<p>15:17 <i>So that t<em>he residue of mankind may seek after the Lord</em></i>- The remnant of men, a reference to the remnant of Israel who would accept Jesus. This group are distinguished from &quot;And all the Gentiles&quot;.</p><p><em>And all the Gentiles who are called by My name</em>- Those who called upon themselves His Name by baptism into it. The tense is chosen to maybe reflect how God already knows His people and had already called the Gentile converts by His Name. This was encouragement to the preachers to go out and fulfil His work with the Gentiles which He had already potentially enabled. This sense is confirmed by the comment in :18 that &quot;God makes these things known from of old&quot;. He is now making them known &quot;makes&quot;, but they had already been long planned. This encourages us to preach to the Gentiles &ldquo;upon whom my name is Amos says &lsquo;has already been&rsquo; called&rdquo;. The Name is called upon us by baptism; yet in prospect, in potential, the Name has already been called upon the whole world. But it is for us to go and convert them. This explains why Paul is spoken of as having been a convert before he actually was. Paul was as an ox bound to a yoke, kicking against the goads. But it was as if he was already bound into Christ&rsquo;s light yoke. He wrote that he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He seems to be alluding to the practice of branding runaway slaves who had been caught with the letter F in their forehead, for <em>fugitivus</em>. His whole thinking was dominated by this awareness that like Jonah he had sought to run, and yet had by grace been received into his Master&rsquo;s service. But the figure implies that he already was a slave of Jesus at the time of his &lsquo;capture&rsquo; in conversion.</p>