insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4240','1','44','2','14','14','<p>2:14 <i>But Peter, standing with the eleven</i>- Peter stood up along with the eleven others; thus the record accepts that Mathias had been accepted and that the entity known as \'the twelve\' had been reconstituted. We read of &quot;the twelve&quot; in Acts 6:2. However we do not read further in Acts after 6:2 of &quot;the twelve&quot; so it would appear they played no official role in the later development of the church.</p><p><i>L</i><i>ifted up his voice and addressed them: You men of Judea and all that dwell in Jerusalem, let this be understood by you, and listen to my words</i>- It would have become public news in Jerusalem that the man who nearly killed Malchus had slipped in to the High Priest&rsquo;s yard, and just got out in time before they lynched him. And the fool he had made of himself would for sure have been exaggerated and gossiped all round. Jerusalem would have had the small town gossip syndrome, especially at Passover time. Every one of his oaths with which he had disowned his Lord would have been jokingly spread around in the three days while Jesus lay dead. But then Peter&rsquo;s preaching of the Gospel after the resurrection reached a pinnacle which probably no other disciple has reached, not even Paul. No one individual made such huge numbers of converts, purely on the basis of his words of preaching. Nobody else was <i>so</i> persuasive, could cut hardened men to the heart as he did, and motivate them to be baptized immediately. He brought men far more highly educated and cultured than himself to openly say from the heart: &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo;, in the sense: &lsquo;Having done what we&rsquo;ve done, whatever will become of us?&rsquo;. And of course Peter had been in just that desperate position a month ago. He was just the man to persuade them. And yet on the other hand, there was no man more unlikely. The rules of social and spiritual appropriacy demanded that someone who had so publicly denied his Lord keep on the back burner for quite some time. And Peter of all men would have wished it this way. See on Acts 10:35,36.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4241','1','44','2','15','15','<p>2:15 <i>These</i>- See on 2:18 <i>My handmaids</i>.</p><p><i>Are not drunk as you suppose, seeing it is only the third hour of the day</i>- See on 2 Pet. 2:13. Peter&rsquo;s speech of Acts 2 was made in response to a mocker&rsquo;s comment that the speaking in tongues was a result of alcohol abuse (Acts 2:13,14). We would likely have told those men not to be so blasphemous, or just walked away from them. But Peter responds to them with a speech so powerful that men turned around and repented and were baptized on the spot. Or it could be that the comment that they sounded drunk was made in jest, and Peter responds likewise tongue in cheek- for surely he must have known that men can be found drunk at 9 a.m. Is. 5:11 laments how some in Israel were drunk in the morning, so the possibility was not so obviously absurd as Peter might appear, at first blush, to be suggesting. This would then become an example of answering a food according to his folly.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4242','1','44','2','16','16','<p>2:16 <i>But this is the fulfilment of that which has been spoken through the prophet Joel</i>- Many attempts to understand prophecy, not least the book of Revelation, have fallen into problems because of an insistent desire to see everything fulfilling in a linear chronological progression, whereas God\'s prophecies (Isaiah is the classic example) \'jump around\' all over the place as far as chronological fulfilment is concerned. And this principle is not only seen in Bible prophecy. The historical records in the Old Testament tend to be thematically presented rather than chronologically (Joshua is a good example of this); and the Gospel records likewise. It especially needs to be recognized that in line with so much OT prophecy, neither the Olivet prophecy nor its extension in the Apocalypse can be read as strictly chronological. Thus Lk. 21:8-11 gives a catalogue of signs, and then v. 12 jumps back to the situation before them: &quot;but before all these things...&quot; (21:27,28; Mk. 13:10 are other examples). These principles are all brought together in the way Peter interprets Joel 2. The comments in brackets reflect the interpretation which Peter offers later in his address. He gives each part of it a fulfilment not in chronological sequence with what has gone before: &quot;This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel i.e. you are seeing a fulfilment of this prophecy before your eyes: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy fulfilled by the apostles after Christ\'s ascension... and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath the miracles of the Lord Jesus during His ministry... the sun shall be turned into darkness the crucifixion, and the moon into blood also referring to an unrecorded event at the crucifixion?, before that great and notable day of the Lord come the second coming; or the resurrection?: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved fulfilled by the crowd accepting baptism on the day of Pentecost&quot; (Acts 2:16-21).</p><p>Typical of the NT writers, Peter doesn\'t quote from the Masoretic Hebrew text, but from the Septuagint, and in Joel 2 there are significant differences. And yet Peter adds and changes things even from the LXX. The inspired writers don\'t quote exactly, and often mix interpretation with quotation.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4243','1','44','2','17','17','<p>2:17 <i>And it shall be in the last days, says God</i><i>- </i>The phrase doesn\'t have to necessarily refer to the last days before the Lord\'s second coming. It could equally refer to the last days of some other period- in this case, the Mosaic system. But the phrase is of course ambiguous- exactly because the Lord\'s second coming could have occurred then, but the various required preconditions were not met. The LXX also has as the Masoretic Text: &quot;Afterward&quot;. &quot;The last days&quot; would appear to be Peter\'s inspired interpretation.</p><p><i>I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams</i>- A prophecy apparently about &quot;all&quot; here has a specific fulfilment in a limited group. Other Biblical references to &quot;all&quot; must likewise be understood; from God\'s perspective, the believers are &quot;all things&quot; to Him.&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4244','1','44','2','18','18','<p>2:18 <i>Yes, and in those days will I pour out My Spirit on My servants and on My handmaids, and they shall prophesy</i>- In order to see a fulfilment of this at that time of Pentecost, surely there were female believers who also began speaking in foreign languages- although that is not recorded. Often the NT quotes the OT selectively, omitting words and phrases which were not relevant to the fulfilment. The fact the &quot;handmaids&quot; and &quot;daughters&quot; (:17) are mentioned would surely mean that there were women also given the gifts at this time. The fact this is not specifically recorded is yet another example of how the records are so abbreviated. The fact women aren\'t recorded as publicly preaching at this time is no reason to think they did not. Likewise the fulfilment of the Joel prophecy meant that there were both old and young men preaching (:17). The &quot;all&quot; who were &quot;together in one place&quot; (2:1) were those who received the gifts, all within the house; not just the apostles. However, 2:7 records the impression that &quot;all&quot; who were speaking in foreign languages were from Galilee. The women / sisters in view were therefore presumably also from Galilee. Peter &quot;and the eleven&quot; stated that &quot;these are not drunk&quot; (:15)- rather than \'We are not drunk\'. The use of &quot;these&quot; suggests that there were others apart from \'the twelve\' who were preaching with the Spirit gifts. It was a shameful thing for a Jewish man to talk publicly to a woman, let alone for her to read the Torah, and for a woman to publicly preach God\'s word would have been nothing short of scandalous. In this we have a challenge to our own sense of inadequacy in witness; women, Galileans, the illiterate and poorly educated... were those used by God to make history\'s greatest and most effective public witness to Christ.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4245','1','44','2','19','19','<p>2:19 <i>And I will show wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapour of smoke</i>- Blood, fire and smoke columns suggest Mosaic sacrifices, in which the blood had to be poured out and then the carcass burnt. God\'s judgments are described as Him having a sacrifice (Jer. 46:10), and here the AD70 judgment of Jerusalem is surely in view. This is the language of Mt. 24:5-7 about the same event.</p><p>Thomson (<i>Land and the Book</i>, vol. 2, p. 311) suggests the allusion in this passage is to the whirlwind sandstorms, which are appropriate figures of Divine judgment: &ldquo;We have two kinds of sirocco, one accompanied with vehement wind, which fills the air with dust and fine sand. I have often seen the whole heavens veiled in gloom with this sort of sandcloud, through which the sun, shorn of his beams, looked like a globe of dull smouldering fire. It may have been this phenomenon which suggested that strong prophetic figure of Joel, quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost. Wonders in the heaven and in the earth; blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. The pillars of smoke are probably those columns of sand and dust raised high in the air by local whirlwinds, which often accompany the sirocco. On the great desert of the Hauran I have seen a score of them marching with great rapidity over the plain, and they closely resemble &lsaquo;pillars of smoke.&lsquo;&rdquo;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4246','1','44','2','20','20','<p>2:20 <i>The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, that great and notable day</i>- Language clearly relevant to the day of the second coming. The conclusion is quite clear- that day could have come in the first century, but it didn\'t. What was potentially possible didn\'t happen because Israel didn\'t repent. And so it has been delayed until our \'last days\'.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4247','1','44','2','21','21','<p>2:21<i>And it shall be that whoever</i><i>- </i>It seems that the early brethren chose to understand the Lord&rsquo;s universal commission as meaning going out to preach to Jews of all nations, and they saw the response of Acts 2 as proof of this. And yet &ldquo;all nations&rdquo; is used about the Gentiles in all its other occurrences in Matthew (4:15; 6:32; 10:5,18; 12:18,21; 20:19,25). Such intellectual failure had a moral basis- they subconsciously couldn&rsquo;t hack the idea of converting Gentiles into the Hope of Israel. They allowed themselves to assume they understood what the Lord meant, to assume they had their interpretation confirmed by the events of Acts 2&hellip; instead of baring themselves to the immense and personal import of the Lord&rsquo;s commission to take Him to literally all. We too can read Scripture and assume we understand it, and thereby skip over massive implications for us.</p><p><i>Shall call on the name of the Lord- </i>Joel 2:32 seems to prophesy of multitudes calling upon the name of the Lord in the &lsquo;last days&rsquo;. The preliminary fulfilment of this in Acts 2:21 must surely be repeated in the ultimate &lsquo;last days&rsquo;. And it may be that it is multitudes of Diaspora Jews who respond, as it was in Acts 2&hellip; The description of &quot;the remnant&quot; being saved out of Jerusalem and mount Zion, the temple mount, may mean that they go into the temple area in the last days to seek safety as the Jews did in AD70, and this is where they are at the moment of the Lord\'s intervention.&nbsp;Joel 2:32 must have had its primary fulfilment in the redemption of this remnant, and it therefore has an application to the salvation of the latter-day Jewish remnant out of Arab-occupied Jerusalem:&nbsp; &quot;Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord (i.e. truly pray for deliverance in faith, perhaps through calling upon themselves the Lord\'s name through baptism into Christ) shall be delivered:&nbsp; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem (cp. 2 Kings 19:30,31 for the&nbsp; mention of those two terms) shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said (through Isaiah and his prophets), and in the remnant...&quot;.&nbsp;This passage is quoted in a different context in Acts 2:21 and Rom. 10:13, but this does not preclude its application to the faithful remnant in Jerusalem in the last days.&nbsp;This New Testament usage is regarding how a convert should eagerly call upon himself the Lord\'s salvation/deliverance from sin in Christ. This should therefore be done with the same sense of urgency and desperate intensity as the persecuted remnant of the last days will do, like their counterparts within Jerusalem in Hezekiah\'s time.</p><p><i>Shall be saved</i>- The quotation from Joel has spoken of an outpouring of Spirit gifts, followed by a time of trouble in the land, and then the coming of the great day of the Lord. The immediate context of this offer of salvation was therefore regarding saving from the destruction which was to come upon Israel and Jerusalem specifically. Peter later appealed for people to believe in the Lord Jesus in order to save themselves from the judgment to come upon that wicked generation (:40).</p><p>When Peter was sinking, he was living out the picture we have of condemnation at the last day. When we read that he began to &ldquo;sink&rdquo; into the sea of Galilee, this is exactly the image we find in Mt. 18:6, where the Lord says, in response to the question &lsquo;Who will be the greatest?&rsquo;, that he who offends one of the little ones will be drowned s.w. &ldquo;sink&rdquo; in the midst of the sea, His audience would have immediately associated this with the midst of the sea of Galilee, just where the storm had occurred. Peter seems to have realized that this warning was pertinent to him, for it is he who then interrupts the Lord to ask how often he should forgive his brother (Mt. 18:21). Peter sinking into Galilee, giving up swimming but desperately throwing up his hand to the Lord you don&rsquo;t swim with a hand outstretched, is the position of each person who truly comes to Christ. This is the extent of our desperation; baptism, conversion to Him, is most definitely not a painless living out of parental expectations. Note how they were &ldquo;tossed&rdquo; or &lsquo;tormented&rsquo; (Gk.) by the raging waves (Mt. 14:24)- the very same word is used about how the rejected will be &ldquo;tormented&rdquo; in condemnation (Rev. 14:10; 20:10). Peter&rsquo;s salvation by the hand of the Lord was representative of us all. As he drowned there in the lake, he was effectively living out the condemnation of the last day. But he appealed urgently to the Lord: &ldquo;Save me&rdquo;. Later, Peter was to use the same words in his preaching, when he appealed to his nation to &ldquo;save themselves&rdquo; by calling on the name of the Lord, just as he had done on the lake (Acts 2:40). He saw that those people were in just the position which he had been in on the lake.&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4248','1','44','2','22','22','<p>2:22 <i>You men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God, by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in the midst of you</i>- The crowd being addressed were Jews who were permanently living at Jerusalem; the crowd had all met the Lord Jesus and seen His miracles.