yet are we centred to his eternal throne. The Son has made us free; therefore are we free indeed. Thou hast shown us the meaning of the letter and led us into the liberty of the spirit. It is a glorious liberty! We feel its inspiration; we would answer all its nobleness by larger service and deeper humility. Show us that thou art the Righteous One, tempering judgment with mercy. Thou wilt not overstrain us, for our strength is but weakness; thou wilt not flash upon us the intolerable glory, but reveal thyself unto us in growing light according to our growing capacity to receive it. God is Love. Thou dost remember that we are dust; thou wilt not oppress us with burdens grievous to be borne; thou knowest that our day here is a very short one, and thou hast caused it to be shorter still, by reason of the uncertainty of our possession of it. But we look onward to the other school, where the light is brighter, where the day is nightless, where the teaching is more direct; in thy light we shall there see light, and growing knowledge shall be growing humility, and growing power shall be growing service. This is our hope, and this our confidence, so that now we are but preparing for the great issue and the grand realisation. Meanwhile, let thy Book be unto us more and more precious, thy Sabbaths filled with a tenderer light, and every opportunity to know thy truth and study thy will more critical and more urgent. May we not reckon as those who have boundless time at their command, but rather as those who are uncertain of their next pulse, who are expecting the King and must be in readiness to meet him. Thus may we live under high discipline, in the enjoyment of great delight, eager with expectancy, calm with confidence, inspired by hope, yet resting in the completeness of Divine assurance. Thus shall our life be a mystery Divine, a creation of God, an infinite apocalypse. We have come from out-of-the-way places to one home this day. We represent many dwellings, but we cling to the one house which holds us all within its hospitable embrace. This is our Father’s house, where there is bread enough and to spare, where the servant may become a son and the son receive duly double assurance of his sonship. We would seize the opportunity; we would rise to the inspiration of this new hope; we would dwell within the security of thy Zion and know thy banner over us is Love. Thou hast led us by a strange way: thou hast often disappointed us, but only to enrich us with still brighter hopes; thou hast set mysteries in our families which terrified us because we found no solution of their meaning; thou hast cut the heart in two and made the life sore at every point by reason of the ingratitude of some, the stubbornness and selfishness of others; in some houses thou hast turned the day into night, and afflicted the night with sevenfold darkness. But thou art leading us all the time, chastening us, mellowing us, perfecting our hearts in the riches of thy grace and enriching us with the wealth of thy love. Others are wholly at ease: they have not known the weight of darkness, the sting of disappointment, the bitterness of unspeakable woe; and therein thou hast kept from them the highest joys. They know nothing of heavenly delights, of healing after disease, of joy after sorrow, of the song that comes in the morning which succeeds the long night of waiting. We would not change our places with them; our wounds have been the beginning of health, our distresses have been the roots of our purest joys, our disappointments have led us through crooked and thorny ways right into the light where stands the eternal throne. We will always tarry at the Cross: we can rest only there; we can read all its superscriptions, but high above them all the writing of God “Behold the Lamb, that taketh away the sins of the world.” That is the writing of thine own finger; that is the Gospel of thine own heart. We read it once, and again, and still again, and as we read the light grows and the music increases, and the Lamb descends from the Cross and ascends as Intercessor into the heavens, and begins the infinite prayer of his priestly love. These are the mysteries in which we hide our littleness; these are the doors at which we wait until, opened from within, we be admitted into the inner places, the sanctuary of the heavens. Amen.
An Epitome
Today we close the Acts of the Apostles. It is not, therefore, a happy day for me. We have lived so long in the company of the great men who fill this sacred portion of the Holy Scripture that we feel as if called upon to speak a very pathetic and sad farewell. This comes of reverent familiarity with things Divine. We have not allowed the familiarity to descend into frivolity; but, having kept the sacred line of true friendship all these many days, we feel as if turning our back upon a host of friends whose comradeship we should like to have continued in all its freshness and stimulus until we enter together into the common city which is our home. Thus we leave man after man, church after church, and book after book. We no sooner begin than we end; our delight is cut off in its ecstasy, and just as our expectation begins to burn into that glad agony which the heart understands, behold, the vision ceases, and we are sent back into shadows and desert places.
Look at the Acts of the Apostles as a whole, supposing the little book to be in your hands in its unity. It is a living thing; it is like nothing but itself The Master is not in it visibly, and yet he is throbbing in every line of it influentially. It is a bush that burns. Strange looks we have seen come out of it, and voices above voices and under-voices marvellous subtleties of tone only to be explained by the Divine and supernatural element. We have studied together the Gospel by Matthew and the Acts of the Apostles; putting the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles together, what a marvellous reproduction we have of the Pentateuch! These four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles together constitute the Pentateuch of the New Testament; and if you will take the Pentateuch of Moses with the Gospel Pentateuch and compare the one with the other, you will be struck with the marvellous analogies and correspondences between the two, which, being duly connected and interpreted, constitute an illustration of what is meant by the Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. What have we in the second Pentateuch? How did the first Pentateuch begin? With creation. How does the second Pentateuch begin? With creation. What was the first creation? The moulding of matter, the settlement and distribution of vast spaces and lights and forces. What is the second creation? A Church, a living universe men the planets; souls the burning suns, redeemed lives the great and immortal heavens. The Son is Creator as well as the Father; yea, the very old creation, the tabernacle of dust and light, the heavens and the earth these were all made for the Son, by the Son; he was before all things as he is above all things, so that in his creation a spiritual, gracious human creation he pales the little universe and puts it into its right place a mere speck upon the infinite being of God. So then we have our New Testament Pentateuch, and we cannot do without it, because it is fall of history; and therein it resembles the first Pentateuch full of anecdote, story, tragedy, change, movement, colour: a wonderful beginning and the only possible beginning from the highest standpoint, not a beginning in great doctrine, profound philosophies and metaphysics, all these lie thousands of miles along the road; no man may fly after them, or plunge into them with heedless impetuosity. We begin with matter, we begin with light and force, with water and earth, with things that fly and things that swim; and then we pass into the human tragedy, and through all the marvellous evolutions of history, we come into doctrine, philosophy, spiritual thought, the inner meaning, the marvellous music of things. So it is in the New Testament. We begin with a little Child, to what he may grow we know not; great is his name Immanuel: God God with us, the great God, the great Man. Now we must go forward into historical movements, activities, collisions, contradictions; now we must be lost in the centre of dusty, cloudy battlefields and then emerge into wide spaces where the summer spreads her banquet, where the air is clear of all but sweetest music. That is God’s way of training the individual life. We all begin, so to say, Pentateuchally; we all have five books, or at least five chapters of history creation, history, movement, activity, hardly knowing what we are doing moved, touched, stung, led, and wondering how it will all issue, in what eventuation it will establish itself, and what it will prove when the process has been completed. It enriches one’s thought and establishes one’s heart in the tender grace of God to see how the lines of life correspond with one another: how things are matched today by things that happened yesterday; how one life is part of some other life, how one nation belongs to all the nations, and to mark how God has not been making detached links without connection or association, but has rather been fastening those links together into a great chain, a golden chain the first link fastened to his throne, the chain dropped down, link after link added, and, lo, it begins to rise again at the other end and comes back, and the links form a chain and the chain a circle and the centre the very throne of God. We cannot do without the historical line. Man must begin with history, he cannot begin with thinking; man must begin with toys, he cannot begin with ideas, abstract thoughts, and emotions that involve metaphysical mysteries. He must have a garden to work in, he must have a flock to keep, he must have a vineyard to dress; every night he must tell how the day has been spent; and thus he is led on into the great service, and into the fidelity that keeps no diary because it is so complete as to be beyond mere registration and beyond that book-keeping which is supposed to guarantee itself against the perfidies of felonious hands. But we must begin with the garden; man thinks he is doing something when he is tilling a garden. We must begin with objective work, outside work; it is adapted to us. The absorption, the speechless contemplation, the song without words these are the after-comings, the marvellous transformations. Meanwhile, keep thy lamp burning, watch thy door with all faithfulness, and attend to thy little garden plot as if it were the whole of God’s universe; and afterwards thou shalt come to the higher studies the nobler culture, the richer, deeper peace.
