<p>18:6 <i>And when t<em>hey opposed-</em></i> The same word used by Stephen, Paul's great exemplar and hero whom he so often alludes to, when he said that the Jews, including Paul at the time, were resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51) insofar as they were resisting the otherwise irresistible spirit of Stephen (Acts 6:10). Again, Paul was being made to enter into the feelings and situations of those he had earlier persecuted; not as punishment, but more in order to help his own spiritual growth, and to prepare him for eternal fellowship with them in the Kingdom. For now <em>he</em> knew what it felt like to have your audience resisting the Spirit through which one speaks.</p><p><em>And reviled him</em>- This is the word otherwise translated 'to blaspheme'. Paul had made the Christians blaspheme the name of the Lord Jesus under torture; and now he was being taught what it feels like to be blasphemed / reviled, for it happened to him.</p><p><em>He shook out his garments</em>- This is the language of Ezekiel doing the same to the apostate Jews of his day (Ez. 5:3), and sets up the allusion to Ezekiel as a watchman in the next phrase. But it is also precisely the language of Nehemiah in Neh 5:13: &quot;I shook out my lap and said, So may God shake out every man from His house and from His work&quot;. This action here symbolized God's breaking of covenant with Judah; to have them under the wings / skirts of His garments spoke of acceptance into covenant relationship, and to shake them out of His garments spoke of the ending of that relationship. But we ask whether Paul had the right to declare the breach of God's covenant relationship with Israel, or at least, with those Jews in Corinth. I veer towards the thought that Paul took too much upon himself in making this allusion; it seems very much a hot blooded response, and he did not take seriously his vow at this time to turn away from the Jews in favour of his Gentile mission.</p><p><em>And said to them: Your blood is on your own heads I am innocent</em>- Blood being on their own heads rather than Paul's is straight out of Ez. 33:4, and his shaking of his garments was an allusion to what Ezekiel did in Ez. 5:3. The idea of being a watchman seems to have fired his preaching zeal, Ez. 3:18; 18:13 cp. Acts 18:6; 20:26. And yet this outburst seems to also be a flash of unspirituality. For later, Paul realizes that he may be condemned if he doesn't preach the Gospel; he realized that he perhaps <em>wasn't</em> free of his duty of preaching. Yet for all his &quot;from henceforth I go unto the Gentiles&quot; , Paul <em>still</em> preached to the Jews (Acts 18:8; 19:8); which would suggest these words were said in temper and perhaps unwisdom. He himself seems to recognize this when he wrote to Timothy at the very end of his life of how we must with meekness instruct those who oppose themselves (2 Tim. 2:25), whereas his own response to those who &ldquo;opposed themselves&rdquo; (Acts 18:6) had been to say, without meekness, that he was never going to &lsquo;instruct&rsquo; Jews ever again.</p><p><em>From now on I will go to the Gentiles</em>- But this was precisely what Paul had been commanded at the time of his conversion (Acts 22:21 &quot;I will send you... unto the Gentiles&quot;; see too Acts 26:17). Yet Paul doggedly insisted on going to the Jews, and I will argue in commentary throughout Acts 20 that Paul's refusal to fully accept his commission, and his dissatisfaction at leaving the Jewish ministry to Peter, resulted in much hardship for him. The Lord still worked through Paul's insistence on a different path to that the Lord intended, he remained within the Lord's game plan, but on as it were a plan B. Paul had earlier had another such moment, when he declared that now he turned to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46,47). And yet these were just temporary realizations of his intended mission and his mistake in focusing on the Jews; like us so often, in the moment of failure and having our plans exasperated, we realize our true calling; and yet like Paul, we slip back into our own preferred path rather than that ideally chosen for us by our Lord.</p>