</p><p><i>Even as you yourselves know</i>- These Jerusalem residents had known in their conscience that Jesus was indeed &quot;attested by God&quot; as Messiah. Like Paul at this time, they were kicking against the goads.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4249','1','44','2','23','23','<p>2:23 <i>Him, being delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God-</i> Perhaps Peter is addressing the sense some of the Jews had that the Lord\'s death was according to God\'s will, and therefore they were the less guilty.</p><p><i>You by the hand of men outside the Law, did crucify and slay- </i>Although it was Roman hands who crucified the Lord, Peter reminds the Jews that God judged it to have been effectively their hands. Their sin was not mitigated against by the fact that others had done it, when they planned it.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4250','1','44','2','24','24','<p>2:24 <i>W</i><i>hom God raised up, having loosened the pangs of death; because it was not possible that he should be held by it</i><i>- </i>Quoting Ps. 18:5 LXX. There are some passages which imply the Lord Jesus was somehow conscious during His three days in the grave. Evidently this was not the case. And yet the resurrection loosed the birth-pangs of death. Those three days are likened to labour, in the Lord\'s case bringing forth life through death. Yet He was dead and unconscious. But to the Father, He saw things simply differently. Sometimes God speaks from His timeless perspective, at other times His words are accommodated to us. Likewise from the Father\'s perspective, the spirit of Christ went and preached to the people of Noah\'s day at the time of His death. Yet this didn\'t happen in real time in such a way.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4251','1','44','2','25','25','<p>2:25 <i>For David said concerning him</i>- David is one of the major OT types of the Lord Jesus. The words of David in Ps. 16 are quoted in Acts 2:25,29 concerning Jesus: &ldquo;I have set the Lord always before me... he is at my right hand... thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption&rdquo;. These are words describing David&rsquo;s feelings about his own death and resurrection; and yet so identified was he with the Messiah, that they are quoted as being directly true of Jesus. But Acts 2:29 also quotes these words with a slightly different spin- in that David saw the Lord <i>Jesus</i> always before him, and it was this sense that stabilized him. This could only have been true in that David understood all his feelings and present and future experiences e.g. resurrection, not being suffered to corrupt eternally as being typical of the Lord Jesus. He so understood himself as a type of the One to come that he saw this person as ever with him. This is the extent of the typology. 1 Chron. 17:17 in Young&rsquo;s Literal has David saying: &ldquo;Thou hast seen me as a type of the man on high&rdquo; i.e. Messiah. David describes himself at ease with clearly Messianic titles such as &lsquo;the Christ&rsquo;, &lsquo;the man raised on high&rsquo;, and then goes on to speak of the Messiah who <i>is to come</i> on the &ldquo;morning without clouds&rdquo;, admitting that &ldquo;verily <i>my</i> house is not so with God&rdquo; (2 Sam. 23:1-5). This is only really understandable if we accept that David consciously saw himself as a type of the future Messiah. The main reason why there is so much deep personal detail about David is because we are intended to come to know him as a person, to enter into his mind- so that we can have a clearer picture of the mind and personality of the Lord Jesus. This is why the thoughts of David, e.g. in Ps. 16:8-11, are quoted as being the very thoughts of Christ (Acts 2:27). So Christ-centred was David\'s mind that he &quot;<i>fore</i>saw (not &quot;saw&quot; - disproof of the pre-existence) the Lord (Jesus) always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved&quot; (Acts 2:25). David was obsessed, mentally dominated, by his imagination of Christ, so much so that his imagination of his future descendant gave him practical strength in the trials of daily life. Small wonder we are bidden know and enter into David\'s mind. Likewise the book of Genesis covers about 2000 years of history, but almost a quarter of the narrative concerns Joseph; surely because we are intended to enter into Joseph, and thereby into the mind of Christ.&nbsp;</p><p><i>I saw the Lord always before my face- </i>With David we should be able to say that we see the Lord the Lord Jesus ever before our face, so that we will not be moved by anything. However, we could also interpret the quotation as David solely talking about the future feelings of Jesus; the &quot;Lord&quot; in view would therefore be the Lord God.</p><p><i>For he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved</i>- The Lord Jesus felt God was at his right hand; but He is now on the Father\'s right hand. We see here a mutuality between Father and Son.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4252','1','44','2','26','26','<p>2:26 <i>Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced, moreover my flesh also shall dwell in hope</i> - Literally, to dwell in a tent. The idea is that death is merely setting up a tent to pass the night in, until the day of resurrection dawns. David said that just because &quot;our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding&quot;, therefore he wanted to be as generous as possible in providing for the work of God\'s house (1 Chron. 29:14-16). So sure is the hope of resurrection that the Lord interpreted God being the God of Abraham as meaning that to Him, Abraham was living. Death is no barrier to God\'s continuing identity with His people. His faith in the resurrection is so sure that He speaks of death as if it is not. And in our weakness, we seek to look beyond the apparent finality of death likewise. Because David firmly believed in a resurrection, &quot;my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; moreover also my flesh shall tabernacle in hope&quot; (Acts 2:26 RV). His whole life \'tabernacled in hope\' because of what he understood about resurrection. This was and is the power of basics. Yet we can become almost over-familiar with these wonderful ideas such as resurrection.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4253','1','44','2','27','27','<p>2:27 <i>B</i><i>ecause You will not leave my soul in the grave, n</i><i>either will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption</i>- The women\'s devotion to the Lord, coupled with Joseph and Nicodemus going to such extraordinary lengths to have the Lord speedily buried in a new tomb, with more spices than were used for the burial of the Caesars, ensured that the Lord\'s body did not corrupt after three days. We note that Martha assumed that after three days, a corpse had usually started to smell because corruption was so advanced. However, the lack of corruption of the Lord\'s corpse was not \'allowed\' by God, even if He worked through the freewill devotions of the Lord\'s loving followers. Given the Jewish belief and experience that after three days a corpse has seriously decayed, perhaps the reason the Lord remained dead for three days in order to demonstrate that His resurrection was indeed a miracle and not some quick resuscitation.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4254','1','44','2','28','28','<p>2:28 <i>You made known to me the ways of life, you shall make me full of gladness with Your countenance</i><i>- </i>&ldquo;The Kingdom of God&rdquo; was a title used of Jesus. He &lsquo;was&rsquo; the Kingdom because He lived the Kingdom life. Who He would be, was who He was in His life. At the prospect of being made &ldquo;full of joy&rdquo; at the resurrection, &ldquo;therefore did my heart rejoice&rdquo; (Acts 2:26,28). His joy during His mortal life was related to the joy He now experiences in His immortal life. And this is just one of the many continuities between the moral and the immortal Jesus.</p><p>Acts 2:28 quotes Psalm 16 concerning Christ\'s resurrection and ascension: &quot;Thou shalt make me full of joy with Thy countenance&quot;. So Christ\'s fullness of joy was to see God\'s face, and He has left us His joy (John 15). This was &quot;the joy set before Him&quot;, and it is ours too. This is our fullness of joy, to see God\'s face, spiritually in this life, and physically in the future. After asking us to let His Words abide in us, Jesus said He had told us that so that our joy might be full (Jn. 15:7,11). So the effect of the Word and of true repentance and turning to God is the same as seeing God\'s face- it should bring that same fullness of joy. Other passages make the same connection between the Word and God\'s face shining upon us- e.g. Ps. 119:135 &quot;Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant, and teach me Thy statutes&quot;.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4255','1','44','2','29','29','<p>2:29 <i>Brothers, I may say to you freely about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day</i>- The Greek for &ldquo;freely&rdquo; means boldly, confidently, openly. This was a characteristic of Peter\'s public speaking (Acts 4:13,31), and it is used frequently in the New Testament of our boldness. We must ask ourselves whether we experience this; such a characteristic arises from trust that truly, we have been forgiven and will by grace live eternally. The Lord recognized the influence of the synagogue upon them when He said that He spoke to them in parables, and would later speak to them plainly (Jn. 16:25)- when He had earlier spoken to the Jewish world in parables rather than plainly, because they did not understand (Mk. 4:34). And yet they got there in the end. He spoke to them in the end &quot;plain words&quot; (<i>parresia</i>), and this word is the watchword of the disciples\' own witness to the world (Acts 2:29; 4:13,29,31; 28:31). They spoke &quot;plainly&quot; <i>(parresia</i>) to the world, without parables, because they reflected to the world the nature of their understanding of their Lord. However, during His ministry, it would appear that the Lord treated them as if they were still in the Jewish world. When they asked Him why He spoke to <i>the people</i> in parables, He replies by explaining why He spoke <i>to them</i> in parables; and He drives the point home that it is to those &ldquo;outside&rdquo; that He speaks in parables (Mk. 4:11). &nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4256','1','44','2','30','30','<p>2:30 <i>Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body he would set one upon his throne</i>- Some manuscripts add <i>according to the flesh</i>. This expression, <i>kata sarx</i>, is a very clear statement of the humanity of the Lord Jesus and His lack of personal pre-existence- seeing He was the fruit of David\'s body or, as the Greek literally says, his hip or creative power. Acts 2:30-33 says that our Lord\'s exaltation in Heaven fulfils, albeit primarily, the promise to David of Christ reigning on his throne. This is confirmed by 2 Sam.7:12 saying that God would &quot;set up&quot; David\'s seed to have an eternal Kingdom; and &quot;set up&quot; in the Septuagint is the same word as &quot;resurrect&quot;, as if in some way the promise would be realized after Christ\'s resurrection.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4257','1','44','2','31','31','<p>2:31 <i>He foreseeing this, spoke of </i><i>the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he left in the grave, nor did his flesh see corruption</i>- This may mean that David foresaw and consciously spoke about the death and resurrection of his great descendant, Messiah. But inspired writers can also state things whereby they speak of and \'foresee\' things which they themselves do not fully understand (1 Pet. 1:12). Therefore we need not read these words as having to mean that David personally understood all the things about the Christ of which he spoke / wrote.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4258','1','44','2','32','32','<p>2:32 <i>This Jesus did God raise up, of which we are all witnesses</i>- The &quot;we&quot; presumably refers to the group of 120 of Acts 1; the &quot;we&quot;, including men and women, who were witnessing with the gift of languages.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4259','1','44','2','33','33','<p>2:33 <i>Therefore, being exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear</i><i>- </i>John repeatedly records Christ&rsquo;s description of the cross as Him being &ldquo;lifted up&rdquo; (Jn. 3:14; 8:18; 12:32,34). But Peter uses the very same word to describe Christ&rsquo;s exaltation in resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:33; 5:31). Looking back, Peter saw the cross as a lifting up in glory, as the basis for the Lord&rsquo;s exaltation afterwards. At the time, it seemed the most humiliating thing to behold. It was anything but exaltation, and Peter would have given his life in the garden to get the Lord out of it. But now he saw its glory. &nbsp;</p><p>The Greek for &quot;poured out&quot; is often used about the shedding of the Lord\'s blood. It was on account of His sacrifice that the Holy Spirit was shed. That seems to be the connection. The miraculous dimension of the gifts, in this case the understanding of languages, was a specific thing at a specific time. But the power of spiritual regeneration, the spirit / power of holiness, continues to be poured out in the lives of believers. Paul speaks as if the outpouring was valid for all, not just those at the day of Pentecost: &quot;The washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour&quot; (Tit. 3:5,6).</p><p>An appreciation of the Lord\'s exaltation will in itself provoke in us repentance and service (Acts 2:33-36). A vision of the exalted Lord Jesus was what gave Stephen such special inspiration in his final minutes (Acts 7:56).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4260','1','44','2','34','34','<p>2:34 <i>For</i> <i>David did not ascend into Heaven</i>- But it was Jesus who did; He, as David\'s \'lord\', is sitting at God\'s right hand, and so it has to be Him and not David who is now in Heaven. This statement clearly disproves the idea of the faithful going to Heaven at death. Peter is tackling Judaism\'s tendency to think that whoever Messiah is or was or shall be, he is in any case inferior to the likes of Moses and David. Peter reasons that the fact David spoke of his \'lord\', i.e. Jesus, being at the right hand of Yahweh therefore meant that Jesus was in Heaven. For that is where God\'s throne is.</p><p><i>But he himself said: The Lord said to my Lord, sit on My right hand</i><i>- </i>Peter uses Scriptures like Ps. 110 and 118 in exactly the same way as he heard the Lord use them (Acts 2:34 = Mt. 22:44; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7 = Mt. 21:42). A list could be compiled for Peter\'s allusions to the Lord as I have for Paul\'s. It may be that Peter\'s difficult reference to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:19) is a reference to Is. 61 in the same way as Christ used it in Lk. 4:18. This point is meaningless without an appreciation of the extent to which Christ\'s words featured in the writing and thought of Peter.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4261','1','44','2','35','35','<p>2:35 <i>Until I make </i><i>your enemies a footstool for your feet</i>- The context is Peter\'s appeal for those who crucified the Lord to repent. They were His &quot;enemies&quot;; but once they became a footstool for His feet, then He would return. Therefore Peter appealed for their repentance, apparently understanding being \'a footstool for His feet\' as meaning they would put themselves at His feet in obeisance. The Lord\'s footstool is the place where His worshippers come (Ps. 99:5; 132:7; Is. 66:1-3). The Father was willing to &quot;make&quot; His Son\'s enemies, those responsible for His death, into His worshippers. But they had to do their part, in repentance and acceptance of the activity of His Holy Spirit. Heb. 10:13 adds the detail that the Lord Jesus is eagerly looking for AV &quot;expecting&quot; His former enemies to become His footstool- and then He will return. This is why witness to Jewish people is so deeply significant in God\'s program.