<p>13:15 <i>And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent for them, saying</i>-&nbsp; The synagogues read the Law and prophets according to a reading planner, rather like <i>The Bible Companion. </i>Paul's opening words refer to Dt. 1:31 LXX, which was the lesson for the 44th Sabbath in the year, around July / August; the corresponding second lesson from &quot;the prophets&quot; for that Sabbath was from Is. 1:1-27, from which Paul also quotes when he alludes to Is. 1:2 LXX.</p><p><i>Brothers</i>- They treat Paul as if he is one of them. The invitation to give such a major discourse could have been because Paul purposefully gave the impression that he was still an orthodox thinking Jewish rabbi- see on <i>And sat down</i> (:14). Much of the Jewish anger with Paul was because he later turned out to not be Judaist any longer, despite giving that impression in order to get an audience with them. If he had focused on his Divinely given mission to the Gentiles, he wouldn't have got into all these kinds of problems.</p><p><i>If you have any word of encouragement for the people, speak</i>- 'Barnabas' meant 'Son of encouragement', so it would seem likely that the synagogue elders knew of his presence and were kindly alluding to it. One wonders if contrary to what I have just suggested above these elders were in fact Messianic believers in Jesus, or at least sympathetic to that Way. That would explain the rather odd description of them 'sending' <i>apostello</i> to Paul and Barnabas to give a word of encouragement to the congregation. Perhaps there was a veiled allusion to the Lord Jesus being the consolation s.w. 'encouragement' of Israel (Lk. 2:25).</p>