Looking at the Acts of the Apostles as a whole, what a representative book it is! What varieties of character; what contradictions; what miracles of friendship; what bringing together of things that apparently are without relation and between which cohesion is, from our stand point, simply impossible! We have marked the characters as the panorama has passed before us these years; we wonder how ever they came together, how any one book can hold them; and yet, as we have wondered, we have seen men settle into relation and complement one another so as to furnish out the whole circle with perfect accuracy of outline. We belong to one another. The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of thee”; nor can the ear say to the eye, or the eye to the ear, “I have no need of thee.” All those men in the moving panorama Apostolic belonged, somehow, to one another, sphered one another out into perfectness of service and endurance. The human race is not one man; one man is not the human race. The difficulty we have with ourselves and with one another is the difficulty of not perceiving that every one of us is needful to make up the sum total of God’s meaning. Failing to see that, we have what is called “criticism,” so that men are remarked upon as being short of this faculty, wanting in that capacity, destitute of such and such qualification, not so rich in mental gift as some other man; and thus we have such foolish talking and pointless criticism. Man is one. God made man, not men; he redeemed man, he became man. Your gift is mine; mine is yours. We are a total, not a fraction; not carping individuals, but one household built on one rock, a living temple raised upon a living Corner-stone. Why fix upon individuals and remark upon their imperfections and their shortcomings? They claim the virtues of their very critics; they leap up in the hands of their vivisectors and say, “Your life is ours; your strength should perfect our weakness.” The world will not learn that lesson. The world is lost in selfishness. Christianity is now a game of selfishness, that is to say, resolving itself into “Who can get into heaven? who can safely escape into heaven?” a question that ought never to be asked; it is the worst and meanest selfishness. Who can fight best, suffer best, give most, do most, wait most patiently? these are the great questions which, being honestly asked by the soul, ennoble the soul that asks them, and challenge the life to the nobler services which the fancy contemplates. So the men in the Acts of the Apostles belong to one another. Think of Peter and Luke: Peter all fire; Luke quiet, thoughtful, contemplative, musing, taking observations and using them for historical purposes. Think of Paul and Barnabas; think of all the names that are within the record, and see how wondrous is the mosaic. There are only two great leaders. Were I to ask the youngest of my fellow students, now when we are closing the book, whose names occur most frequently in the Acts of the Apostles, hardly a child could hesitate in the reply “Peter and Paul.” They seem to overshadow everybody; their names burn most ardently and lustrously on the whole record. That is quite true; but where would they have been but for those who supported them, held up their arms, made up their following and their companionship? If they are pinnacles, the pinnacle only expresses the solidity and massiveness of the building that is below. You see the pinnacle from afar; but that pinnacle does not exist in itself, by itself, for itself; it is the upgathering of the great thought, and represents to the farthest-off places the sublime fact that the tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth. To be in the record at all is my ambition; to be on the first page or on the last, to be anywhere in it, that is the beginning of heaven. This is a representation of the Church of all time. You have your great names and your lesser names; you have Peter and James and John and Paul, and you have Philip and Thomas and James and Simon and Judas. To be in the list is enough. No man can write his own name in the list. Sometimes it is absolutely essential that a man should make his own signature, do it with his own finger, either in letters or by mark; his own living hand of flesh must have touched the page. In other records we are written down by consent. We are thankful for the honour of the registration; we have been invited to form a part of the commonwealth, and we have assented to the proposition. No man can write his name in the Lamb’s book of life. Every man must open the door of his heart to admit the knocking Saviour as his Guest. God works; man works. There is a marvellous commerce between the Divine and the human, the human and the Divine; the result of that commerce, being happily consummated, is sonship, is liberty, is heaven!
We cannot look at the book as a whole without being struck with its candour. Nothing is kept back; there is no desire to make men appear better than they really were; all the sin is here, all the shame, all the virtue, all the honour everything is set down with an impartial and fearless hand. That is one of the strongest incidental proofs of the inspiration of the whole book. This is not a series of artificial curves or carvings; the men we have had to deal with are men of flesh and blood like ourselves wholly; about their humanity we can have no doubt. Here is a record of selfishness: the story of Ananias and Sapphira is not kept back. “How much better,” some would have said, “to omit it.” As well omit the story of Adam and Eve. In every book there is an Adam and Eve, if it be a faithful portraiture of human life; in every soul there is an Adam and Eve, a fall, an expulsion, a day of cherubic fire that asserts the sovereignty of outraged righteousness. These are not inventions, but they are representations of ourselves as we know ourselves, and therefore we can confirm the book. The accident varies, the substance is constant; the mere outside of color changes in every instance, but the heart is bad with selfishness throughout. Dissensions are reported: Paul and Barnabas separated; Paul withstood Peter “to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Peter to be blamed! That was an honest book! There is no man-painting here; there is no touch of merely exhibitional genius; there is no attempt to get up. a Christian exhibition in the Acts of the Apostles with the motto, “Behold the perfect men!” There is a stern reality about this that compels the attention which it charms. Christianity is not represented here as to its earthly lot in any very attractive way. Who would say, after reading the Acts of the Apostles, were we to judge by the fate of its apostles and teachers, “Let us also be Christians”? There was not a noble man in the fraternity; there was hardly a man in the whole brotherhood that could trace his ancestry beyond yesterday. If you wanted to join an unfashionable sect, the Christian sect would have presented to you innumerable and overwhelming advantages; if you wanted to suffer, Christianity would find the opportunity. It is a record of suffering, misrepresentation, persecution, terrible sorrow and agony; a record of cold and hunger and thirst and nakedness and night-travelling. The men of the Acts of the Apostles wandered about in deserts and in mountains, in dens and in caves of the earth; they had no festival, no banner, no music, no honour amongst men. We thought that towards the last surely we should hear some better account of it; but in the last chapter Christianity is represented as the sect which is everywhere “spoken against.” All of these circumstances and instances illustrate the candour, the intense honesty and reality of the record. Human authors study probabilities. It is a canon amongst literary men that even in a romance nothing shall be put down though it may actually have occurred which exceeds the bounds of average probability. The circumstance you narrate you may have seen, but you are not allowed by literary criticism to put down anything that is merely phenomenal so extraordinary as probably not to occur more than once in a thousand years. You must keep to probability if you would build according to technical rules. There is no study of parts, proportions, colours in the Acts of the Apostles; there is no poetry-making, no romance elaboration; things are put down every night as they occurred every day there stands the record, with all blotches, blemishes, faults, all heroisms and nobilities, all endurances and glorious successes; nothing is extenuated; the whole tale is told exactly and literally as it occurred.
Reading the Acts of the Apostles through from beginning to end at one sitting which is the only right way of reading any book in order to get into the swing of its thought and the music of its rhythm reading the Acts of the Apostles straight through from the first verse to the last, I feel as if I had been present in a great and busy seed-time. I have come home, as it were, from a great field that has just been sown all over sown with truth seeds, sown with buried men, sown with buried deeds. The seed thus sown does not look very beautiful. Tomorrow it will look like a desert, and for a week or a month there may be no change, but in a week or a month more there will be first the blade; by-and-by, the ear; by-and-by, the full corn in the ear; by-and-by, the flashing sickle in the hand of the angel; by-and-by, the harvest home; by-and-by, Christ’s contentment the satisfaction of his soul.