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4262','1','44','2','36','36','<p>2:36 <i>Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain, that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified</i>- Peter&rsquo;s growth of understanding of Jesus as &lsquo;Christ&rsquo; grew. He declared Him as this during His ministry (Jn. 6:69), and also as &lsquo;Lord&rsquo;, but he preached Him as having been <i>made </i>Lord and Christ after the resurrection (Acts 2:36). He saw the Lord&rsquo;s status as having changed so much, even though he used the same words to describe it, and therefore he responded the more fully to Him. He so often refers to the Name of Christ, which had now been given Him (Acts 4:12 RV)- as if this new Name and the redemption in it was the motive power for his witness. Jesus had been born a Saviour, Christ the Lord (Lk. 2:11). But Peter uses each of these titles as if they had been given to the Lord anew, after His resurrection. And indeed they had been. They were no longer just appropriate lexical items for Peter to use; they were the epitome of all that the Lord was and had been and ever would be, all that He stood for and had enabled. And he preached them to men as the basis upon which salvation and forgiveness was now possible. See on Acts 5:31.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4263','1','44','2','37','37','<p>2:37- see on Acts 2:12.</p><p><i>Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart</i><i>- </i>The NT emphasizes the power of the cross, and the horrendous fact that we are really asked to share in His sufferings (e.g. Acts 9:16; 2 Cor. 1:5; Phil. 1:29; 3:10; 2 Tim. 2:3; 1 Pet. 4:1,13; Rev. 2:10). The Acts record seems to bring out how the Lord\'s people shared in the Lord\'s mortal experiences (e.g. Acts 4:7 = Mt. 21:23,24). The early converts were &quot;pricked&quot; (Acts 2:37), using the same word as in Jn. 19:34 for the piercing of the Lord\'s side. Paul speaks of how in his refusing of payment from Corinth, &ldquo;I made myself servant unto all&quot;, just as the Lord was on the cross. In accommodating himself to his audience, &ldquo;to the weak became I as weak&quot;, just as the Lord was crucified through weakness. In our preaching and in our ecclesial lives, we articulate elements of the Lord&rsquo;s cross in our attitude to others.</p><p><i>And said to Peter and the rest of the apostles: Brothers, what shall we do?</i>- Luke is fond of using this Greek phrase in recording the response provoked by encounters with the Lord Jesus and the message about Him (Lk. 3:10,12,14; 6:11; 10:25; 12:17; 16:3,4; 18:18; 19:48; 23:34; Acts 4:16; 9:6; 10:6; 16:30; 22:10). This is therefore a most significant phrase for Luke. His preaching of the Gospel (for Luke-Acts are missionary documents) was to provoke this question in us too- what shall we do?</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4264','1','44','2','38','38','<p>2:38 <i>And Peter said to them: Every one of you</i><i> should- </i>This might seem somewhat redundant, but remember that Peter was faced by a crowd of at least 3000 people. He sensed the tendency towards group action, being baptized because that was what the crowd was doing. And so he seeks to remind them that repentance is a very individual response to our own sins and God\'s salvation in Christ. And the same caveat needs to be sounded in communities which quite rightly raise their children in the Christian faith, surrounding them with those of similar background.</p><p><i>Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to the remission of your sins</i>- This language is intentionally reminiscent of how Luke earlier described the work of John the Baptist four years ago, which would have been well known to these Jerusalem Jews: he preached &quot;the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins&quot; (Lk. 3:3). Perhaps they had been baptized by John- for &quot;all Jerusalem&quot; were baptized by John. But that was not Christian baptism, which was only instituted after the Lord\'s death and resurrection; and there was no subsequent gift of Holy Spirit made accessible by that baptism. So maybe the emphasis was upon &quot;in the name of Jesus Christ&quot;. Those baptized by John were baptized into Jesus in Acts 19:1-5.</p><p>Repentance is a very complex and personal issue. There is no evidence that each of those people gave a theological statement of their understanding.</p><p>The appeal to &ldquo;be baptized&rdquo; is asking us to let something be done to us; and the ultimate doer of baptism is the Father and Son. Israel&rsquo;s crossing of the Red Sea was a prototype of Christian baptism; the people were baptized into Moses, as we are baptized into Christ (1 Cor. 10:2). &ldquo;They were baptized&rdquo; again suggests they were baptized by someone- God. If the idea was that they had of their own volition put themselves under water, the Greek and English would be different- something like &lsquo;They baptized themselves into Moses&rsquo;.</p><p><i>And you shall receive the gift- </i>Rom. 5:16 and 6:23 describe salvation as &quot;<i>the</i> gift&quot;- inviting comparison with &quot;<i>the </i>gift&quot; of the Spirit in Acts 2:38. The only other time in the NT that we read of \'receiving\' \'the gift\' is in Rom. 5:17, where believers receive the gift of imputed righteousness and grace, i.e. salvation. And Acts 2:39 seems to be quoting Joel 2:32 concerning salvation as if this is what the gift of the Spirit was. Peter\'s reference to the promised gift being to those &quot;afar off&quot; alludes to Is. 57:19: &quot;Peace (with God through forgiveness) to him that is far off&quot;. Eph. 2:8 also describes the gift as being salvation, saying that &quot;by one Spirit (this gift) we all have access to the Father&quot; (2:18). This is further validated by the fact that Eph. 2:13-17 is also alluding to Is. 57:19: &quot;Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace... (who) came and preached peace to you which were far off&quot;. Ps. 51:12,13 draws a parallel between possessing God\'s holy Spirit, and benefiting from His salvation.</p><p><i>Of the Holy Spirit- </i>The repeated use of definite articles suggests that a clearly defined gift was in view. The promise of the Holy Spirit as a gift is surely referring to the promises of the Comforter in John 14-16. These promises contained the prospect of internal activity in the heart of believers, to the extent that they would as it were have the Lord Jesus literally present with them. Whilst the manifestation of the Spirit\'s presence was initially through visible phenomenon such as speaking in foreign languages, the essence of the gift is of internal strengthening to righteousness. And it is clearly alluded to in the later New Testament. &quot;that you may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you would be rooted and grounded in love, that you might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, and to truly know and understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him that is able to do immeasurably above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever&quot; (Eph. 3:16-21; see too Eph. 1:17-19). &quot;Now he that establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts&quot; (2 Cor. 1:21,22). &quot;In whom you also believed, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise&quot; (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). &quot;...So that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith&quot; (Gal. 3:14). The idea of Spirit that was promised naturally connects with the promise of the Comforter, and with Peter\'s statement that baptism will receive the promised gift of the Spirit. These passages are all about the internal work of the Spirit- not miraculous gifts. The Comforter passages have a similar aspect to them: &quot;The Father... shall give you another comforter, that he may be with you for ever this sounds like something permanent, not only for two generations- the Spirit of truth... he abides with you and <i>shall be in you</i>... I will come to you (Jn. 14:16-18)... But the comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and cause you to remember \'to put in the mind\', Gk. all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you (Jn. 14:26,27)... the Comforter, the spirit of truth (Jn. 15:26)... the Comforter... will convict (Jn. 16:7,8)... When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he shall guide you into all the truth... he shall declare to you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall take what is mine and shall declare it to you&quot; (Jn. 16:13,14). The Comforter, the Holy Spirit or &quot;spirit of truth&quot; is therefore associated with internal psychological processes in the mind of the believer. John\'s letters allude to the promise of the comforter, and speak as if it is being experienced by John\'s readership, both then and now. This of itself means that the Comforter was not just referring to miraculous gifts given to the apostles; it has a far wider reference. The following are John\'s later commentary on the Comforter passages: &quot;You have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all these things... the anointing which you received of him abides in you cp. Jn. 14:17 &quot;the Spirit of truth... he abides with you and <i>shall be in you</i>&quot;... even as it taught you, so you are to abide in him (1 Jn. 2:2,27)... hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He gave us (1 Jn. 3:24)... it is the Spirit that testifies, because the Spirit is the truth... He that believes in the Son of God has the witness within himself (1 Jn. 5:6,10)... the Son of God came, and has given us an understanding so that we truly know him that is true&quot; (1 Jn. 5:20). All this activity of teaching us, giving us understanding, helping us abide in Christ- this is the work of the Comforter Spirit. All this desperately needed spiritual activity is the gift promised to those who are baptized.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4265','1','44','2','39','39','<p>2:39 <i>For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to him</i><i>- </i>Peter&rsquo;s maiden speech on the day of Pentecost was a conscious undoing of his denials, and consciously motivated by the experience of forgiveness which he knew he had received. Having been converted, he was now strengthening his Jewish brethren. He went and stood literally a stone&rsquo;s throw from the High Priest&rsquo;s house, and stood up and declared to the world his belief that Jesus was and is Christ. Peter also preached in Solomon&rsquo;s Porch, the very place where the Lord had declared Himself to Israel as their Saviour (Jn. 10:33; Acts 5:12). Peter at the time of his denials had been &quot;afar off&quot; from the Lord Jesus (Mt. 26:58; Mk. 14:54; Lk. 22:54- all the synoptics emphasize this point). Peter\'s denials would\'ve been the talk of the town in Jerusalem. So when in Acts 2:39 he says that there is a promised blessing for &quot;all&quot; that are far off... I think he\'s alluding back to himself, setting himself up as a pattern for all other sinners to find salvation. That\'s perhaps why he talks of &quot;all&quot; those others who are also &quot;far off&quot; as he had been. He could\'ve just spoken of &quot;they&quot; or &quot;those&quot; who are far off. But the use of &quot;all&quot; may suggest he is hinting that the audience follow his pattern. This, in Peter\'s context, makes the more sense if we see <i>one </i>of the aspects of the promised Spirit blessing as that of forgiveness and salvation- as in Acts 3:25,26, the blessing was to be turned away from sins. See on Acts 3:26; 1 Pet. 2:25; Lk. 5:8.</p><p>As shown on :38 <i>The gift</i>, &quot;afar off&quot; alludes to Is. 57:19: &quot;Peace (with God through forgiveness) to him that is far off&quot;. This is speaking of Gentiles; Peter was inspired to preach that the ministry of the Spirit was for the Jerusalem Jews, their children who lived in the Gentile world, in the locations from which they had come to spend their retirement in Jerusalem, i.e. the Jewish diaspora- and to the Gentiles. But it\'s clear from the Cornelius incident that Peter still failed to grasp the import of the words he was preaching- just like us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4266','1','44','2','40','40','<p>2:40 <i>And with many other words he testified and encouraged them, saying: Save yourselves from this crooked generation</i><i>- </i>&quot;Lord, save me&quot;, Peter had cried when drowning. The words are significant because they are the words used by Peter in urging others to call upon the same Lord to be saved. He was such a compelling preacher- persuading 3000 people to be baptized instantly- exactly because he had called out these very words himself. It is only by knowing our own desperation that we will be compelling preachers. No amount of artistry, presentation or wordsmithing can produce anywhere near the same effect. He encouraged the crowds to likewise call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (Acts 2:39). He saw himself then and there, in all his weakness and yet sincere desperation, as the epitome of us all. But the parallels don&rsquo;t stop there. Peter had asked the Lord bid him &lsquo;Come unto me&rsquo; (Mt. 14:28). Yet this is the very language of the Lord to all: &lsquo;Come unto me...&rsquo;. Yet Peter went further; in the same way as the Lord stretched forth His hand and saved Peter, so He stretches forth His hand, Peter observed, to save all who would come to Him (Mt. 14:31 = Acts 4:30). But Peter is framed as Jesus, in that he too stretched out his hand to save others as Jesus had done to him (Mt. 14:35 = Acts 5:15,16; Mt. 14:31 = Acts 3:7), bidding them come through the water of baptism as Jesus had done to him. As Jesus was worshipped after saving Peter, so men tried to worship Peter (Mt. 14:33 = Acts 3:11). So Peter went through what we all do- having been saved by Jesus, having come to Him and having been rescued by the outstretched arm, he responds to this by doing the same for others. When the Lord &ldquo;caught&rdquo; hold of Peter as he sunk in the waves (Mt. 14:31), a Greek word is used which occurs only once elsewhere: &ldquo;He did not take hold s.w. to catch of Angels, but of the seed of Abraham&rdquo; (Heb. 2:16). The Hebrew writer was surely alluding to the Lord&rsquo;s &lsquo;catching&rsquo; of desperate Peter and pulling him to salvation- and saw in Peter a symbol of all those who will be saved by Christ.</p><p>&ldquo;This crooked generation&rdquo; is the term used of how John the Baptist\'s mission was to make that &quot;crooked&quot; generation &quot;straight&quot; (Lk. 3:5). His mission failed, although it could have potentially succeeded. And so that generation were judged. God sees the world as actively evil: &quot;this present evil world&quot; (Gal. 1:4), under His condemnation (1 Cor. 11:32); he that is not with the Lord Jesus is seen as actively against Him, not just passively indifferent (Lk. 11:23). It is absolutely fundamental that our separation from this world is related to our salvation. The act of baptism is a saving of ourselves not only from our sins, but also from &quot;this untoward generation&quot; in which we once lived (Acts 2:40). But let us note that the essential demarcation 2000 years ago was between the believer and the world, not believer and believer.