Peter laid all things before them — So he did not take it ill to be questioned, nor desire to be treated as infallible. And he answers the more mildly because it related to a point which he had not readily believed himself.... [ Continue Reading ]
Being in a trance — Which suspends the use of the outward senses.... [ Continue Reading ]
Saved — With the full Christian salvation, in this world and the world to come.... [ Continue Reading ]
To us, when we believed — The sense is, because we believed, not because we were circumcised, was the Holy Ghost given to us. What was I — A mere instrument in God's hand. They had inquired only concerning his eating with the Gentiles. He satisfies them likewise concerning his baptizing them, and sh... [ Continue Reading ]
They glorified God — Being thoroughly satisfied. Repentance unto life — True repentance is a change from spiritual death to spiritual life, and leads to life everlasting.... [ Continue Reading ]
They who had been dispersed — St. Luke here resumes the thread of his narration, in the very words wherewith he broke it off, Acts 8:6. As far as Phenicia to the north, Cyprus to the west, and Antioch to the east.... [ Continue Reading ]
Some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene — Who were more accustomed to converse with the Gentiles. Who coming into Antioch — Then the capital of Syria, and, next to Rome and Alexandria, the most considerable city of the empire. Spake to the Greeks — As the Greeks were the most celebrated of the Ge... [ Continue Reading ]
And the hand of the Lord — That is, the power of his Spirit.... [ Continue Reading ]
And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch — Here it was that they first received this standing appellation. They were before termed Nazarenes and Galileans.... [ Continue Reading ]
Agabus rising up — In the congregation. All the world — The word frequently signifies all the Roman empire. And so it is doubtless to be taken here.... [ Continue Reading ]
Then — Understanding the distress they would otherwise be in on that account, the disciples determined to send relief to the brethren in Judea — Who herein received a manifest proof of the reality of their conversion.... [ Continue Reading ]
Sending it to the elders — Who gave it to the deacons, to be distributed by them, as every one had need.... [ Continue Reading ]