This is the way to judge a book namely: to judge it in its wholeness; and this is the way to judge of any Church, or of any institution, or of any man. I must not take your individual actions and attempt to find the whole character in any one conversation, or in any one little sentence; I must not take you at unawares, and when I see you in high temper say, “See how bad he is!” I must not find you in some act of apparent meanness and judge the whole character by it, saying, “See the man’s dishonourableness!” I must not find you in some solitary fault, or under the pressure of some tremendous temptation, and say, “See in that instance the whole man!” Society judges so. Harsh judgments are founded upon little detached instances of temper or of spirit; but when he comes who made us made us so marvellously, made no two of us alike when he comes who knows our ancestry, our birth, our physical constitution, our advantages and disadvantages, our trials and our sorrows; when he comes who knows us altogether, he will judge us in the totality of our life, and mayhap the worst of us may be recognised by the redeeming Son of God as having upon him the sprinkled blood which will save the life from the destroying stroke.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
Ver. 30. And received all that came in unto him ] Being a genuine child of the Church, set forth by that , Luk 10:34 , that inn that receives and helps all sin-sick visitors. Christ himself (saith one) was therefore born in an inn, to signify that in the Church there is lodging for all. Let our houses be little churches and receptacles for the righteous, as Paul’s was, Col 2:5 ; so that a stranger coming thither, may behold our holy order, and say, as Jacob did of Bethel, “This is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven,” Gen 28:17 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
30, 31. ] It is evident that Paul was not released from custody , but continued with the soldier who kept him, (1) from the expressions here; he received all who came in to him , but we do not hear of his preaching in the synagogue or elsewhere: he preached and taught with all boldness and unhindered , both being mentioned as remarkable circumstances, and implying that there were reasons why this could hardly have been expected: and (2) from his constantly speaking of himself in the Epistles written during this period, as a prisoner , see Eph 6:19-20 ; Col 4:3-4 ; Phm 1:9 ; Philipp. passim. On the whole question regarding the chronology of his imprisonment, and the reason of this abrupt ending of the history, see Prolegg. to Acts, iv. 4 7: and on its probable termination and the close of St. Paul’s life, see the Prolegg. to the Pastoral Epistles, ii. 7 ff.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 28:30 . : Blass (so also Hackett, Lekebusch) makes the important remark that the aorist shows that Paul’s condition was changed after the two years, cf. , Act 18:11 (see also Burton, pp. 19, 20). When, therefore, Luke wrote his history, the inference is that the Apostle had been liberated either from prison or by death. Blass indicates another change, viz. , that he may have been removed into the prtorium, and that his trial was just coming on. ., see above on Act 28:23 . That the Apostle should have been able to hire a house at his own expense receives confirmation from the coincidence with Phi 4:10 ; Phi 4:14 ; Phi 4:18 ; others have suggested (Wendt, 1899, Knabenbauer) that he may have gained the means of hiring it by his own work. See in this connection Rendel Harris, Four Lectures, etc. , pp. 50, 51, and the extract from the Armenian Version of Ephrem’s Commentary on the Acts. It would seem that Ephrem imagined that the rent of the lodging was paid by the proceeds of the cloak and books (2Ti 4:13 ). Lightfoot, Philippians , p. 9, holds that certainly distinguishes the here from the above, see his note, and Grimm-Thayer, in loco . It is quite true that is not used in this sense of a hired house elsewhere (indeed it is used especially of the wages of hire in a bad sense, Deu 23:18 , Mic 1:7 , Eze 16:31 ), but Lightfoot admits that it may be used here exceptionally as a translation of the Latin conductum , meaning here a suite of apartments only, not the whole house (Lewin), the Latin meritoria ( sc. loca ) seems to be used very much in this same double sense of . , cf. Act 24:27 , only in Luke, not in classical Greek, but in Philo (see also Grimm-Thayer, and Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien , p. 86), so too only in Luke; see on Act 20:31 The two years were spent not only in preaching, but in writing, as we may fairly believe, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians. , see above, Act 15:4 , Act 21:7 , apparently greater freedom than in Csarea, Act 24:23 ; if it was not for the notice in Phi 1:13 ; Phi 1:17 , we might almost suppose that the Apostle was liberated on security or on bail; cf. the account of the imprisonment of Agrippa I. in Rome; see p. 486. : all, both Jews and Gentiles; not only the latter, as Bengel thought: “neminem excludebat Dei exemplo,” Grotius. ., see on Act 9:28 , most frequent in Luke, Friedrich, p. 7; see critical note.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts
THE THEME OF ACTS
THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL
PAUL IN ROME
Act 28:30 – Act 28:31
So ends this book. It stops rather than ends. Many reasons might be suggested for closing here. Probably the simplest is the best, that nothing more is said for nothing more had yet been done. Probably the book was written during these two years. This abrupt close suggests several noteworthy thoughts.
I. The true theme of the book.
We are wise if we learn the lesson of keeping all human teachers, even a Paul, in their inferior place, and if we say of each of them: ‘He was not the Light, but came that he might bear witness of the Light.’
II. God’s unexpected and unwelcome ways of fulfilling our desires, and His purposes.
So we may gather lessons of submission, of patient acceptance of apparently adverse circumstances, and of quiet faith that He who ‘makes stormy winds to fulfil His word and flaming fires His ministers,’ will bend to the carrying out of His designs all things, be they seemingly friendly or hostile, and will realise our dreams, if in accordance with His will, even through events which seem to shatter them. Let us trust and be patient till we see the issues of events.
III. The world’s mistaken estimate of greatness.
Let us have confidence in the greatness of the word, though the world may be deaf to its music and blind to its power, and let us never fear to ally ourselves with a cause which we know to be God’s, however it may be unpopular and made light of by the ‘leaders of opinion.’
IV. The true relation between the Church and the State.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 28:30-31
30And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, 31preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.
Act 28:30 “two full years” This was possibly
1. the normal period of time required to see the Caesar
2. the time needed to get new papers from Festus
3. the mandatory waiting period for witnesses from Asia or Jerusalem
4. close to the legal statute of limitations
It was during this time that Paul wrote his prison letters (Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Philippians).
“in his own rented quarters” Paul had some source of income.
1. he worked at tent making or leather working
2. he was helped by churches (Thessalonica and Philippi)
3. he had some inherited funds
“welcoming” Luke uses this term often with the connotation of “heartily welcome” (cf. Act 18:27; Act 28:30 and paradechmai in Act 15:4). It is used of the crowd welcoming Jesus in Luk 8:40; Luk 9:11. It is used of welcoming the gospel as preached by Peter in Act 2:41.
“all who came” This was the problem. Paul’s gospel had a universal reach. It was “good news” for all humans, not just Jews!
Act 28:31 “preaching. . .teaching” The early, post-apostolic church made a distinction between these two ways of presenting truth. The body of sermons recorded in Acts (Peter, Stephen, Paul) is called the Kerygma (proclamation, cf. Act 20:25; Act 28:31; Rom 10:8; Gal 2:2; 1Co 9:27; 2Ti 4:2), while the teaching of Jesus interpreted in the Epistles is called the Didache (teaching, cf. Act 2:42; Act 5:28; Act 13:12; Rom 16:17; 1Co 14:20).
“the kingdom of God” This was the subject of Jesus’ preaching. It refers to the reign of God in man’s hearts now that will one day be consummated on earth as it has been in heaven. This passage also shows that the topic is not only for Jews. See Special Topic at Act 1:3.
“the Lord” “Lord” is the translation of the Hebrew term adon, which meant “owner, husband, master, or lord” (see SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY at Act 1:6). The Jews became afraid of pronouncing the sacred name YHWH lest they take it in vain and break one of the Ten Commandments. Whenever they read the Scriptures, they substituted Adon for YHWH. This is why our English translations use all capitals Lord for YHWH in the OT. By transferring this title (kurios in Greek) to Jesus, the NT authors assert His deity and equality with the Father.
“Jesus” “Jesus” is the name given to the baby in Bethlehem by the angel (cf. Mat 1:21). It is made up of two Hebrew nouns: “YHWH,” the covenant name for deity, and “salvation” (i.e., Hosea). It is the same Hebrew name as Joshua. When used alone it often identifies the man, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary (e.g., Mat 1:16; Mat 1:25; Mat 2:1; Mat 3:13; Mat 3:15-16).
“Christ” “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah (i.e., an Anointed One, see Special Topic at Act 2:31). It asserts Jesus’ OT title as YHWH’s promised One sent to set up the new age of righteousness.
NASB”with all openness, unhindered”
NKJV”with all confidence, no one forbidding him”
NRSV”with all boldness and without hindrance”
TEV”speaking with all boldness and freedom”
NJB”with complete fearlessness and without any hindrance from anyone”
This verse shows that the Roman authorities did not consider Christianity subversive or dangerous. The Greek text ends with the adverb “unfettered” or “unhinderedly.” This seems to emphasize the ongoing nature of the task of proclamation and the power of the Spirit.
Many have assumed, based on Act 1:1 use of “first,” which implies more than two, that Luke planned to write a third volume. Some even think that this third volume may be the Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus).
For the Greek term (parrhsia), translated “openness” by NASB, see Special Topic at Act 4:29.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
dwelt. Greek. meno, as in Act 28:16, but texts read em-meno (continue) as in Act 14:22.
two . . . years. Greek. dietia. See Act 24:27. This was 61-63 A.D.
hired house. Greek. misthoma. Only here. Probably the means for this were provided by the Philippians (Php 1:4, Php 1:10-20) and other believers.