</p><p>John the Baptist\'s ministry was so that the \'crooked\' nation of Israel should be \'made straight\' and ready to accept Jesus as Messiah (Lk. 3:5). God\'s enabling power was present so that this might have happened; but the same word is used in Acts 2:40 and Phil. 2:15 to describe Israel as still being a \'crooked\' nation. John\'s preaching, like ours, was potentially able to bring about the conversion of an entire nation. So instead of being discouraged by the lack of response to our witness, let\'s remember the enormous potential power which there is behind it. Every word, witness of any kind, tract left lying on a seat... has such huge potential conversion power lodged within it, a power from God Himself. <br />John\'s mission was to prepare Israel for Christ, to figuratively \'<i>bring low\' </i>the hills and mountains, the proud Jews of first century Israel, and raise the valleys, i.e. inspire the humble with the real possibility of salvation in Christ (Lk. 3:5). Paul uses the same Greek word for &quot;bring low&quot; no fewer than three times, concerning how the Gospel has humbled him (Acts 20:19; 2 Cor. 11:7; Phil. 4:12). It\'s as if he\'s saying: \'John\'s preaching did finally have its&rsquo; effect upon me; it did finally make me humble enough for the Lord Jesus\'. And as John made straight paths for men\'s feet that they might come unto Christ (Mt. 3:3), so did Paul (Heb. 12:13).&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4267','1','44','2','41','41','<p>2:41 <i>They that received his word were baptized</i><i>- </i>Peter appealed to Israel: &ldquo;Hear these words...&rdquo;, and then went on to quote a prophecy of how the Lord Jesus would be raised up i.e. after His resurrection, &ldquo;and him shall ye hear&rdquo; Acts 2:22; 3:22,24). The record adds that the crowd received Peter&rsquo;s word and were baptized (Acts 2:41), whereas elsewhere in Acts men and women receive the word of the Lord Jesus. It is simply so, that when we witness, the words we speak are in effect the words of Jesus. Our words are His. This is how close we are to Him. And this is why our deportment and manner of life, which is the essential witness, must be in Him. For He is articulated to the world through us.</p><p><i>And there were added in that day- </i>Converts are described as being added to the church, and yet also added to Christ; the play on ideas seems deliberate (Acts 2:41,47 cp. 5:13,14; 11:24).</p><p><i>About three thousand people- </i>Luke gives progress reports on the early Christian mission in quantitative terms, as if analysing the success of the work and possibly suggesting how it could be done even better (Acts 2:41,47; 4:4; 5:14; 6:1,7; 9:31; 13:43; 14:1; 17:4,12; 18:10; 19:26; 21:20). The examples in Acts of preaching the Gospel and baptizing those who believed it are united in suggesting a very short period of time, and immediate baptism- the same hour of the night, in the case of the Philippian jailer, or the very same day, in the case of thousands on the day of Pentecost. The list is impressive: Acts 2:38-41; 8:12,13,36-38; 9:18; 10:47; 16:15,33; 18:8; 19:5.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4268','1','44','2','42','42','<p>2:42 <i>And they continued earnestly</i>- The same word is used of how <i>we </i>must &ldquo;continue&rdquo; in prayer (Rom. 12:12; Col. 4:2), i.e. follow the example of the early ecclesia in prayerfulness. The disciples had &ldquo;continued&rdquo; in prayer after the Lord&rsquo;s ascension (Acts 1:14), and now their converts continued in prayer too. Note in passing that we continue in the pattern of those who convert us. Thus to start with, Simon &ldquo;continued with Philip&rdquo; (Acts 8:13). This means that who <i>we</i> are affects the spiritual quality of others. The same word is used several times in Acts (1:14; 2:42,46; 6:4; 8:13). The great concern of all missionary enterprises is that the converts will &quot;continue&quot;, and Luke is therefore at pains to record that the converts did indeed &quot;continue&quot;, initially at least.</p><p><i>In the apostles\' teaching and</i> <i>f</i><i>ellowship </i><i>in the breaking of bread and the prayers</i>- Acts 2:42 speaks of the experience of <i>koinonia</i> in the breaking of bread, praying together, and the apostles\' teaching about Christ. But these are not the only aspects of <i>koinonia</i>; and these things are all centred around the person of Jesus. In summary, <i>koinonia </i>means to share <i>in </i>and not simply <i>with</i>. At your leisure consider the usage of the word in this connection in Lk. 5:1; Heb. 2:14; 2 Pet. 1:4; Rom. 11:17; 2 Cor. 6:14; Rev. 18:4; Mt. 23:30. We are &ldquo;in fellowship&rdquo; with each other in the sense that we share in the same reality. So all who wish to share in that reality Christ, in the Christian context are &ldquo;in fellowship&rdquo; with each other. Paul often speaks of <i>koinonia</i> in giving- the sense being of giving to or participating in a project or entity outside of yourself.&nbsp; 1 Cor. 10:16-20 speaks of how sharing in a feast implies your sharing in the Lord you are celebrating- the emphasis is vertical rather than horizontal. The concern is whose feast you are attending or engaging in- which entity you are fellowshipping, Christ or an idol. With whom you do this, laterally, isn\'t in view here.</p><p>Phil. 2 exhorts believers to be of &ldquo;one mind&rdquo;, but that one mind is later defined in the chapter as being the mind of Christ on the cross. Again, the basis of unity between believers is their common share in Christ, especially in His death- there is never any implication that a theological statement of position is to be the basis of their unity. If this were the case, then we would expect to see this specifically stated. Instead, as in 1 Cor. 10, the unity between believers is on account of their individual participation in the mind and work of Christ.</p><p>Acts 2:42 in the AV has strongly influenced the thinking of many who uphold a closed table, due to reading back into a Bible verse the impression given by the AV and assuming it therefore supports a traditional approach to fellowship: &ldquo;And they continued steadfastly in the apostles\' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers&rdquo;. The impression is given by the AV that the duty of baptized believers is to continue believing the &ldquo;doctrine&rdquo; as in the theological positions of the apostles, and to only fellowship and break bread with those who believe the same. But on that basis it ought to be impossible to also pray together with those of different doctrinal persuasions- and that is not usually insisted upon by closed table theorists. However, the Greek text of Acts 2:42 is poorly translated by the AV. The <i>didache</i>, or &ldquo;doctrine&rdquo;, refers not to theological propositions but to the act of teaching by the apostles. The mass of 3000 newly baptized converts were taught further by the apostles, in line with how the great commission of Mt. 28:19,20 had commanded the apostles to go and teach the good news of Christ&rsquo;s resurrection, baptize people into it, and then teach them further. We have in this section of Acts 2 the classic obedience to that commission. Indeed, the mention of people present from &ldquo;all nations&rdquo; encourages us to understand Acts 2 as Luke&rsquo;s account of how the great commission was initially obeyed; and his version of it in Lk. 24:47 says that &ldquo;repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, beginning at Jerusalem&rdquo;. There are pointed references in Acts 2 and 3 to repentance, remission of sins, baptism into the name, and all this beginning at Jerusalem with the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower the preachers (cp. Mk. 16:17). Clearly Luke is presenting the fulfilment of the great commission. The reference to the new converts hearing the teaching AV &ldquo;doctrine&rdquo; of the apostles after baptism is the direct fulfilment of the command of Mt. 28:20 for the apostles to further teach converts after baptism. Hence the CEV translates Acts 2:42: &ldquo;They spent their time learning from the apostles, and they were like family to each other. They also broke bread and prayed together&rdquo;.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4269','1','44','2','43','43','<p>2:43 <i>And fear came upon everyone; and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles</i>- The &ldquo;fear&rdquo; was perhaps because people now realized that indeed, Israel had crucified their King. And society as a whole, each of them, had some responsibility in this. They perceived how they were faced with the ultimate issues of eternity. Only total capitulation to God&rsquo;s way in His Son could lead them to serve God <i>without</i> fear, as envisaged by Zacharias, Simeon and others when they first encountered the Divine plan in His Son.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4270','1','44','2','44','44','<p>2:44 <i>And all that believed were together and had all things common</i><i>- </i>3:1 goes on to explain the summary of Acts 2:42. The new converts continued listening to the teaching AV &ldquo;doctrine&rdquo; of the apostles and continued in fellowshipping with them- not in the technical sense of being &ldquo;in fellowship&rdquo; as opposed to being &ldquo;out of fellowship&rdquo;; for this would require us to read into the text our usage of those terms. They continued &ldquo;hanging out&rdquo; with the apostles, continued in their presence and company, as eager students with their teachers. The Greek for &ldquo;fellowship&rdquo; is <i>koinonia</i>, and the root word <i>koine </i>occurs in Acts 2:44- they had all things &ldquo;in common&rdquo;. This is how they fellowshipped or common-ed together; they pooled their possessions and had them in common, or, as the AV will have it, in &ldquo;fellowship&rdquo;. In fact, the idea of <i>koinonia </i>or&nbsp;&ldquo;fellowship&rdquo; in the New Testament is most commonly used about the sharing of material&nbsp;resources rather than theological agreement (Rom. 12:13 &ldquo;contribute&rdquo;, Gal. 6:6 &ldquo;share all good things&rdquo;, Phil. 4:15 and throughout 2 Corinthians in the context of appealing for assistance or fellowship for the poor saints at Jerusalem). Acts 2:46 then speaks of how they attended the temple together, and broke bread in homes. This is the further explanation of how the new converts are described in Acts 2:42 as continuing in the apostles&rsquo; teaching they went to the temple to hear it, as this was likely the only venue large enough to hold the crowd, and they continued in breaking of bread- by doing it in homes. For there was no church building available to do this as a group of 3000. And the nature of the &ldquo;breaking of bread&rdquo; is further defined in Acts 2:46- it involved a joyful eating together. The breaking of bread was therefore in the form of a collective meal, continuing the connection established by Jesus between His open table collective meals, and the &ldquo;breaking of bread&rdquo; in memory of Him. Acts 2:42 speaks of the new converts continuing together in &ldquo;<i>the</i> prayers&rdquo; (ESV and Gk.). Acts 3:1 goes on to define what this meant in practice- Peter and John went into the temple at the time of prayer. What they had in common was praying together in the Jewish temple prayers. But those prayers were attended by many Jews who didn&rsquo;t believe in Jesus. What that goes to show is that you can perform a religious act of fellowship with unbelievers, but enjoy true Christian fellowship with God&rsquo;s true people who are amongst them. From the very start, Christianity started with an &ldquo;open&rdquo; attitude to fellowship with the unbelieving Jews. If there really is some guilt by association principle to be operated in Christianity, surely we&rsquo;d expect to see it outlined right at the start.</p><p>We can now summarize the above in tabular form:</p><table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=444 valign=top>            <p>Acts   2:42</p>            </td>            <td width=445 valign=top>            <p>How it   worked out in practice</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=444 valign=top>            <p>And   they continued steadfastly in the apostles\' doctrine teaching</p>            </td>            <td width=445 valign=top>            <p>Having   heard the basic Gospel and having been baptized, they continued hearing the   apostles&rsquo; teaching, as the apostles obeyed the great commission- to preach   the basic Gospel, baptize, and then teach further (Mt. 28:19,20). Acts 2:46   therefore speaks of how they attended the temple together in order to learn   more from the apostles&rsquo; teaching</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=444 valign=top>            <p>And   fellowship (<i>koinonia</i>)</p>            </td>            <td width=445 valign=top>            <p>Acts   2:44- they had all things &ldquo;in common&rdquo;, Gk. <i>koine</i>.</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=444 valign=top>            <p>The   breaking of bread</p>            </td>            <td width=445 valign=top>            <p>Acts   2:46- this involved a joyful eating together in house groups</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=444 valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;<i>The</i>   prayers&rdquo; (ESV and Gk.).</p>            </td>            <td width=445 valign=top>            <p>Acts   3:1 defines what this meant in practice- Peter and John went into the temple   at the time of prayer.</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table><p>The unity between believers at the breaking of bread is brought out in Acts 2:42, where we read of the new converts continuing in:<br />the teaching of the apostles, <br />the fellowship<br />the breaking of bread<br />the prayers.<br />It could be that this is a description of the early order of service at the memorial meetings. They began with an exhortation by the apostles, then there was &ldquo;the fellowship&quot;, called the <i>agape</i> in Jude 12, a meal together, and then the breaking of bread itself following Jewish Passover tradition, concluded by &ldquo;the prayers&quot;, which may have included the singing of Psalms. The performance of this feast was a sign of conversion and membership in the body of Christ. This is how important it is.</p><p>Some of the Roman leaders initially pushed the idea of Plato, that all land should be state owned and be given up by individuals to the state. Yet Acts 2:44; 4:32 use language which is directly taken from Plato&rsquo;s <i>Republic</i>: &ldquo;All things common&hellip; no one called anything his own&rdquo;. The early church was seeking to set up an idealized alternative to the Roman empire &nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4271','1','44','2','45','45','<p>2:45 <i>And they sold their possessions and goods, and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had need</i>- The Holy Spirit appeared to the apostles as &ldquo;cloven / parted tongues&rdquo; (Acts 2:3), giving to each man what each needed (Eph. 4:8-13). In response to this, we read that the apostles sold their possessions and &ldquo;distributed s.w. &ldquo;cloven&rdquo; to all men, as every man had need&rdquo; (Acts 2:45). Likewise Paul speaks of how God gave the Spirit gifts to every member of Christ&rsquo;s body, so that there was no part which &ldquo;lacked&rdquo; (1 Cor. 12:24). And he uses the same idea when telling the Corinthians to give their excess funds to provide grace / gifts for their brethren who &ldquo;lacked&rdquo; (2 Cor. 8:15). The simple picture, which even in different circumstances abides for us today, is that God&rsquo;s thoughtful and specific generosity to us, His giving us of unique gifts as we &lsquo;have need&rsquo;, should lead us to materially assisting those likewise who &lsquo;have need&rsquo;.