Acts 11:23

Acts 11:23

I. Notice, first, what Barnabas saw. The "grace of God" here was very probably the specific meaning of the miraculous working of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ at work in men's hearts, making them pure and gentle, simple and unworldly, refining their characters, elevating their aims, toning their being into accord with the music of His life, is the true proof that men are Christians, and that communities of such are churches of His.

II. What he felt: "He was glad." It was a triumph of Christian principle to recognise the grace of God under new forms and in so strange a place; it was a greater triumph to hail it with rejoicing. As our eyes travel over the wide field of Christendom, and our memories go back over the long ages of the story of the Church, let gladness, and not wonder or reluctance, be the temper with which we see the graces of Christian character lifting their meek blossoms in any corners strange to us, and breathing their fragrance over the pastures of the wilderness.

III. What he said: "He exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." The first thing that strikes one about this all-sufficient directory for the Christian life is the emphasis with which it sets forth the Lord as the sole object to be grasped and held. The sum of all objective religion is Christ; the sum of all subjective religion is cleaving to Him.

A. Maclaren, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 257.

References: Acts 11:23. Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 114; Good Words,vol. iii., p. 380; Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 291.