received = received freely. Greek. apodechomai. See Act 2:41.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
30, 31.] It is evident that Paul was not released from custody, but continued with the soldier who kept him,-(1) from the expressions here; he received all who came in to him, but we do not hear of his preaching in the synagogue or elsewhere: he preached and taught with all boldness and unhindered, both being mentioned as remarkable circumstances, and implying that there were reasons why this could hardly have been expected: and (2) from his constantly speaking of himself in the Epistles written during this period, as a prisoner, see Eph 6:19-20; Col 4:3-4; Phm 1:9; Philipp. passim. On the whole question regarding the chronology of his imprisonment,-and the reason of this abrupt ending of the history, see Prolegg. to Acts, iv. 4-7:-and on its probable termination and the close of St. Pauls life, see the Prolegg. to the Pastoral Epistles, ii. 7 ff.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 28:30. , but Paul remained) whatever the Jews might think of his so doing.- ) the very two years, after which had elapsed this book was written; having been published long before the martyrdom of Paul, and without doubt by the wish of Paul. Luke was with Paul also at the last time (in the prison at Rome just before Pauls martyrdom), 2Ti 4:11. Perhaps Luke was meditating a third book, in which he would repeat the acts of those two years: even as in Acts 1 he set forth some things which were not narrated in the last chapter of the Gospel.-Estius.-, all) without distinction of nation.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Act 28:30-31
PAUL A PRISONER AT ROME TWO YEARS
Act 28:30-31
30 And he abode two whole years-Paul has now changed his abiding place from some temporary abode to a more permanent one. Luke gives no account of these years. He had brought Paul to Rome; the gospel had now reached the center of the known world. This is what concerned Luke most. All this time Paul was a prisoner of state; the expenses incurred were probably defrayed by friends at Rome and in the provinces. Paul was, during the day, chained to a soldier, and probably in the night two soldiers watched him, according to the sentence of the Roman law. The New Testament contains four of Pauls epistles which were written while in prison at Rome-the epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians, and a short letter to Philemon. From these let/ters we learn that Luke, Timothy, Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, and Tychicus were among the friends who, during the whole or part of this time, were with Paul. During two whole years Paul dwelt in his own hired dwelling; the Greek misthomati, from which we get hired, means hired for a price. We do not know anything further about Pauls hired dwelling. We may be sure that Paul lived as economically as possible since he was dependent upon the gifts of Christians. (Php 4:14-15.) As a prisoner, he could not sustain himself as he did at Corinth and Ephesus. (Act 18:3 Act 20:34; 2Co 11:9.) Paul was a prisoner two years at Caesarea before he came to Rome, and now he has been a prisoner two years in Rome. We do not know why his trial was delayed; his appeal would have to wait its turn. When his case came up for trial the records of it from Festus may have been lost in the shipwreck; hence, an order for an official copy would have to be sent for from Caesarea, and the hearing postponed until the copy of the record arrived. Hence, Pauls case would lose its place in the court calendar and there would be a longer delay in reaching it again. Pauls frequent references in his prison epistles as a prisoner confirms this view. (Eph 6:19-20; Php 1:1 Php 1:13; Col 1:1 Col 4:3 Col 4:18;Phm 1:1.)
31 preaching the kingdom of God,-Paul had great privileges as a prisoner; his friends could visit him and receive instruction from him; he had opportunity to write a number of letters to the churches. He preached the kingdom of God to all who came to him. Preaching is from the Greek kerusson, and teaching comes from the Greek didaskon. Preaching means heralding, while teaching means instructing. He was not hindered in this work. He was allowed complete freedom of speech, and he used his liberty to speak out boldly to all who came to him to hear the gospel. He tells us himself that other Christians who saw a bound prisoner speak so freely were encouraged by his example and the gospel was spread. (Php 1:12-14.)
none forbidding him.-Paul had now been a prisoner four years-two years were spent in Caesarea and two more years have been spent in the Roman prison. Perhaps he spent a longer time than the two years mentioned here. Paul continued faithfully, diligently, and boldly to proclaim salvation through Christ Jesus. Luke has now completed his first purpose; he wrote to assure Theophilus of the certainty of the facts concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was received up, after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen. (Act 1:1-2; see Luk 1:4.) He now closes his book. With Paul at Rome the gospel has spread and reached a climax; from Jerusalem it has won its way from city to city, province to province, over Jewish hatred and prejudice and Gentile idolatry to the metropolis of the world. Lukes record is a triumphal spread of Christianity until it has covered the civilized world; his closing words are a suitable conclusion for the book of Acts.
Although Paul was a prisoner in Rome for two whole years, he was not idle. A portion of the New Testament scriptures were written while he was a prisoner. It is interesting to recount the many blessings and rich productions that have come from prison walls and chains. Savonarola wrote his Commentaries on Psalms 31, 51 during his month of imprisonment before his execution; this shows that, though he had much spiritual conflict, neither his faith nor his comfort yielded to his persecution. Francis Baker composed the hymn, Jerusalem, My Happy Home, while a prisoner in the tower; Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World and some poems while a prisoner in the same tower. John Bunyan wrote his Pilgrims Progress while he languished in Bedford jail.
Paul, while imprisoned in Rome, wrote four epistles-Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Paul crowned his labors by the composition of these books of the New Testament as a prisoner for Christ Jesus; thus in prison Paul did some of the most important work of his life-work that has rendered him immortal in its usefulness. He did not spend his time in murmuring and complaining, but wrote from this prison to the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice. (Php 4:4.) Furthermore, it is interesting to note Pauls companions and visitors during his imprisonment. Rom 16:3-15 contains a list of salutations of Paul to Christians in Rome; this was written probably thirteen years before Paul reached Rome. In this list he mentions twenty-three men and eight women, of whom three are spoken of as his kinsmen and four in connection with their households. In addition to these, Paul mentions in his epistles as his special companions and friends the following: Timothy (Col 1:1); Epaphras, a fellow prisoner (Phm 1:23) ; Onesi mus, a slave (Phm 1:10); Tychicus, a minister who delivered the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians (Eph 6:21-22; Col 4:7-8) ; Aristarchus (Col 4:10) ; Mark, the writer of the gospel which bears his name (Col 4:10) ; Justus, who is also called Jesus (Col 4:11); Luke, the author of Luke and the Acts (Col 4:14); Demas (Phm 1:24); Epaphroditus, who brought a gift to Paul from the Philippians and carried back Pauls letter to them (Php 2:25 Php 4:18); and some member of Caesar’s household (Php 4:22).
PAULS RELEASE,
SECOND IMPRISONMENT,
AND DEATH
Paul had made an appeal to Caesar; this brought him to Rome. He was retained a prisoner in Rome for at least two years, waiting for his trial. What was the outcome or final decision of this trial? The Acts closes before he had his trial. Some think that he continued in prison for a long time and finally died a martyr. Some good scholars doubt his release at this trial. They claim that since the New Testament is silent on the question, and that early profane history is uncertain as to the results, it cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy as to the final result. However, others are sure that Paul was released and preached the gospel for some years, and was finally imprisoned the second time in Rome and suffered martyrdom. Those who have so concluded base their conclusions on several important facts and inferences. In Pauls prison letters we learn that he expected to be released. (Php 1:25 Php 2:23-24; Phm 1:22.) We do not know whether Paul entertained this hope as a matter of judgment or whether he had special revelation by the Holy Spirit. It does not matter, since a fair conclusion from these scriptures warrants us in believing that he hoped to regain his liberty. Moreover, Clement, a disciple and companion of Paul, affirms that Paul, before his martyrdom, traveled to the boundary of the West, which is an expression applied to the trans-Alpine country; some think that he even visited Spain. Eusebius, the father of church history, states the common belief of the early churches that Paul went forth to proclaim the gospel and afterwards came to Rome a second time and suffered martyrdom under Nero. It is thought that during his second imprisonment he wrote Second Timothy. The close of Pauls life is veiled from our eyes, but no cloud dims, or ever can dim, the splendor of the services of that life for God and for humanity. Coleridge has described that life as being cultivated, refined, heroic, versatile, magnetic; a born interpreter of truth, a leader of men, a creator of life, and an epoch-making genius.
Questions on Acts
By E.M. Zerr
Acts Chapter 28
On what island was Paul and party stranded?
How were they treated by the natives?
While building a fire what came to Paul?
State the first impression of the barbarians.
What changed their minds?
And then what was their conclusion?
State the name of their chief citizen.
How did he treat the newcomers?
In what way was Paul able to repay him?
What effect did this have on other islanders?
And how did they show their gratitude?
Were the people in verses 2, 7 and 10 Christians?
Did they contribute temporal support to Paul?
Is it right to receive money from worldlings?
How long did they remain on this island?
Where did they land next?
What did they find at Puteoli?
How long did they tarry with them?
What day of the week would this include?
Is this what was their next objective?
Who met them at Appii?
How did this affect Paul?
Where did they next land?
What disposition was made of the prisoners?
State the exception that was made.
What legal security was taken over Paul?
Tell what he did after three days.
What twofold plea of not guilty did he make?
In what state was be delivered from Jerusalem?
To whom was he delivered?
Why to these people instead of the Jews?
How would the Romans have dealt with his case?
Why did they not do so?
Who took the case to Caesar?
Was Paul prejudiced against the Jewish nation?
Did his appeal call for a new trial?
Explain the reason for the chain in the 20th verse.
What was the “hope of Israel” in same verse?
What had these brethren not received as yet?
To what did they refer by “sect” in the 22nd verse?
Tell what they said about it.
What appointment was made for him?
State something of the response to it.
What was the central theme of his preaching?
From where did he draw his testimony?
Describe the effect on the hearers.
From what prophet did Paul finally quote?
What was the general subject of this prophecy?
Who was fulfilling it now?
State the reason given for their prejudice.
What information did Paul insist upon then?
After departing what did the Jews have?