</p><p>Material giving to the Lord&rsquo;s cause was associated with the breaking of bread in the early church (Acts 2:42-46; 1 Cor. 16:1,2), after the pattern of how every male was not to appear empty before Yahweh (Heb. &lsquo;to appear for no cause&rsquo;) at the Jewish feasts (Dt. 16:16). We cannot celebrate His grace / giving to us without response. Because Israel had been redeemed from Egypt, they were to be generous to their brethren, and generally open handed (Lev. 25:37,38). This is why the Acts record juxtaposes God&rsquo;s grace / giving, and the giving of the early believers in response (Acts 4:33 cp. 32,34-37). The bread and wine of the drink offerings were to accompany sacrifice; they were not the sacrifice itself. And likewise the spirit of sacrifice must be seen in us as those emblems are taken. The Laodiceans\' materialism resulted in them not realizing their desperate spiritual need for the cross (Rev. 3:17,18); Lemuel knew that riches would make him ask &quot;Who is Yahweh?&quot;; he wouldn\'t even want to know the Name /&nbsp;character of the Lord God (Prov. 30:9). The Jews\' experience of redemption from Haman <i>quite naturally</i> resulted in them giving gifts both to each other and to the poor around them (Es. 9:22). &quot;You shall lend unto many nations&quot; has often been misread as a prediction of Jewish involvement in financial institutions and banking (Dt. 28:12). But the context is simply that &quot;The Lord shall open unto you <i>His</i> good treasure, the heaven to give the rain of your land... and <i>you</i> shall lend unto many nations&quot;. If God opens His treasure to us, we should open our treasures to others, even lending with a spirit of generosity, motivated by our experience of His generosity to <i>us</i>. Because Yahweh had redeemed Israel, they were not to be petty materialists, cheating others out of a few grams or centimetres in trading. The wealth and largeness of God&rsquo;s work for them should lead them to shun such petty desire for self-betterment.</p><p>Distribution as each &ldquo;had need&rdquo; may mean that people weren\'t given just because they asked, but according to their need, as judged by the elders.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4272','1','44','2','46','46','<p>2:46 <i>And day by day, continuing earnestly with one accord in the temple</i><i>- </i>The way Jesus forewarned the disciples that the time would come when they would be cast out of the synagogues (Jn. 16:2) surely implies He assumed they would maintain synagogue attendance until they were cast out, rather than removing themselves in obedience to Christ. By remaining as far as they could, they were the salt of their world; and we see in Paul&rsquo;s ministry how his synagogue attendance gave him many opportunities to witness to the Gospel. The Lord warned His disciples that they would be scourged in the synagogues (Mt. 10:17). But synagogues could only scourge those who were members. The Lord foresaw that His preachers would remain within the synagogue system rather than leave it totally. The fact Paul was scourged in synagogues (2 Cor. 11:25) shows that in being a Jew to the Jews, he opted to remain within the synagogue system. This fact shows that the Lord Jesus didn&rsquo;t intend His people to formally break with the synagogue system, even though it was apostate in doctrine and practice. This indicates that there was absolutely no sense within Him of &lsquo;guilt by association&rsquo; nor a demand for His people to leave apostate systems- they were to remain there until they were cast out of the synagogues.</p><p>Even from within the New Testament we can soon perceive that first century Judaism was full of both theological and practical errors- the immortal soul, heaven going, ascending to &ldquo;Abraham&rsquo;s bosom&rdquo; after death, hell fire, a personal Satan, literal demons, a Kingdom of God based around the violent resistance of evil and military conquest of the Romans in the first century; and above all a serious misunderstanding of Jesus and the whole concept and nature of Israel&rsquo;s Messiah.</p><p><i>And breaking bread at home- </i>Luke\'s writings (in his Gospel and in the Acts) give especial attention to meals and table talk. Societies tended to distinguish themselves by their meal practices. Who was allowed at the table, who was excluded- these things were fundamental to the self-understanding of persons within society. So when the Lord Jesus ate with the lowest sinners, and Peter as a Jew ate with Gentiles... this was radical, counter-cultural behaviour. No wonder the breaking of bread together was such a witness, and the surrounding world watched it with incredulity (Acts 2:42,46; 4:32-35). Note too how Luke mentions that Paul ate food in the homes of Gentiles like Lydia and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:15,34).</p><p>Acts 2:42,46,47 speak as if it involved eating a communal meal together. If we can accept that the original &ldquo;breaking of bread&rdquo; was indeed a meal, it would seem almost axiomatic that access to the &ldquo;bread and wine&rdquo; as in the &ldquo;emblems&rdquo; would have been open. For would the early brethren really have said: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re welcome to eat everything on the table except the unleavened bread&rdquo;? Or would they really have invited those present to pray and worship with them before and after the meal, but not while they were praying for and taking the bread and wine? There is no hint even that this was the case.</p><p>The record of the body of Christ in the New Testament begins with descriptions of the Lord preaching in houses. The word &lsquo;house&rsquo; occurs a huge number of times in the Gospels, especially in Luke&rsquo;s record. He seems to have been very sensitive to the way the Lord entered into homes and did things there. We can be sure that these homes became house churches after His resurrection. The establishment of the church began with the believers gathering in the temple, but breaking bread &ldquo;from house to house&rdquo; (Acts 2:46 Gk.). Fellowship in Christ is about this family sense of community. In practice, the early body of Christ was a fellowship of house churches. They preached and worshipped both in the temple and &ldquo;in every house&rdquo;, i.e. every house church (Acts 5:42).<br />Acts 2:46 (NKJV) records how the early brethren broke bread with &ldquo;simplicity of heart&rdquo;; and we likewise, in our memorial meetings and in our lives, must unswervingly focus upon Him and the colossal import of His cross.</p><p>Almost every major New Testament description of the Lord&rsquo;s coming and what He will bring with Him is also given an application to our experience in this life: the Kingdom of God, eternal life, salvation, justification, sanctification, perfection, glorification&hellip; and of course, judgment. All these things shall come; but the essence of them is being worked out in the life of the believer now. All this is brought to our attention whenever we attend the breaking of bread. That &ldquo;table&rdquo; at which we sit is a picture of the future banquet and table in the coming Kingdom. The &ldquo;gladness&rdquo; which accompanied the breaking of bread (Acts 2:46) is the same word used about the &ldquo;rejoicing&rdquo; at the future marriage supper of the lamb (Rev. 19:7) and the Lord&rsquo;s return (1 Pet. 4:13; Jude 24).<br />Throughout Scripture, the opposition between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God is highlighted. After the establishment of the first ecclesia in Jerusalem, the Acts record seems to emphasize the pointed conflict between the ecclesia and the world. Being &quot;of one accord&quot; was a hallmark of the early brethren (Acts 1:14; 2:1,46; 4:24; 5:12; 15:25); but the world was in &quot;one accord&quot; in their opposition to that united ecclesia (Acts 7:57; 12:20; 18:12; 19:29). &nbsp;</p><p><i>They took their food with gladness and singleness of heart</i>- <i>Metalabein </i>literally means to &ldquo;receive one&rsquo;s share in&rdquo;. In this context we read that &ldquo;day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved&rdquo;. The repetition of &ldquo;day by day&rdquo; suggests a connection between the daily conversion of unbelievers and the daily breaking of bread meetings. And in extensive missionary experience I have observed that those who witness a breaking of bread meeting tend to find themselves drawn into the things of the Lord Jesus.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4273','1','44','2','47','47','<p>2:47 <i>P</i><i>raising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to them daily those who were being saved</i>- Those who heard the message wanted baptism immediately; they had been convicted by the preacher of a Christ-centred message, not just intellectually teased (Acts 8:36; 9:18). Lydia, the Philippian jailer, Paul, the Ethiopian eunuch, the crowds at Pentecost&hellip; were all baptized immediately. The Lord added <i>daily</i> to the church (2:27; 16:5)- they didn&rsquo;t tell candidates for baptism to wait even until the next Sunday, let alone for a few months &lsquo;to think it over&rsquo;. They understood the first principle: baptism is essential for salvation. Believe or perish. They saw the absoluteness of the issues involved in the choice to accept or reject the Son of God. &ldquo;Beware, therefore&hellip;&rdquo; was their warning to their hearers (Acts 13:40). They made no apologies, they didn&rsquo;t wrap up the message. They taught the need for repentance more than seeking to prove that they were right and others wrong (although there is a place for this in our witness in the right contexts). They made it clear that they were out to convert others, not engage in philosophical debate or the preaching of doubtful interpretations.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4274','1','44','3','1','1','<p>3:1 <i>Now Peter and John were going into the temple</i>- See on 2:46.</p><p><i>At the hour of prayer, at the ninth hour</i>- The time of the evening sacrifice. Their presence for this indicates they were fairly serious in their connection with Judaism still.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4275','1','44','3','2','2','<p>3:2 <i>And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple</i>- He had been daily laid there for around forty years (Acts 4:22). The Lord Jesus surely passed Him by, for He told the Jews that He had taught them daily in the temple; but He didn\'t heal him. Perhaps his faith hadn\'t grown to the required level; or maybe the Lord consciously left this work for His followers to do. For Acts is the account of all that the Lord <em>began </em>to do. The man apparently recognized Peter and John; because when he saw them, he asked them for assistance. They were known as Jesus-followers.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4276','1','44','3','3','3','<p>3:3 <i>Seeing Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for alms</i>- If he was daily laid at the temple gate, he presumably would have seen the Lord and His disciples many times as they entered the temple- which had been a frequent occurrence. There is no evidence that the man believed. And we note the Lord must have walked by him many times without healing him. His focus was not on simply meeting human need of the moment.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4277','1','44','3','4','4','<p>3:4 <i>And Peter, looking straight at him (as did John) said: Look at us</i>- See on Acts 14:9. The lame man responded, and the people were amazed at the subsequent miracle. But Peter then tells them: &ldquo;You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? or <em>why do you fasten your eyes on us</em> i.e., why do you &lsquo;look on us&rsquo;, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus&rdquo; (Acts 3:12,13). I wonder if Peter was here publicly acknowledging an inappropriate turn of phrase, when he had asked the lame man to &lsquo;Look on <em>us</em>&rsquo;- and immediately, he humbly and publicly corrected himself, redirecting all glory and all eyes to the Father and Son.&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4278','1','44','3','5','5','<p>3:5 <i>And he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them</i>- His motivation was material. He is an example of how the Lord through His Spirit at times just comes into a person&rsquo;s life, taking all the initiative, rather than responding to their apparent seeking for Him.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4279','1','44','3','6','6','<p>3:6 <i>But Peter said: Silver and gold have I none, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk</i><i>-</i> Peter later alludes to this in a way that means he saw that man as typical of all his converts: &quot;Knowing you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life&quot; (1 Pet. 1:18). Life before conversion for us all was as vain as the man sitting there lamely begging for silver and gold, in a temple structure unable to save him. See on 3:7.</p><p>Peter told the lame man: &ldquo;In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk&quot;; but the healing was because of <em>Peter\'s</em> faith in Christ\'s Name (Acts 3:6,16). The Jerusalem Bible makes this apparent: &quot;It is the name of Jesus which, through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man&quot;. The RV has: &quot;By faith in his name hath his name made this man strong&quot;- as if the power of the name of Jesus is waiting to be activated by human faith.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4280','1','44','3','7','7','<p>3:7 <i>And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received strength<em>- </em></i>The word is used of the strengthening of the early converts, also by the Spirit (Acts 16:5 &quot;So the churches were strengthened in the faith&quot;). Again the idea is that the man was representative of the wider ecclesia; see on 3:6.</p><p>Luke has a favourite Greek word, often translated &ldquo;forthwith&hellip; immediately&rdquo; (Acts 3:7; 5:10; 9:18; 12:23; 13:11; 16:26,33). This is quite some emphasis; and Luke uses the very same word a lot in his Gospel, as if to&nbsp;show that the speed and power and achievement of the Lord&rsquo;s ministry is continued in that of His ministers now (Lk. 1:64; 4:39; 5:25; 8:44,47,55; 13:13; 18:43; 19:11; 22:60). The word is scarcely used outside Luke&rsquo;s writing, although using different words, Mark also notes the speed and immediacy of the Lord\'s ministry. And Luke uses many other words to stress the speed and urgency and fast moving nature of the Lord&rsquo;s work. They are worth highlighting in your Bible; for our ministry is a continuation of that of our early brethren (Acts 9:18-20,34; 10:33; 11:11; 12:10; 16:10; 17:10,14; 21:30,32; 22:29; 23:30).</p><p>Peter understood what it was to be in Christ. All that he did, all that he preached and taught by word and example, was a witness to the one in whom he lived and had his being. As he reached forth his right hand to lift up the cripple, he was manifesting how the right hand of God had lifted up (in resurrection) and exalted His Son and all those in Him (Acts 3:7). Likewise, he took Tabitha <em>by the hand</em> and then <em>lifted her up</em> and &ldquo;presented her alive&rdquo; (Acts 9:41), just as the Father had done to His Son. When Peter &ldquo;stood up&rdquo; after his conversion (Acts 1:15; 2:14), he was sharing the resurrection experience of his Lord. And now he reflected this in his preaching to others. As God stretched forth His hand to heal through Christ (Acts 4:30), so Peter did (Acts 9:41). And he includes us all in the scope of this wondrous operation: for as God&rsquo;s hand exalted Christ, so it will exalt each of us who humble ourselves beneath it (1 Pet. 5:6). &nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4281','1','44','3','8','8','<p>3:8 <i>And leaping up, he stood and began to walk; and he entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God</i>- This reads like Dr. Luke\'s medical observation of the progressive steps of the recovery - leaped up, stood, walked, leaped. But it\'s also as if we are invited to play Bible television, focused up close on the man. The language is clearly appropriate for the eyewitness account which it is.The result of healing lame people in Acts 3:8; 14:10 was that they <em>leaped </em>(this is emphasized) and walked, praising God. This seems to be couched in the language of Is. 35:5,6 concerning lame people leaping and praising God; a prophecy we normally apply to the future Kingdom.