<p>14:26<i>And from there they sailed to Antioch, from where they had been committed to the grace of God</i>- Paul &quot;committed&quot; the elders to the Lord in :23, but he himself had been committed by elders. All pastoral and preaching work is some reflection of our own experiences; it cannot therefore be solely prepared for by missionary training courses and the like. The Lord works to prepare people, and they are to reflect their own experiences in their work for Him. The same phrase &quot;committed to the grace of God&quot; is used about the sending of Paul and Silas on their later missionary journey (Acts 15:40). Perhaps as noted on :23 about the idea of 'committing', the brethren felt (as we often do) that we can do nothing more materially for others in a given situation; we pray for them and commit them to God's grace. As the missionaries sailed away on a dangerous mission, this sense of commitment of brethren to God's grace would have been natural. It's hard to specifically, neatly define what was understood by &quot;the grace of God&quot;. We can only be guided here by how Luke used the term in his volume 1, the gospel according to Luke. &quot;The grace of God&quot; was upon Mary (Lk. 1:30) and John (Lk. 2:40), although he did no miracles. The term is used as if it means 'the general operation of God' in Acts 11:23, God's grace worked through Paul's working (1 Cor. 15:10; Eph. 3:7), and it was <em>epi</em> the Corinthians, it worked around them (2 Cor. 9:14). We can frustrate God's grace by not going the way He leads us (Gal. 2:21). God's grace appears to all men in that the sphere of His operation somehow affects all (Tit. 2:11). The Lord Jesus died by God's grace, i.e. according to His plan (Heb. 2:9 in context). It is indeed true that 'grace' refers to undeserved favour / gift and often refers to forgiveness and salvation; and the word meaning essentially a gift it is at times used in the context of specific gifts of God's Spirit. But it would seem that the term has a wider sense of simply the realm of God's activity, which is of course motivated by His grace.</p><p><em>For the work which they had fulfilled</em>- We read in Acts 12:25 likewise of Paul fulfilling a ministry; of John the Baptist fulfilling his race (Acts 13:25). The sense is that God gives a specific task to be done, and we are to fulfil it. The Lord Jesus ascended so that He might fill all things of the church here on earth (Eph. 4:10). The parable of the talents likewise teaches that each believer has been given specific things to do. We need to pray that we will perceive what these things are; because man is never better than when he has a distinctly defined aim and has the wind of the Spirit at his back helping him to fulfil them. Paul felt that his preaching work was a stewardship he had been given and by achieving it, he was fulfilling the word of God (Col. 1:25). The &quot;word of God&quot; in view there would then refer to a specific word of command from God to Paul to preach the Gospel to the Colossians. Hence the specific command to Archippus to take seriously his ministry and fulfil it (Col. 4:17).</p>