On what subject could they have been thinking?
Did Paul have to go to jail?
Is it right for Christians to rent a house?
Would this also make it right to own one?
For how long did Paul’s lease continue?
Did he dwell in solitude?
How did he use his time?
What can be said of his opportunity for teaching?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
85. PAUL’S LAST TWO YEARS
Act 28:30-31
The Spirit of God inspired Luke to describe Paul’s last two years in very simple, but instructive words. “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him” (Act 28:30-31). There are many traditions about Paul and his ministry after he came to Rome, but the Lord has told us nothing more than is contained in those two verses. Most likely, at the end of these two years, Paul was executed at Rome by Nero, dying as a martyr for Christ. In this study we will summarize the message of the Book of Acts, review Paul’s last two years as a prisoner at Rome, and draw some lessons from the things we have seen in the Book of Acts.
THE BOOK OF ACTS CONSTANTLY FOCUSES OUR ATTENTION ON FIVE THINGS THAT MUST NEVER BE OVERLOOKED. Throughout these twenty-eight chapters, Luke draws our attention to these five things. Let us lay them to heart.
(1) THE PROVIDENTIAL RULE OF CHRIST – Luke opens this brief history of the early church by declaring the ascension and exaltation of Christ as Lord over all things. Then he proceeds to show us how that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, rules the universe to accomplish his will. The abuses, imprisonments, persecutions, and hardships suffered by those early believers were constantly overruled by our Lord for the spiritual, eternal good of his church and for the salvation of his elect. Throughout these chapters, we have seen that all things worked together for good to them that loved God, to them who were the called, according to his purpose. The providential rule of Christ over all things sustained God’s children in confident hope through all they suffered and did for his name’s sake. Let all who trust Christ ever trust and rejoice in his sovereign rule of the universe. If Christ who is our Head rules all things, then all is well. No matter how things may for the moment appear, our Savior is accomplishing his will, for his glory and our good in all things (Joh 17:2; Eph 1:20-23).
(2) THE MISSION OF GOD’S CHURCH IN THIS WORLD – The church of Christ has been given a definite commission from him. It is our responsibility to carry out that commission. Our Lord said, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Act 1:8). Every believer is a missionary sent of God to confess Christ to men, to carry the message of his greatness, grace, and glory to perishing sinners. Every local church is to be a preaching center from which the gospel of Christ is proclaimed to dying men. Let us renew our commitment to this cause. As the early church went everywhere preaching that Jesus is Lord, let us give our lives to this cause. It is not the mission of God’s church to entertain the world, educate the world, heal the world, reform the world, or govern the world. Our singular mission from Christ is to preach the gospel to the world.
(3) THE OFFENSE OF THE CROSS – From the very beginning, God’s people have been persecuted by the world. As Cain persecuted Abel and Ishmael persecuted Isaac, the religious world persecuted the church of God in the earliest days of Christianity. The cause of persecution was the message the church declared – salvation by God’s free grace through Jesus Christ the Lord! Things are no different today. We do not experience the physical violence that our brethren endured in those days; but the message we preach is just as hated and despised by religionists today as it was when Peter and John were imprisoned and Stephen was stoned to death. The doctrine of the cross is an offense to man. We must never expect unconverted men to love the truth of God. As the natural heart is enmity against God, the natural heart hates the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ. If we preach the gospel, we must not expect anything but wrath and persecution from those who despise the gospel. While the world stands, the offence of the cross will not cease (Gal 5:11).
(4) THE VITAL MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – Our Lord said, “Without me ye can do nothing.” What he said of himself is equally true of God the Holy Spirit. We must have the Spirit of God! If the Holy Spirit does not work in us and by us, we can do nothing for the glory of Christ and the eternal good of men. As we read the book of Acts, we are constantly reminded that the ministry of the early church was the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Let us ever seek his gracious wisdom, power, and grace upon us. If we would worship, pray, sing, or do anything for the glory of God, we must be motivated, guided, and governed by God the Holy Spirit. Without him, we can do nothing.
(5) THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD’S PURPOSE – Throughout this book, we see the purpose of God being accomplished exactly as he would have it. Though all hell resists it, our God performs his will. He is not even slightly hindered by the opposition of men or of satan himself. “The foundation of God standeth sure!” Child of God, rejoice! Let nothing discourage you. Let nothing hinder you from doing the will of God. God is faithful. Our God will graciously accomplish his purpose in us and in all things for the glory of his own great name. These are the things we see constantly set before us in the book of Acts. May God keep them always before us and use them to sustain our hearts as we seek to serve his cause in this world.
PAUL’S TWO YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT AT ROME ARE FULL OF INSTRUCTION. Remember, Paul had done nothing wrong. He was a prisoner at Rome only because he would not be turned aside from what he knew God would have him to do (Act 20:22-24; Act 21:10-14). He was a prisoner for two years under Felix. His trip to Rome took at least a year. Then he was held prisoner at Rome for two more years. In all, this faithful man was under constant guard for the last five years of his life. He looked upon his imprisonment as he did all other things, as an act of God’s wise and good providence. He knew that God had brought him to Rome in bonds for the furtherance of the gospel (Php 1:12-14). During these two years of imprisonment, Paul did not mope around complaining about how bad things were for him, or talk glowingly of all he had done for Christ, or dream about what he would do in better circumstances. Instead, he used the time and abilities God gave him for the glory of Christ, the good of immortal souls, and the furtherance of the gospel. While a prisoner at Rome, this servant of God wrote half the Epistles of the New Testament, preached to and trained Onesimus in the faith of Christ, and preached the gospel to some in Nero’s house and to his guards. As a result of what Paul did during those last two years, untold millions have been converted. God knew what he was doing when he brought Paul to Rome in chains; and Paul knew that God knew what he was doing (Rom 8:28-30). Therefore he was content (Php 4:1-13). Carefully read what Paul wrote during this time and what Luke says of his behavior. You will not find a single word to indicate any dissatisfaction on his part. Trusting God’s providence, he was submissive, thankful, and patient to the end. When the time came for him to leave this world, he was ready (2Ti 4:6-8).
WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN FROM THE THINGS WE HAVE SEEN? Much time could be wisely spent drawing out numerous lessons from just the last two years of Paul’s life and ministry. Many more might be found if one takes the time to review the twenty-eight chapters of this book. But, overall, three lessons seem to leap out of these pages of inspiration.
1. Learn to trust God’s providence (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:28).
2. Learn to do what God gives you the ability and opportunity to do for the glory of Christ and the good of immortal souls (Ecc 9:10).
3. Learn this too – All who honor God shall be honored by God (1Sa 2:30).
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
his own hired house
It has been much disputed whether Paul endured two Roman imprisonments, from A.D. 62 to 68 or one. The tradition from Clement to Eusebius favours two imprisonments with a year of liberty between. Erdman (W.J.) has pointed out the leaving of Trophimus sick at Miletus, mentioned in 2Ti 4:20 could not have been an occurrence of Paul’s last journey to Jerusalem, for then Trophimus was not left; Act 20:4; Act 21:29 nor of the journey to Rome to appear before Caesar, for then he did not touch at Miletus. To make this incident possible there must have been a release from the first imprisonment, and an interval of ministry and travel.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Paul: St. Paul, after his release, is supposed to have visited Judea, in the way to which he left Titus at Crete – Tit 1:5, and then returned through Syria, Cilicia, Asia Minor, and Greece, to Rome; where, according to primitive tradition, he was beheaded by order of Nero, ad 66, at Aquae Saiviae, three miles from Rome, and interred in the Via Ostensis, two miles from the city, where Constantine erected a church.
dwelt: Act 28:16
Reciprocal: Jer 37:21 – Thus Jer 38:13 – Jeremiah Joh 1:39 – abode Act 19:21 – I must Act 23:11 – must Act 24:27 – two Rom 15:32 – I may 2Co 6:5 – imprisonments 2Co 11:23 – in prisons 2Ti 1:17 – General 2Ti 4:2 – in
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
0
Act 28:30. Hired house means a rented building which Paul used at his own expense. He was still in custody, hence could preach only to those who came in unto him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 28:30. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him. We must remember that all this time the apostle was a close prisoner of state, although, through the indulgence of the praetorian praefect, allowed to reside in a lodging of his own instead of in the prison within the walls of the praetorian barracks. The expenses incurred were no doubt defrayed by faithful friends at Rome and in the provinces (see, for instance, the reference in Php 4:10-14, one of the epistles written during this imprisonment at Rome). Paul during this period of captivity was, during the day, chained to a soldier, and probably in the night two soldiers watched him, according to the sentence of the Roman law, nox custodiam geminat. We possess four of his writings composed while in prison at Romethe Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians, and the short letter to Philemon. From notices in these writings, we learn that Luke, Timothy, Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, and Tychicus were among the friends who, during a whole or part of this time, were with the apostle.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Note here, 1. The special favour indulged St. Paul, now a prisoner at Rome, with so much freedom, and without any molestation, to preach the gospel in his own hired house for two years together.