</p><p><em>&ldquo;He entered with them into the temple&rdquo; e</em>ven though he was likely in a state of ritual uncleanness due to his previous disability. He leaped into the holy place; the joy of conversion naturally overriding all legalistic considerations.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4282','1','44','3','9','9','<p>3:9 <i>And all the people saw him walking and praising God</i>- This is twice emphasized (:8). Luke has used the very same phrase four times in his Gospel, regarding praise of the Lord Jesus (Lk. 2:13,20; 19:37; 24:53). Luke\'s Gospel was volume 1 compared to his volume 2, the Acts of the Apostles. But he develops the theme that the acts of the apostles are effectively the acts of the risen Lord Jesus (see on Acts 1:1). And so this kind of device is typical of Luke- things he ascribes to the Lord Jesus in his Gospel he applies to the work of the believers in Him in Acts. The man\'s response, &quot;praising God&quot;, was exactly the response of people to the historical Jesus. It was as if through Peter\'s work, the Lord Jesus was manifested. See on 3:10 <em>Wonder</em> and 3:11 <em>The portico called Solomon\'s</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4283','1','44','3','10','10','<p>3:10 <i>And they recognised him, that it was he that sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him</i>- Some commentators claim that next to this gate was a notice forbidding Gentiles and the unclean to go further. His location for forty years at the entrance to the temple (4:22) perhaps reflects Israel\'s being kept out of the promised land for the same period. He represented what could have happened to all Israel. The word for &quot;wonder&quot; is only used to describe the wonder at the miracles of the Lord Jesus; and it is used only by Luke (Lk. 4:36; 5:9). Again, Peter the healer is being presented as the manifestation of the Lord Jesus. The word for &quot;amazed&quot; is likewise used (Lk. 5:26). See on 3:9 <em>Praising God.</em></p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4284','1','44','3','11','11','<p>3:11 <i>While he c<em>lung to Peter and John</em></i>- So often in this narrative, we see the essence of events of the Gospels now being repeated in the experience of the Lord\'s followers. In this case, the similarity is with how the healed man of Lk. 8:38 dreaded the idea of being parted from his healer, the Lord Jesus.</p><p>In the same way as the Lord stretched forth His hand and saved Peter, so He stretches forth His hand, Peter observed, to save all who would come to Him (Mt. 14:31 = Acts 4:30). But Peter is framed as Jesus, in that he too stretched out his hand to save others as Jesus had done to him (Mt. 14:35 = Acts 5:15,16; Mt. 14:31 = Acts 3:7), bidding them come through the water of baptism as Jesus had done to him. As Jesus in the boat was worshipped after saving Peter, so men tried to worship Peter (Mt. 14:33 = Acts 3:11). So Peter went through what we all do- having been saved by Jesus, having come to Him and having been rescued by the outstretched arm, he responds to this by doing the same for others. When the Lord &ldquo;caught&rdquo; hold of Peter as he sunk in the waves (Mt. 14:31), a Greek word is used which occurs only once elsewhere: &ldquo;He did not take hold s.w. to catch of Angels, but of the seed of Abraham&rdquo; (Heb. 2:16). The Hebrew writer was surely alluding to the Lord&rsquo;s &lsquo;catching&rsquo; of desperate Peter and pulling him to salvation- and saw in Peter a symbol of all those who will be saved by Christ.</p><p><i>All the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon\'s, astounded</i>- There was a crowd mentality here; everyone got involved in a stampede towards Peter. Their mentality and direction was dictated by a group psychology rather than individual faith. The word only occurs later in the New Testament in Peter\'s letter, where he writes of how Gentiles &quot;think it strange that you do not <em>run with them </em>in the same flood of dissipation&quot; (1 Pet. 4:4). The similarity was that Peter reflected how a crowd can stampede towards the symbols of Jesus, and yet stampede in the way of sin. But it\'s individual faith that the Lord searches for.</p><p><em>&ldquo;The portico called Solomon\'s</em>&rdquo;, Gk. \'which <em>is </em>called Solomon\'s\'. This suggests that the Gospel of Luke was written whilst the temple was still standing; otherwise a past tense would have been used. This is one of many reasons for thinking that the Gospels were written early rather than later, certainly pre-AD70. The Gospel records and Acts are the transcripts of histories which were orally distributed to begin with, and then written down under Divine inspiration soon after they began circulating- and not many decades after the events, as the critics wrongly claim. The scene here is reminiscent of that in the Gospels, when a crowd of people gathered around the Lord Jesus in the same porch (Jn. 10:23). And again, we see Peter and John presented as the manifestations of Jesus on earth, just as we are; repeating in essence the situations encountered by the historical Jesus. See on 3:9 <em>Praising God</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4285','1','44','3','12','12','<p>3:12- see on Acts 2:12.</p><p><i>And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people: You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Or why fasten you your eyes on us, as though by our own power or reverence towards God we had made him walk?</i>- &ldquo;Marvel&rdquo; implies some doubt. The men who marvelled and doubted whether Peter was anything more than a magic man were within a few hours believing and being baptized (Acts 3:12; 4:4). We noted on :11 that there was a group psychology operating here, but there is never any attempt to judge the sincerity of motivation in those apparently coming to Jesus. There is a speed and power and compulsion that pounds away in the narrative. The preaching of a God hurt by sin, passionately consumed in the death of His Son, feeling every sin, rejoicing over every repentance and baptism&hellip; this was something radically different in the 1st century world, just as it is in ours. And such a God imparted a sense of urgency to those who preached Him and His feelings and ways and being, a need for urgent response, a need to relate to Him, which was simply unknown in other religions. The urgency of man&rsquo;s position must be more up front in our witness. Christianity went wrong in the 2nd century AD because the church abstracted God and His being into nothingness, to the point that the urgent import of the true doctrines was lost in practice. May this not be the case amongst us.</p><p>Peter is urgent to explain that \'this isn\'t me- it\'s Jesus\'. See on 3:10 <em>Wonder</em> and 3:9 <em>Praising God</em>. Peter knew that he was standing very close to where he had denied the Lord. And he knew that his audience knew. He felt he was not holy nor &lsquo;reverent&rsquo; to God as he should be. Peter repeatedly uses this word, translated &quot;holiness&quot; or &quot;Godliness&quot;, in appealing for his converts to develop this very attribute (2 Pet. 1:3,6,7; 3:11). And yet he states here that he is not sufficiently \'holy\' or \'Godly\'. It is this humility and recognition of failure which gave Peter\'s preaching and pastoral appeals the power they had.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4286','1','44','3','13','13','<p>3:13 <i>The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus</i>- Yet Peter and John did the Lord\'s work with this man of their own volition. The healing of the man was the glorification of the Lord. His glorification was thereby dependent for its extent upon the efforts of His people in practice. And that principle is true today. Peter understood it well; hence he urges the people not to glorify him, but the Lord Jesus. He holds himself up as an example to his converts in that he alludes to this incident in 1 Pet. 2:12; 4:11,14, where he says that the good works of his converts can glorify God (s.w.).</p><p><em>Whom you delivered up</em>- The word used for the betrayal of Judas. What he did was in essence what all Israel did; he was the epitome of Israel, influenced by the Jewish satan.</p><p><em>And rejected before the presence of Pilate</em>- &quot;Rejected&quot; is the same word translated &quot;denied&quot; and is used repeatedly about the denials of Peter, in the presence of the Lord\'s trial and at the same time as the Jews rejected or denied their Messiah (Mt. 26:70,72). Peter was preaching this message a stone\'s throw from where he had denied / rejected his Lord. And he knew that they knew what had happened. Peter was therefore appealing to the Jews on the basis that he himself has very publicly done what they had done.</p><p><em>When he had determined to release him</em>- <em>Krino</em> means to judge; he had judged to set Jesus free. This is exactly the situation which Paul found himself in later- he was judged by the Romans and judged that he should be set free, but he chose not to use that in order as he perceived it anyway at the time to spread the Gospel to the world by appealing to a hearing in Rome. Perhaps these words and form of expression of Peter became programmatic for Paul and led him to the decision he made, consciously seeking to follow his Lord\'s steps to the cross. I will develop the point later that Paul was very deeply influenced by Peter\'s words and ministry.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4287','1','44','3','14','14','<p>3:14 <i>But y<em>ou denied</em></i>- The point is twice made (:13), just as it is twice recorded that Peter denied the Lord (Mt. 26:70,72) at the same time as they did. See on Acts 3:13 <em>Rejected...</em></p><p><em>The holy and righteous one, a</em><i>nd asked for a murderer to be granted to you</i>- These words are elsewhere used about John the Baptist (Mk. 6:20), the Lord\'s forerunner; and also about the believers, who are to be likewise (Rev. 22:11), rather than simply admiring His holiness from a distance. He and all about Him is to be programmatic for us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4288','1','44','3','15','15','<p>3:15 <i>A</i><i>nd killed the prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses</i>- The blame is clearly placed by God on the Jews and not the Romans. Conspiracy to murder was counted by Him as the murder itself. Gk. \'the author\' of life. The contrast is with Israel\'s desire for a murderer, a taker of life (:14).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4289','1','44','3','16','16','<p>3:16 <i>And b<em>y faith in his name</em></i>- Gk. <em>the</em> faith, maybe hinting that it was \'the faith\' of the Gospel which inculcated faith in the apostles. But whose faith was Peter referring to? The beggar appears to have just been opportunistically begging for money from Peter (Acts 3:3). It was surely by <em>Peter\'s</em> faith that the man was healed, and not by his own faith. For Peter didn\'t invite the beggar to have faith in anything. And Peter explains to the Jews that he had made the man to walk not through his own power (Acts 3:12). So here again we have an example of a third party being healed as a result of another man\'s faith (see on Mk. 2:5).</p><p>Trust or faith in God comes from not trusting upon human understanding, but upon the understanding s.w. meaning, knowledge, wisdom that is God&rsquo;s (Prov. 3:5). In this lies the importance of truth in Biblical interpretation. So understanding, correctly perceiving meaning, true wisdom&hellip; are related to having a real faith. The Proverbs go on to plead for correct understanding, because this will be the source of a Godly life of faith in practice. There is therefore a connection between &ldquo;faith&quot; in the sense of belief, and the fact the essential doctrines of Christianity are called &quot;<em>the</em> faith&quot;; the noun &quot;the Faith&quot; and the verb \'to believe / have faith\' are related. This is because a true understanding of the one Faith will inevitably lead to true faith, and therefore works; for faith and works are inseparable. This relationship is brought out in Acts 3:16: &quot;His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong... yea, the faith which is in Him (Christ) hath given him (the healed man) this perfect soundness&quot;.</p><p><em>H</em><i>is name has made this man strong, whom you see and know</i>- The same word used about the strengthening of the churches and all believers (Acts 16:5; 1 Pet. 5:9). The man is being presented as representative of all converts.</p><p><i>Yes, the faith which is through him, has given him this perfect soundness</i>- The man appears to have been given ideal health throughout his body. Otherwise, he would have been unable to leap, after being forty years in that condition (4:22). Again, the man is set up as symbolic of the total change possible in the believer.</p><p><em>In the presence of you all</em>- Just as Peter and John testified because they were witnesses of the Lord\'s resurrection, so the audience had also seen a \'standing upright\' of a man well known to them; and they also ought to believe and testify. Peter is seeking to share his experience with his audience, building a bridge between him and them, inviting them to share his path- rather than baldly presenting theological truths to them and leaving them to respond as they wished.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4290','1','44','3','17','17','<p>3:17 <em>And now-</em> These are not just redundant words. The sense may be that although they crucified the Lord knowing full well what they were doing, <em>now</em>, by God\'s grace, that could be counted as having been done in relative ignorance. This is the amazing extent of imputed righteousness.</p><p><em>Brothers</em>- Peter again is bridge building, having made the point that they had denied their Messiah just at the same time and place as he had done (see on Acts 3:14).</p><p><em>I know that in ignorance </em><i>you did it, as did also your rulers<em>- </em></i>It had been generous spirited of the Lord to pray on the cross: &ldquo;Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do&rdquo;. He may have meant they were relatively ignorant, or it may be that He felt they were so blinded now that the recognition of Him they once had had was now not operating. And Peter, who probably heard with amazement those words from the cross as he beheld the Lord&rsquo;s sufferings, found the same generous spirit to men whom naturally he would have despised: &ldquo;In ignorance you did it&rdquo; (Acts 3:17 cp. Lk. 23:34).&nbsp;</p><p>The generosity of the Father and Son to humanity is awesome- so eager are they for our repentance. God so pleads for Israel to return to Him in Hosea and Isaiah that He almost takes the blame onto Himself, cooing over His people as having been tossed and afflicted- when it was His own judgment of them that caused it. And I think this explains the difficulty of Acts 3:17-19, where Peter appeals to the Jews to repent, because they had murdered the Lord Jesus &quot;in ignorance&quot;. The Lord\'s own parables explained that they did what they did with open eyes- &quot;this is the heir, come let us kill him&rdquo;. Yet in God\'s passionate desire for their repentance, He appears to view their awful sin in the most gracious possible light.