Acts 28:23

Acts 28:23. And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging. The word in the original translated ‘many' is a comparative form, and implies either that more of the Roman Jews came to hear Paul than on the first occasion, or else that more of these leading Jews presented themselves in the house used as Paul's prison than had been expected by the apostle and his companions.

To whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. Even the short resum é of the discourse which the compiler of the ‘Acts' has given on several momentous occasions in the history is wanting here. All seems to point to the fact that the majority of the listeners remained unconvinced. The long and earnest pleading of Paul with his countrymen dwelling in the queen city, availed nothing. Only a very few seemed to have listened; as for the rest, their hearts were hopelessly hardened. What an end for the aged and worn apostle, who had so earnestly desired to visit Rome! There is something terribly dramatic in the words of the Isaiah blessing and the Isaiah curse which the sorrowful servant of Jesus Christ pronounced, as the Hebrew rejecters of the glorious message of his Divine Master departed from his prison chamber that same evening, resolved to see his face no more.

From that hour it is probable that Paul for the remainder of his life gave up the hope of touching the heart of Israel as a people, and devoted the few remaining years of his noble life to winning to his loving Master's side the hated and despised Gentile nations the peoples who had so long sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. The splendid results of his labours are revealed in the story of the eighteen Christian centuries. The aged Christian teacher looked down the long vista of these many years, when he declared with true prophetic instinct, As for the rejected salvation of God, they (the Gentiles) would hear it.