Where observe, 1. Who preaches; St. Paul a prisoner, who scarcely had liberty to hear, rarely to preach.
2. Where he preached; even in proud, powerful, and imperious Rome, and in his own hired house there.
3. To whom he preached: To all that came unto him. He set open the doors of his house for all comers, excluding none from the gracious offers of salvation by a Redeemer, upon the condition of faith and obedience.
4. How long he continued his ministry at Rome; for two whole years at that time: he would neither be allured by flatteries, nor hectored by threatenings, to lay down his ministry, or desist from his preaching work.
5. After what manner he preached; with all confidence, boldness, openness, and freedom, with such an undaunted courage as neither a love of life, nor fear of death, could overcome.
6. The subject matter of his preaching: The kingdom of God, and things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ; not vain janglings or envious railings, but Jesus Christ, and the way of salvation by him.
Lastly, with what freedom he did all this, No man forbidding him; neither emperor, nor senate, nor magistrate, nor soldier, nor priest, nor people, though in an heathen city, devoted to idolatry, in the least hindering or forbidding him.
Where note, That Rome heathen of old was far less cruel and much more courteous to the preachers of the gospel, than Rome anti-Christian since has been. Then an apostle might preach two years together without molestation in his own hired house, to all comers; but now a minister of God must there have no public or private place of meeting to worship God according to his word and will, without the danger of an inquisition.
To conclude: See how impossible it was at that day to hinder the progress of the gospel; even as impossible as to hinder the sun from shining, or the wind from blowing. That God, who shut the mouths of the hungry lions, that they hurt not Daniel, did open the mouth of the apostle, that neither Nero nor the Jews could stop it; yea, after this, he was delivered from the mouth of the lion; rescued out of Nero’s hands. And God would have continued to deliver him, had not his death been more for the glory of God and his own advantage than his life, which at last was offered up a sacrifice and sweet-smelling savour, acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ.
Thus St. Luke concludes his history of St. Paul’s life, without giving us any particulars of his death. He leaves him at Rome, a prisoner under Nero, where after two years’ confinement, the scriptures seem to hint, that he was set at liberty, and that he went about preaching the gospel and confirming the churches for some years; but an attempt to trace this apostle farther without scripture light, may be the ready way to lose ourselves. Let us therefore conclude with prayer,
That Almighty God, who through the preaching of his apostle St. Paul did cause the light of the glorious gospel to shine throughout the world, would mercifully grant that we, having his wonderful conversion and instructive example in our remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto him for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Act 28:30-31. And Paul dwelt two whole years at Rome, in his own hired house Before he was heard by Cesar, or his deputy, upon his appeal; and received all that came to him Whether Jews or Gentiles. Preaching the kingdom of God As established in the person of his beloved Son; and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus And the religion he had instituted in the world; with all confidence All freedom of speech; no man forbidding him Neither emperor, nor senate, nor magistrate, nor soldier, nor priest, nor people, though in a heathen city, devoted to idolatry, in the least hindering or forbidding him. It appears, from this passage, that the persecution against the Christians at Rome was not then begun: the Romans had not yet made any laws against the disciples of Jesus; for what is here related happened within the first ten years of the reign of Nero, before his cruelty against Christians broke out. Observe, reader, that Rome heathen of old was far less cruel, and much more courteous to the preachers of the gospel, than Rome antichristian has since been. Then an apostle might preach two years together, without molestation, in his own hired house, to all comers: but now a minister of God must there have no public or private place of meeting to worship God according to his word and will, without danger of an inquisition! As the apostles house was open to every comer, it is not to be doubted that many resorted to him daily; some out of curiosity to hear and see the chief of a sect which was now become so numerous, and was said to be endued with extraordinary powers, and others from an honest inclination seriously to inquire into the strange things which he spake concerning Jesus of Nazareth, and to examine the evidence which he offered in support of them. Now to all these the apostle willingly preached, bearing witness to Christ at Rome, even as formerly in Jerusalem. And though Luke has not mentioned it, Paul himself hath told us, that his testimony concerning Jesus was well received, and that he made many converts in Rome, among whom were some even of the emperors domestics, whose salutation he sent to the Php 4:22. Further, he says, that the brethren in Rome, encouraged by his example, perhaps also strengthened by the gift of the Spirit, which he imparted to them, according to his promise, (Rom 1:11,) preached the gospel more openly and boldly than they would otherwise have done, Php 1:14-15. Such was the victory of the word of God, and such progress had the gospel made by the end of these two years, in the parts of the world which lay west of Jerusalem, by the ministry of Paul among the Gentiles. How far eastward the other apostles had carried it, in the same time, history does not inform us. As Luke concludes his history with Pauls abode at Rome before his journey into Spain, we may infer that he wrote both his gospel and the Acts while the apostle was still living, of whose actions he was himself an eye-witness, and by whom, it is very probable, this book was revised, as the ancients also say his gospel was. During this, his first confinement at Rome, the apostle wrote four epistles, which still remain; namely, one to the Ephesians, another to the Philippians, a third to the Colossians, and a fourth to Philemon: and after his release, he wrote his epistle to the Hebrews. In the epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Timothy joined Paul. But he is not mentioned in the inscription of the epistle to the Ephesians, though it was written about the same time with the others, and sent along with the epistle to the Colossians. From this circumstance we may infer, that the letters to the Philippians, the Colossians, and Philemon, were written a little before the letter to the Ephesians, and while Timothy was at Rome; but that after they were finished, and before the letter to the Ephesians was begun, he left the city to go to Philippi, agreeably to the apostles promise to the Philippians to send Timothy to them soon, (chap. Act 2:19,) and to what he tells the Hebrews, that Timothy was actually sent away, chap. Act 13:23. The letter to the Ephesians, being written soon after that to the Colossians, and while the matter, and form, and very expressions of that letter were fresh in the apostles mind, the two resemble each other so much, that they have been termed twin epistles, and throw light on each other. For which reason the apostle very properly ordered the Colossians to cause their epistle to be read in the church of the Laodiceans, to which it is supposed the Ephesians, agreeably to the directions given them by Tychicus, sent a copy of their epistle. If this conjecture be right, the epistle to the Ephesians is the letter from Laodicea, which the Colossians were ordered to read in their church, Col 4:16.
It must now be observed, that Paul, during his two years confinement at Rome, having preached the gospel with great success, and edified the churches of Greece and Asia by the divinely-inspired letters which he wrote during that period, was at length released, probably in the spring of A.D. 65, answering to the ninth year of Nero. Luke, indeed, has not directly mentioned Pauls release; but by limiting his confinement to two years, he has intimated that he was then set at liberty. His confinement at Rome issued thus favourably through the goodness of his cause, and through the intercession of some powerful friends in Cesars family, who had embraced the Christian faith, and who were greatly interested in the fortune of one who was so strong a pillar of the new religion which they had espoused.
Some have questioned whether he ever returned into the east again, which yet, from Phm 1:22, and Heb 13:23, he seems to have expected. Clemens Romanus (ad Corinthians epist, 1. cap. 5) expressly tells us, that he preached in the west, and that to its utmost bounds, which must at least include Spain, whither he intended to go, Rom 15:24-25. Theodoret adds, that he went to the islands of the sea, and numbers Gaul (that is, France) and Britain among the disciples of the tent-maker. But in what order he took these places, or how tong he remained in any of them, cannot be determined. We are told, however, that about A.D. 65, or 67, (for chronologers differs) he returned to Rome, where, some say he met with Peter, who was thrown into a prison, with other Christians, on pretence of being concerned in the burning of the city. Chrysostom tells us, that he here converted one of Neros concubines, which so incensed that cruel prince, that he put him to death; probably after an imprisonment, in which the second epistle to Timothy was written. How long Paul continued in prison, at this time, we know not; but from his being twice brought before the emperor, or his prefect, it may be presumed that he was imprisoned a year or more before he was condemned.