</p><p>Paul uses the same word to reason that the Gentiles too had sinned in ignorance, but now must repent because of the Lord\'s resurrection (Acts 17:30). This is another example of Paul consciously modelling himself and his preaching on Peter. Considering that Peter was an illiterate fisherman, mocked by the Jerusalem intelligentsia as speaking without grammar... and Paul was the intellectual Jewish rabbi trained in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel... this indicates so much humility in Paul. Although I will later develop the possibility that Paul actually pretended to Peter to such an unhealthy extent that he failed to focus as he might on his ministry to the Gentiles, and sought rather to emulate Peter\'s to the Jews.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4291','1','44','3','18','18','<p>3:18 <i>But the things which God foretold</i>- It\'s as if Peter is trying to encourage them not to see their sin as too great to allow them to now come to the Lord Jesus. This is one reason why he appears to overstate their relative &quot;ignorance&quot; in :17. And here too, he seems to be presenting them with another window on their sin- that it was foretold by the prophets and had been necessary in God\'s plan of salvation, just as in the case of the sin of Joseph\'s brothers. We too encounter folks who truly feel that their sin presents too big a barrier between God and themselves. It\'s a fine balance, between preaching to convict people of sin rather than socializing them into a social club, and on the other hand, encouraging them that that sin is not an insurmountable barrier.</p><p><em>By the mouth of all the prophets</em><i>, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled</i>- It was their spoken words which were inspired; but there is no specific guarantee that the written form and transmission of them was likewise inspired. Their mouths, and not the pens of every scribe who wrote the words, were inspired by God- even though it would be fair to say that the preservation and transmission of their written words was the work of &lsquo;providence&rsquo;, and the Spirit of God in some way also at work. Because the Bible is the only Divinely inspired book there is, this can lead us to seeing the book as some kind of icon; it is the only &lsquo;thing&rsquo; we have in our experience which is directly from God. Realizing, however, that the original autographs alone were inspired can help us see the Bible we read for what it is- the living, albeit translated and passed down, word of God Himself.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4292','1','44','3','19','19','<p>3:19 <i>Therefore r<em>epent and be converted</em></i>- Not \'repent and convert\'. The conversion, grammatically, is performed by another party. The repentance is what enables the process of conversion to be performed upon the repentant person who now wishes to change. Repentance is therefore a mental re-thinking, not a rearrangement of human life to be without sin and failure. The parallel is with Peter\'s earlier preaching in Acts 2:38: &quot;Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to the remission of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit&quot;. &quot;Be converted&quot; implies an action upon the heart of the repentant hearer of the Gospel; the parallel in 2:38 is to receive the gift of the Spirit, a holy spirit or mind being developed in the believer. I gave reasons on 2:38 to understand this gift to essentially refer to the internal work of the Lord on repentant hearts- or as Peter here puts it, being converted. The same word translated &quot;converted&quot; is found in the description of John the Baptist\'s work in Lk. 1:17 as being to turn or convert the hearts of people. This same work is now being done by the risen Lord, through His Spirit. Acts 11:21 speaks of this work of conversion as being done by the Lord\'s hand, and the Old Testament parallels God\'s hand with His Spirit; it is His instrumentality, and not man\'s: &quot;And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and were turned s.w. \'converted\' to the Lord&quot;. Likewise Acts 28:27 parallels conversion with the act of the Lord healing hearts: &quot;Be converted, and I should heal them&quot;. Conversion is the healing action of the Lord on human hearts who are open to it, rather than a steel-willed cracking of expositional and theological riddles in the Bible text and vainly attempting to brutally conform one\'s own life to that text. Conversion is also a matter of the heart in 2 Cor. 3:16, parallel with the Lord removing a vail which He has placed over the Jewish mind.</p>\r\n<p>And again, it was Peter, the preacher himself, who had sinned against his Lord and had been &quot;converted&quot; on his repentance, with the result that he was not strengthening the Lord\'s sheep (Lk. 22:32 &quot;When you are converted...&quot;, s.w.). Truly, Peter\'s address is shot through with reference to his own failure, repentance and restoration by grace. He reminds his sheep of how they are now &ldquo;returned&rdquo; (s.w. &lsquo;converted&rsquo;) to the Lord Jesus (1 Pet. 2:25), just as he had been. My point is that the \'conversion\' was by another hand than his own steel will.</p>\r\n<p>In the context of Israel\'s latter day repentance, we read some admittedly strange words:&nbsp; &quot;(The Jews) have... not believed, that through your (Gentile believers) mercy, they also may obtain mercy&quot; (Rom. 11:31). Could this not mean that Israel\'s reconciliation to God is partly dependent on our &quot;mercy&quot; in preaching the Gospel to them? And now consider Peter\'s words to Israel: &quot;Repent... and be converted, that (firstly) your sins may be blotted out... and (secondly) he shall send Jesus Christ&quot; at the second coming (Acts 3:19,20). Does this not suggest that Christ\'s eager desire for the second coming is limited by our preaching to Israel?</p>\r\n<p><em>So that your sins may be blotted out</em>- Applying the language of David\'s forgiveness for the murder of Uriah to all Israel (Ps. 51:1). David\'s forgiveness by grace is often set up as programmatic for the way all believers, and all Israel, can be treated (see Rom. 4:1-4).</p>\r\n<p><em>S</em><i>o that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord</i>- The second coming is clearly dependent upon Israel\'s repentance for crucifying the Lord. The seasons / times refer to those of Acts 1:7, the second coming. This is why the Lord said that there was no such defined \'time\' for it, but rather they were to get on with converting Israel. There are preconditions, involving Israel\'s repentance in response to our preaching to them; but not a calendar date. &ldquo;<em>Times of refreshing</em>&rdquo; is the age of the Messianic Kingdom on earth, probably alluding to Is. 28:12: &quot;This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing...&quot;.</p>\r\n<p><em>&ldquo;From the presence of the Lord&rdquo; is literally f</em>rom His face. Luke is connecting with what he recorded in Lk. 1:76; John the Baptist\'s ministry was to herald the presence / face of the Lord being revealed. But his ministry failed on a national level; the essence of John\'s appeal is however to be continued by Christian witness to the Jews in all ages, and when it finally succeeds, the Kingdom age shall come from the presence of the Lord. See on 3:21 <em>The time of the restoration.</em></p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4293','1','44','3','21','21','<p>3:21 <em>W</em><i>hom the heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all things<em>- </em></i>The reference is again to John the Baptist\'s ministry, which was intended to restore all things (Mt. 17:11 s.w.). By witnessing to Israel to repent we are continuing the essence of John\'s ministry and when complete, the restored Kingdom of God shall come on earth. See on 3:19 <em>From the presence of the Lord</em>. The Bible often alludes to popular literature and understandings of the time, in order to deconstruct it. Plato was popular in the first century, and his writings spoke of a final &quot;time of the restoration&quot;; it\'s as if this social dream was being alluded to, and reinterpreted as being the Kingdom of God on earth. The following reference to how the prophets have been since the beginning of the age may well be a deconstruction of the then fashionable way of quoting the ancient Plato as wisdom, as if he were effectively a prophet. For the Christian, it was the writings of the prophets and not Plato which were to be authoritative; and rather than Plato\'s \'restoration of all things\', there was the hope of God\'s eternal Kingdom on earth.</p><p>It was quite possible that the full Messianic Kingdom could have been established in the first century, depending upon how the Jews responded to Christ\'s Gospel. All things were ready for the feast, representing the Kingdom, and the Jewish guests invited- but their rejection of the offer resulted in a 2,000 year delay while the invitations were pressed home on equally laid back Gentiles (Mt. 22:4). Similarly, Peter understood that the Lord must remain in Heaven &quot;until the times of restitution of all things (cp. Mt. 22:4), which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began&quot;; but he felt, under inspiration, that &quot;all the prophets... as many as have spoken (note the emphasis; cp. &quot;all His holy prophets&quot;), have likewise foretold of these days&quot; (Acts 3:21,24), i.e. the days of the first century.</p><p><em>Of which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, that have been since the world began</em>- Luke uses the same sentence in Lk. 1:70. We have here an example of the language of pre-existence- and yet the prophets did not literally exist at the world\'s beginning. And neither did the Lord Jesus.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4294','1','44','3','22','22','<p>3:22 <i>Moses indeed said: A prophet like me shall the Lord God</i>- Peter had been reminded of the prophecy of Dt. 18:15 when he was told to &quot;hear Him&quot; at the transfiguration. But Peter had there fallen down paralyzed with fear; he didn&rsquo;t really hear the son of God then. Yet here in Acts 3:22, Peter quotes Dt. 18:15 and asks his hearers to obey the passage by hearing Jesus, through his preaching of Him. He was asking his audience to do what he himself hadn&rsquo;t done. &nbsp;</p><p><em>Raise up for you</em>- This \'raising up\' is understood by Peter as referring to the Lord\'s resurrection (:26 &quot;God, having raised up His servant...&quot;). That hardly seems to be the context of the original Old Testament quotation. But the New Testament often quotes the Old without attention to context; just as Jewish midrash interpretation quotes Bible verses out of their context in order to explain other verses. Context is not always the key to Biblical interpretation; the Spirit which inspired the OT also inspired the NT, and therefore OT words and phrases are at times taken hold of in the NT and given a new meaning which is not at all in harmony with the context surrounding the original OT text. However, whether <em>we</em> are justified in doing this is doubtful- for one could then make any text mean whatever we wish by taking it out of context. We are the readers and interpreters of the text and not the inspired authors. This is not to say that sometimes, indeed often, the surrounding context of the original text is irrelevant. Harry Whittaker excelled at demonstrating how a verse from a Psalm was applied to the Lord Jesus in the NT, and then returning to the original Psalm and showing how so much else there was also relevant to the Lord\'s experiences. But I\'m saying that this is not always how the Spirit interprets the OT.</p><p><em>From among your brothers like unto me-</em> A clear statement of the Lord\'s utter humanity, perhaps alluding to how the sacrificial Paschal lamb was to be taken out &quot;from among&quot; the flock.</p><p><em>You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you</em>- An example of where prophecy is not merely prediction, but also a command. Insofar as obedience is a function of human freewill, prophecies like this are therefore open to some element of failure or having their fulfilment reframed by the extent of human obedience. Ezekiel\'s prophecies of a glorious temple to be built by the returning exiles would be a classic example. The words of the great commission allude to this well-known Messianic prophecy- the preachers were to go &quot;teaching them to observe all things whatever I commanded you&quot; (Mt. 28:20). The Lord thereby invited Israel to see Him as the prophet like unto Moses who was to be obeyed.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4295','1','44','3','23','23','<p>3:23 <i>And it shall be, that every soul that shall not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people</i>- Those who would not accept Jesus as Messiah were to be &ldquo;destroyed from among the people&rdquo;, using a very similar phrase to the LXX of Gen. 17:14, where the uncircumcised man was to be &ldquo;cut off from his people&rdquo;. Col. 2:11 speaks of circumcision as another type of baptism, in that only the circumcised were in covenant with God: &quot;The uncircumcised... that soul shall be cut off from his people&quot; (Gen. 17:14). We either &ldquo;cut off&quot; the flesh, or God will cut us off. The circumcision / baptism allusion was really saying \'Accept Christ or perish\'. The language of destruction &quot;from among the people&quot; connects with how the Lord Jesus was also &quot;from among the people&quot; (:22). Exactly because of His humanity, He is our appropriate judge; or as John records it, He has authority to execute judgment exactly because He is the Son of Man (Jn. 5:27).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4296','1','44','3','24','24','<p>3:24 <i>Yes, and a<em>ll the prophets- </em></i>According to Acts 3:21,24, <em>all</em> the prophets speak of Israel\'s latter day repentance and the subsequent return of Messiah.</p><p><em>From Samuel</em>- Samuel was not the first person to act as a prophet, a forth-teller of God\'s word. Why single him out as the starting point for the ministry of the prophets? Perhaps in reflection of the Jewish saying that Samuel was chief of the prophets. The connection with Moses (:22) may intend us to understand \'The law and the prophets\'. Or perhaps because his mother was the first to specifically predict the Messiah in so many words (1 Sam. 2:10,35). But see on 3:25 <em>You are the sons of the prophets</em>.</p><p><i>And those that followed after, as many as have spoken, they also told of these days</i>- The reference could be to the &quot;times of the restoration&quot; of :21, which Peter believed to be breaking in upon them with the conversion of some Jews. He was disappointed in his expectation; for the conversions didn\'t continue, and many of the Jewish Christians fell away. And so the preconditions required for the full restitution of all things weren\'t met, and it was delayed until our days.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4297','1','44','3','25','25','<p>3:25 <em>You are the sons of the prophets</em>- This phrase refers to the schools of the prophets (1 Kings 20:35; 2 Kings 2:3; 4:1; 5:22; 6:1; Is. 8:18). Samuel was seen in Judaism as the <em>rabban</em> or founder of the schools of the prophets. This would explain the choice of Samuel as the \'first\' of the prophets in the preceding verse. The schools of the prophets were seen as for the elite within Judaism. But Peter is saying that now all who believe the prophetic words about Jesus as Lord and Messiah are no less the schools of the prophets; this was what the fledgling churches were to be likened to. Isaiah had spoken of his school of the prophets as he and his sons (Is. 8:18), but this is quoted in Heb. 2:13 about all in Christ.