The danger to which Paul was exposed, by this second imprisonment, appeared so great to his assistants, that most of them fled from the city. Luke alone remained with him: and even he was so intimidated, that he durst not stand by him when he made his first answer, 2Ti 4:11; 2Ti 4:16. From this epistle we learn, also, that although the apostles assistants, terrified with the danger that threatened him, forsook him and fled, he was not altogether without consolation. For the brethren of Rome came to him privately, and ministered to him, as we learn from his salutation to Timothy, 2Ti 4:21. It is universally agreed, among all ancient writers, who mention his death, that he was beheaded at Aqu Salvi, three miles from Rome; for, being free of that city, he could not be crucified, as Peter was, according to the tradition of the Latin Church, on the very same day. It is said, and there is great reason to believe it, that this glorious confessor gave his head to the fatal stroke with the greatest cheerfulness, and also that he was buried in the Via Ostiensis, two miles from Rome, where Constantine the Great erected a church to his memory, A.D. 318, which was successively repaired and beautified by Theodosius the Great, and the Empress Placidia. But his most glorious monument remains in his immortal writings, which come next under our consideration: and the author of this work will esteem it one of the greatest honours which can be conferred upon him, and the most important service his pen can perform for the church of Christ, to be, in any measure, instrumental in illustrating them, and rendering them more edifying than they had been before to the reader.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
30, 31. The narrative is now brought abruptly to a close, by the following statement: (30) “Now Paul remained in his own hired house two whole years, and received all who came in to him, (31) preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all freedom of speech, no one forbidding.” Here, again, Luke observes the distinction between preaching and teaching. Originating in the apostolic commission, which was the starting point of Acts, it has been preserved throughout the narrative, and now appears at its close.
The liberty granted Paul, of living in a rented house with the soldier who guarded him, enabled him to pursue these labors to the utmost advantage possible for one in military confinement. The brethren needed no invitation to visit him and hear his teaching; while their influence, actively exerted, was sufficient to bring in a large number of persons to hear his preaching.
The results of these efforts Luke does not see fit to enumerate; nor does he gratify the natural curiosity of the reader by continuing to its final close the biography of Paul. He leaves him at the end of two years’ imprisonment, without even informing us whether he was then released. True, the remark that he “remained in his own hired house two whole years, and received those who came to him,” seems to imply a change after that time; but it might have been a change to closer confinement, so far as is indicated by this remark.
It is probable that the narrative was brought to a close here, partly because the composition of it was concluded just at this time. The two years of comparative inactivity which Luke enjoyed while a companion of the prisoner Paul afforded a good opportunity for writing it, and it is quite certain that the last paragraph was not written till the close of this period.
But, independent of this consideration, the leading purpose of the narrative itself rendered this a most fitting point at which to bring it to a close. Having started out to show the manner in which the apostles and evangelism executed their commission, he had now led his readers from Jerusalem through Judea, Samaria, the provinces of Asia Minor, the islands of the Mediterranean, Macedonia, and Achaia, to the imperial city of Rome; and leaving the principal laborer here, still engaged in “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,” his purpose is accomplished, and the narrative closes.
A commentary on Acts, strictly confined to the subject-matter of the text, would here be brought to a close. But as it has been a part of our purpose to give somewhat more fullness to the biography of Paul, by introducing information derived from other inspired sources, we have yet a few paragraphs to pen. Fortunately, the intense curiosity awakened by the closing chapters in reference to the further career of the apostle may, in some degree, be gratified. This curiosity directs itself chiefly to two questions suggested by the later portion of the history: first, what were the results to the cause of his long-wished-for visit to Rome? second, what was the result of his appeal to Csar?
In reference to the first question, we have already remarked, that his entrance into Rome was far different from what he had fondly hoped, and he could not reasonably expect to accomplish much while confined with a chain, and resting under the suspicion of being deservedly in confinement. But we have already seen that he continued to preach and teach for two years, and we learn something of the extent and success of his labors from epistles which he wrote during this period. Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon were the earliest of these epistles, being written at one time, and forwarded, the former two by Tychicus, and the last by Onesimus, the two messengers traveling together. In the two former there are indications of great anxiety in reference to the success of his efforts, and intimations of serious obstacles in the way. He exhorts the brethren to pray for him, that a door of utterance might be opened to him, and that he might have boldness to speak the gospel as it ought to be spoken. This request shows that there were some obstructions to the proclamation of the truth, and that they were such as were calculated to check the boldness of his utterance.
Notwithstanding these obstructions, the last of the three letters above named reveals some success which had already rewarded his labors. Out of the very dregs of the dissolute and corrupt society of the metropolis, a Greek slave, who had run away from his master, a convert of Paul’s in Asia Minor, had, by some means, been induced to visit the apostle and hear the gospel. It proved the power of God to free him from a bondage far worse than that from which he had fled. After he became a disciple, Paul found him profitable to him for the ministry; being of service, no doubt, in bringing within the sound of the gospel many of his former companions. For this reason he had a strong desire to retain him as an assistant; but having no right to do so without the consent of Philemon, his master, and being unwilling to enjoin by authority upon the latter the obvious duty of liberating a slave capable of so great usefulness, he sent him home to his master, with an epistle, in which he delicately intimates his wishes in the premises, but leaves the whole subject to his own sense of propriety. Sending him home without the means to recompense his master for any thing of which he had defrauded him, Paul promises to pay the sum, if any, out of his own purse. Thus his preaching had begun to take effect upon the most hopeless class of the city population, at a time when he was urging distant congregations to pray that God would open to him a door of utterance.
But, eventually, in answer to these prayers, a door of utterance was thrown open far wider than he had reason to expect. In the Epistle to the Philippians, written at a later period, when he was expecting his trial and release, he says: “I wish you to understand, brethren, that the things which have happened to me have fallen out rather to the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are made manifest in all the palace, and in all other places, and many brethren in the Lord, growing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” From his prison, the Lord had opened a door of utterance into the imperial palace itself; so that Paul the prisoner had an audience whose ears would have been wholly inaccessible to Paul the unfettered apostle. His discourse before the emperor, if we may judge by that before Agrippa, must have awakened new thoughts and emotions in the Roman court; and what awakened new interest there could not be long in spreading to “all other places.” The Lord had led him by a strange method to Rome, and surrounded him with many discouragements; but his purpose was now unfolded, and Paul saw in the result, as it affected both the disciples and the community at large, a wisdom which before had been inscrutable. He had now demonstrated what he had once written to the Romans, that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and was ready to preach it even in Rome; for he had preached it to both the proudest and the poorest of the population, and that with a chain upon his arm.
No two years of Paul’s life were better filled with earnest labor than these two spent in his Roman prison. Besides the oral efforts just referred to, and the epistles to Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians, he is supposed, also, near the close of this period, to have written Hebrews, the most profound, next to Romans, of all his productions. He was not alone in his toil and danger, but was constantly surrounded by some of those noble brethren who were so ardently attached to his person. Timothy joins with him in the opening salutations of Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians. Aristarchus and Epaphras were his fellow-prisoners; Mark, who once forsook him and Barnabas, and went not with them to the work, was now with him; Demas, who afterward forsook him, “having loved the present world,” was as yet by his side; and Luke, the beloved physician, who shared the perils of his voyage from Csarea, continued to relieve the dreariness of his imprisonment, and indited the last paragraph of Acts, as we conjecture, just as the two years expired.
The question as to the result of Paul’s appeal to Csar is not settled by direct scriptural evidence, yet it is determined, to the satisfaction of nearly all the commentators, that he was released at the end of the two years mentioned by Luke. The evidence on which this conclusion is based consists partly in the unanimous testimony of the earliest Christian writers after the apostles, and partly in the difficulty of fixing a date for the epistles to Timothy and Titus without this supposition. There are events mentioned in these epistles, for which no place can be found in the preceding history; such as his leaving Timothy in Ephesus, to counteract the influence of false teachers, while he went into Macedonia; his leaving Titus in Crete, to set in order the things that were wanting there, and to ordain elders; his visit to Miletus, when he left Trophimus there sick; and to Nicopolis, where he spent the winter. The argument drawn from both these sources is very fully and satisfactorily stated by Mr. Howson, to whom the more inquisitive reader is referred.
On the supposition of his release, the subsequent known facts are best arranged as follows: He first fulfilled the purpose so confidently expressed of the Philippians of visiting them again; and next took advantage of the lodging which he had directed Philemon to prepare for him at Colosse. While in Asia, he would scarcely pass by the city of Ephesus; but it is after a short visit to Spain, that we locate that visit, at the conclusion of which he left Timothy there and went into Macedonia. It was contrary to the expectation once entertained by Paul, that he was once more greeted by the brethren in Ephesus; for he had bidden them farewell four years ago with the conviction that they would see his face no more. Leaving Timothy in Ephesus, and going to Macedonia, he wrote back to him the First Epistle to Timothy, in which he expressed a hope of rejoining him soon at Ephesus. This he most likely did, as he soon after visited Crete, in company with Titus; and the most usual route from Macedonia to this island was by way of Ephesus. Having made a short visit in Crete, he left Titus there, to “set in order the things which were wanting, and ordain elders in every city.” Shortly after leaving the island, he wrote the Epistle to Titus. He was then on his way to Nicopolis, a city of Epirus, where he expected to spend the winter. On the way he had passed through Miletus, where he left Trophimus sick; and Corinth, where he left Erastus. Whether he spent the whole winter in Nicopolis, or was imprisoned again before spring, is not certainly known; but the next that we know of him, he was a prisoner in Rome the second time, as is indicated in his Second Epistle to Timothy. From this epistle we learn several interesting particulars of his imprisonment, and of the beginning of his final trial. His situation was more alarming, and he was attended by fewer friends than before. Demas forsook him, through the love of this world, and went to Thessalonica; Crescens, for some reason unexplained, went to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Tychicus he had sent to Ephesus. Luke, alone, of all his former fellow-laborers, was with him, though he was expecting Timothy to soon rejoin him, and bring Mark with him.
At the time of writing, he had passed through the first stages of his trial, and was awaiting the second. The want of human sympathy which he had felt in his prison was realized still more intensely during his trial. He says: “At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.” Even Luke, who dared to visit him in his prison, and remain with him when others fled, shrunk from the fearful position of standing by his side in the presence of Nero. But the venerable man of God, though deserted in his most trying hour by human friends, was able to say, “Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” Thus again had he fearlessly and fully vindicated his preaching in the presence of the imperial court, and passed, a second time, through the fiery ordeal, without personal injury. The declaration that he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion is an allusion to the case of Daniel, of which his own reminded him.
But there was another stage of his trial yet before him, and from this he had reason to anticipate the most fatal results. From all the indications in view, he was induced to write to Timothy, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.” He had some years before declared, “I hold not my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the favor of God.” Now, he was about to yield up his life, and upon looking back over the course he had run, and the ministry with which he had been entrusted, the conditions specified were completely fulfilled. With all confidence he is able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” All who have followed his course with us in these pages can bear testimony to this declaration, and, after glancing back with him over the long series of stripes, imprisonment, and exhausting toil through which he had passed, can enter into the feeling of relief and joy with which he looked forward and exclaimed, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me at that day; and not to me only, but to all them also who love his appearing.” Like a mariner on a long voyage, whose bark had been tossed by many waves, and shrouded in the gloom of many a storm, his soul was cheered, at last, by a view of the desired haven close at hand. He is still, however, beaten by the storm, and one more dark billow is yet to roll over him, ere he rests upon the calm waters within the haven. Here the curtain of inspired history closes over him, and the last sound we hear is his own shout of triumph as he braces himself for the last struggle. It only remains for the earliest uninspired history of the Church to confirm his own anticipations, by testifying that his trial finally resulted in a sentence of death, and that he was beheaded outside the gates of Rome, in the last year of the reign of Nero, a.d. 68. We bid him adieu till the resurrection morning, well pleased that the course of the narrative on which we have commented has been so directed as to keep us for so long a time in his company. [297]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
30, 31. So during Pauls ministry of two years in his hired house, he was constantly preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus, with all authority, no one hindering him. During this gospel dispensation, the church, i. e., the ecclesia, is to prevail throughout all nations, this word meaning the called out. Hence the great work of the gospel age is to call the people out of this wicked, ruined world and separate them unto God, thus getting them ready for the return of our glorious King who now sits upon the mediatorial throne at the right hand of the Father. The age to come (Heb 6:5) will not be the church period, but the Kingdom, Satan having been cast out (Revelation 20), and the world redeemed and dominated by the King of Glory, so the people will no longer have to come out of the world to be in harmony with God, as the world will have been gloriously delivered from Satans kingdom and
King Jesus shall have dominion over river, sea and shore; Far as the eagles pinion or doves light wing can soar.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Act 28:30 f. Conclusion.These verses take up Act 28:16 and show us Paul carrying on his mission in Rome undisturbed, preaching as in Act 28:23. Here the book ends: if the writer has information about the trial and the death of Paul, he does not enter upon it. If Ac. appeared in the reign of Domitian, the closing words are very effective. Cf. p. 772.
(See also Supplement)
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
28:30 {17} And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
(17) The word of God cannot be bound.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Gentile response to the gospel 28:30-31
Paul’s innocence of anything worthy of punishment is clear from his living a relatively comfortable life in Rome for the following two years (A.D. 60-62). [Note: Bruce, "Chronological Questions . . .," pp. 289-90.] Paul was able to preach (Gr. kerysso, to proclaim as a herald) the kingdom of God and to teach (didasko, to instruct others) about the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke began Acts with a reference to the kingdom of God (Act 1:6) and ended it with another (Act 28:31). Act 28:23 clarifies Act 28:31. Preaching the kingdom of God involves solemnly testifying about it, and teaching concerning Christ includes persuading people about Him. Paul could do this openly and without hindrance by the Roman authorities. This was Luke’s final testimony to the credibility and positive value of the Christian gospel.
"With this expression [i.e., unhindered], which is literally Luke’s last word in Acts, he is saying that largely through Paul’s activities, the Church is now on the march, and nothing can stop it. Paul has built the vital bridge from Jerusalem to Rome. The Cross is in the field." [Note: Neil, p. 30. Cf. Matthew 16:18.]
"In seeming to leave his book unfinished, he [Luke] was implying that the apostolic proclamation of the gospel in the first century began a story that will continue until the consummation of the kingdom in Christ (Act 1:11)." [Note: Longenecker, "The Acts . . .," p. 573.]
These verses contain the last of Luke’s seven progress reports (Act 2:47; Act 6:7; Act 9:31; Act 12:24; Act 16:5; Act 19:20).
"What is the one outstanding impression made by the study of the life and work of the Apostle of the Gentiles? Is it not this:-The marvelous possibilities of a wholly-surrendered and Divinely-filled life?" [Note: Thomas, p. 83.]
What happened to Paul following the events recorded in Acts? There is disagreement among scholars, as one might expect. Some believe the Roman authorities condemned Paul and put him to death. However most believe they released him and he left Rome. In support of the latter view are references in other New Testament books to Paul’s activities. These are difficult to incorporate into the events of his life that Acts records. We can explain them if he continued his ministry. Also Eusebius, the early church historian who died about A.D. 340, wrote the following.
"After pleading his cause, he is said to have been sent again upon the ministry of preaching, and after a second visit to the city [Rome], that he finished his life with martyrdom." [Note: Eusebius, p. 74.]
"The tradition from Clement to Eusebius favors two imprisonments with a year [at least] of liberty between them. It has been pointed out that the leaving of Trophemus sick at Miletus (2Ti 4:20) could not have been an occurrence of Paul’s last journey to Jeruselem, for then Trophimus was not left (Act 20:4; Act 21:29); nor could it have been on his journey to Rome to appear before Caesar, for then he did not touch at Miletus. To make this incident possible, there must have been a release from the first imprisonment and an interval of ministry and travel." [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 1208.]
While Paul was in Rome during the two years Luke mentioned (Act 28:30), he evidently wrote the Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon). After his release and departure from Rome, he wrote the Pastoral Epistles. He probably wrote 1 Timothy between A.D. 63 and 66 to Timothy who was ministering in Ephesus, but we do not know from where he wrote it. He spoke of meeting Timothy in Ephesus later (1Ti 3:14; 1Ti 4:13). Paul also wrote the Book of Titus probably from Illyricum or Macedonia during the same period to Titus who was on Crete (cf. Tit 3:12; 2Ti 4:10). Perhaps Paul visited Spain as he longed to do between A.D. 62 and 67 (Rom 15:23-24) though there is no Scriptural record that he did or did not do so. From Rome he wrote 2 Timothy to Timothy in Ephesus shortly before his martyrdom in A.D. 68 (2Ti 1:16-18; 2Ti 4:14; 2Ti 4:19; 1Ti 1:20). Geographer Barry Beitzel estimated that Paul’s travels between his release in Rome to his return and death there would have involved a minimum of 2,350 travel miles. He also calculated that Paul probably traveled a total of at least 13,400 airline (as the crow flies) miles during his years of ministry. [Note: Beitzel, pp. 176-77.]
". . . the end of Acts directs attention to the missionary situation that Paul leaves behind and to Paul’s courage and faithfulness as example for the church. It points to the opportunity among the Gentiles. It underscores the crisis in the Jewish mission. It presents Paul continuing his mission by welcoming all, both Jews and Gentiles, and speaking to them ’with all boldness’ in spite of Jewish rejection and Roman imprisonment. This is the concluding picture of Paul’s legacy." [Note: Tannehill, 2:356.]
"What almost seems like the unfinished character of the book of Acts, from a merely literary standpoint, is doubtless intended to teach us that until the fulfillment of the angels’ prophecy that ’this same Jesus’ shall return even as He went away, the work of evangelization for this age will not be completed. We are to heed the Word-’Occupy till I come.’" [Note: Ironside, Lectures on . . ., p. 651.]