</p><p><em>And of the covenant </em><i>which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham: And in your descendant shall all the families of the earth be blessed</i>- \'Sons of the covenant\', <em>b\'nai b\'rith</em>, was and still is a reference to the elite within Israel, just like &quot;sons of the prophets&quot; referring to the schools of the prophets. So again, the distinction is being collapsed between the masses and the religious specialists. All believers are spoken of later in the New Testament as priests, even the High Priest, and now as the very elitest of the prophets and &quot;sons of the covenant&quot;. No longer could believers consider themselves one in a mass of attendees, one in an audience; but instead, each of us is of intense significance in God\'s prophetic program. But according to Gal. 3:27-29, even a Jew could only become a son of the covenant by baptism into Christ. But Peter speaks as if his audience were just this. He is assuming they will agree to believe and be baptized into Christ.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4298','1','44','3','26','26','<p>3:26 <em>To you first</em>- Along with the reference to all tribes / families of the earth being blessed as Abraham\'s seed (:25), the idea is clearly that Gentiles too can participate in this great Jewish salvation which is in the Jewish Messiah. But as is made clear in the Cornelius incident in Acts 10, Peter was far from understanding this at the time. The fact he made this hint here about Gentile salvation, if not a clear statement about it, is proof that he was speaking a Divinely inspired message and not just his own personal understanding. Perhaps this is why it is Peter who later makes the point that the inspired prophets spoke things which they did not themselves fully understand (1 Pet. 1:12); he had himself experienced such a thing with regard to the Gentiles.</p><p><i>God, having raised up His servant, sent him<em>- </em></i>Peter taught that &ldquo;God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him&rdquo; to preach to the Jews (Acts 3:26). Yet the Lord Jesus personally resurrected and ascended to Heaven, having &lsquo;sent&rsquo; His followers into the world. Yet because all in Him are so fully His personal witnesses, representative of Him as He is representative of them, in this way it&rsquo;s true to say that the Lord Jesus personally was &ldquo;sent&rdquo; into the world with the Gospel message after His resurrection. And by all means connect this with Peter&rsquo;s difficult words in 1 Pet. 3:19- that by the spirit of Christ, Christ &lsquo;went&rsquo; after His resurrection to preach to those imprisoned. By our sharing His Spirit, we are Him &lsquo;going&rsquo; and preaching. In this sense the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). And because Peter was alluding to the &lsquo;sending&rsquo; of the great commission, he goes on to say that the spiritually imprisoned to whom we preach are saved by the baptism we minister in fulfilment of the great commission, in the same way as the ark saved people in Noah&rsquo;s day.</p><p>After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus was <em>sent </em>to preach blessing and forgiveness to Israel. But after His resurrection, He sent His men to preach this message. His witness became expressed through, and therefore limited by, His preachers. When they wilfully misunderstood His commission as meaning preaching to Jews from all nations, rather than taking the message to the whole planet literally, His work was in that sense hindered and His intention delayed. Remember that the Rabbis taught that salvation was impossible for Gentiles: &ldquo;For the heathen nations there will be no redemption&rdquo;, so reads the Targum on Ex. 21:30. Like us, the early Jewish converts were influenced by their backgrounds and their limited world views. Until the Lord brought experiences to bear which, when responded to, taught them what is now the obvious meaning of His words- that we each have a duty to take the good news of Him to the whole planet.</p><p><em>To bless you</em>- There is strong connection between forgiveness and blessing. Peter was speaking to the unspoken fears of his guilty audience. Forgiveness was possible in Christ.</p><p><i>In turning every one of you away from your sins<em>- </em></i>The promised blessing was not simply of forgiveness. It was of \'turning away\' from sin. This is the equivalent of what Peter preached in Acts 2; he appealed for repentance and baptism, so that the gift of the Holy Spirit or mind could be experienced. Here, he appeals for repentance and belief implying baptism, so that they would know the blessing of being turned away from sin. For what we really need is not simply forgiveness, but the power not to repeat the sin; a new psychology, a new mind, a force higher than ourselves to turn us away from sin. And this is exactly what is promised here. Rom. 11:26 likewise speaks of how the Lord Jesus would &quot;turn away s.w. ungodliness from Jacob&quot; when Israel enter the new covenant; but that new covenant is now made with all who are baptized into Jesus. Rom. 11:26 is quoting from Is. 59:20, but the next verse goes on to say that this shall be effected by Yahweh giving the covenant promise of His Spirit upon His people and their children (Is. 59:21). The gift of the Spirit is therefore a turning of us away from sin. I noted under 2:39 that the promise of the Spirit &quot;to you and your children&quot; is also alluding to this same passage. Israel in their hearts turned back to Egypt (Acts 7:26 s.w.); the arena of this \'turning\' is within the human mind. And it is exactly there where we need the Lord\'s operation; and it is this which is included in the gift of the holy spirit or mind which is enabled by commitment to Christ.</p><p>When Peter speaks of how the Lord Jesus will &lsquo;turn away&rsquo; sinners from their sins, he is using the very word of how the Lord Jesus told him to &ldquo;put up again&rdquo; his sword (Mt. 26:52), thereby turning Peter away from his sin. Peter&rsquo;s appeal for repentance and conversion was evidently allusive to his own experience of conversion (Lk. 22:32 cp. Acts 3:19; 9:35). In this he was following the pattern of David, who sung his &lsquo;Maschil&rsquo; (teaching) psalms after his forgiveness in order to convert sinners unto Yahweh (Ps. 51:13). Like Peter, David did so with his sin ever before him, with a broken and contrite heart (Ps. 51:3,17). He invited them to seek forgiveness for their denial of their Lord, just as he had done. He dearly wished them to follow his pattern, and know the grace he now did. See on Acts 2:39.</p><p>We must remember that baptism means that we are <em>now</em> the seed of Abraham, and the blessings of forgiveness, of all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and God\'s turning us away from our sins are right now being fulfilled in us (Acts 3:27-29). Israel were multiplied as the sand on the sea shore (2 Sam. 17:11; 1 Kings 4:20), they possessed the gates of their enemies (Dt. 17:2; 18:6)- all in antitype of how Abraham\'s future seed would also receive the promised blessings in their mortal experience, as well as in the eternal blessedness of the future Kingdom.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4299','1','44','4','1','1','<p>4:1 <i>And as they spoke to the people, t<em>he priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees</em></i>- The basis of their work was that they were the equivalent of the Levites who kept guard at the gates of the temple, in order to prevent the unclean from entering. They were defining the Jewish Christians and their message of healing as that which was unclean.</p><p><em>Came upon them</em>- This is a common word in Luke-Acts. The Jews had likewise \'come upon\' the Lord also in the same temple (Lk. 20:1). Luke is developing his point that the Lord\'s experiences and sufferings are repeated in those of believers in Him, especially in their work of representing Him in their witness. That principle applies to this day, and is a bridge between Him there so many centuries ago, and us here today.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4300','1','44','4','2','2','<p>4:2 <i>B</i><i>eing greatly annoyed because they taught the people</i>- See on 5:21 <em>Taught</em>. Not only are there links between Acts and Luke, as if the preaching of the apostles continues the personal work of the Lord in whom they lived and moved, but often Acts records the preaching work in language lifted from the other Gospel records too (e.g. Acts 4:2; 5:12-16 = Mt. 4:23).</p><p><em>And proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead</em>- By being &quot;in Jesus&quot;, by baptism into Him, His resurrection becomes ours. And this was their message. The Sadducees who made the arrest denied resurrection, and it was endlessly irritating for them to see the growth of the Christian movement centred around faith in the resurrection both of Christ and ultimately of all believers in Him. The Gospels present the Pharisees as the great opponents of the Lord\'s work, but some of them converted to His cause. His criticism of them had related to matters of personal conduct, and some clearly accepted this and repented. But the Sadducees were under direct attack regarding a doctrinal matter, and it seems harder to repent of a theological wrong turning than of personal behaviour issues.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4301','1','44','4','3','3','<p>4:3 <em>And they arrested them</em>- Literally, \'they laid hands on them\', as in 5:18. Exactly the same phrase is used about the arrest of the Lord (Mt. 26:50). Again, the experiences of the Lord\'s preachers are framed in terms of His experiences, especially at the time of His death. His cross therefore ceases to be something to be gazed at from a distance, but rather is the fullest and most complete reflection of our experiences; in that light, we can begin to attach meaning to event, which is the existential struggle of every human soul. Man\'s search for meaning comes to no higher moment than in seeing in our experiences those of God\'s beloved Son.</p><p><em>And jailed them </em><i>until the next day; for it was now evening</i>- \'Arrested them and jailed them\' is repeated in Acts 5:18. Clearly their experiences now were intended to be learnt from and were consciously repeated again, just as a good teacher repeats lessons for students. This is why there is a sense of deja vu in our lives; it is the same Lord active in teaching us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4302','1','44','4','4','4','<p>4:4- see on Acts 2:12.</p><p><em>But many of those that heard the word believed</em>- Acceptable decisions to believe can therefore be made having only heard the word preached orally. The very same Greek sentence is to be found in Jn. 5:24: &quot;He that hears My word and believes... has everlasting life&quot;. Yet again, the preachers of the Lord Jesus are presented as Jesus personally, preaching as He preached and thus continuing His witness in the world.</p><p><em>And the number of the men came to be about five thousand</em>- In addition to the 3000 earlier baptized at Pentecost.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4303','1','44','4','5','5','<p>4:5 <i>And it came to pass that the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem<em>-</em></i> This is how the Sanhedrin were referred to; they are specifically called the Sanhedrin in :15. Again we see the experience of the apostles being portrayed in terms of that of the Lord Jesus in His final sufferings. Such gatherings together to consider miracle workers were occasionally held, in the spirit of Dt. 13:1-5. The doctrine of the miracle worker was considered. Luke records three other times when the Sanhedrin met to consider the Christian preachers: Peter and the apostles (Acts 5:27), Stephen (Acts 6:12), and Paul (Acts 22:30). Each time they are presented as re-living what they did to the Lord Jesus. God was really knocking on the door of their conscience. This was presumably their first Sanhedrin gathering after the condemnation of the Lord; the places of Joseph and Nicodemus would have been conspicuously empty, and perhaps others too.</p><p>There is evidence that after around AD30, the Sanhedrin stopped meeting in the temple and met in the city of Jerusalem. We note the accuracy of the record. Any uninspired writer would have either omitted such detail, or made some historical or locational blunders. But there are none in Acts and the critics only reveal their intellectual desperation in the false claims they make to the contrary. The gathering together of these people in Jerusalem sounds as if the Psalm 2 prophecy of the Lord\'s enemies being gathered together against Him was now again coming true- for His preachers were Him.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4304','1','44','4','6','6','<p>4:6 <em>A</em><i>nd Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas</i>- Caiaphas was the son-in-law of Annas. Caiaphas was the high priest, but Annas had been the high priest ten years beforehand and was the power behind Caiaphas. The inspired record recognizes that by calling him the high priest. Another alternative is that the Jews at the time considered that anyone who had been the high priest would always be called &quot;high priest&quot; as a title.</p><p><em>And John</em>- Perhaps Johanan ben Zaccai; or the \'Jonathan\' son of Annas who was briefly High Priest AD36/37. This latter would strengthen the impression given that this was a group of family friends and buddies.</p><p><em>And Alexander</em>- Alexander Lysimachus, who according to Josephus &quot;was one of the richest Jews of his time, who made great presents to the temple, and was highly esteemed by King Agrippa... He was brother to the famous Philo Judaeus, and father of Alexander Tiberius, who married Bernice, the daughter of Agrippa the elder, and was governor of Judea after Cuspius Fadus&quot;.</p><p><em>And as many as were of the family of the high priest-</em> Note the lack of mention of Gamaliel by name. Luke is seeking to present the decision makers as a group of family and friends, &quot;as many as were of the family of the high priest&quot;.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4305','1','44','4','7','7','<p>4:7 <i>And when they had set them in their midst, they enquired</i>- The apostles surely recalled watching how the Jews had placed a sinful woman in their midst, and then she had been vindicated by the Lord\'s judgment and wisdom (Jn. 8:3,9 s.w.).</p><p><em>By what power, or in what name, have you done this?</em>- It was inconceivable for them, as it is for many legalistic religious thinkers today, to think that individuals could have an experience with the Lord and on their own initiative serve Him, empowered by Him in their ministry. The religious types expect any religious work to be done in the name or authority of some organization.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4306','1','44','4','8','8','<p>4:8<i>Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: You rulers of the people and elders</i>- The mention of the Holy Spirit is surely to demonstrate how exactly were the Lord\'s words being fulfilled: &quot;But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and in their synagogues they will scourge you. Yes and before governors and kings you shall be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them, and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not be anxious how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given to you at that time what to speak. For it is not you that speaks, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you&quot; (Mt. 10:17-20).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4307','1','44','4','9','9','<p>4:9 <i>I</i><i>f we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed<em>- </em></i>See on 4:5 <em>Their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together</em>. The same word for &ldquo;good deed&rdquo; is only in 1 Tim. 6:2; all believers are benefitted by the good deed done for us in Christ. Our good deeds are a response to the ultimate good done to us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4308','1','44','4','10','10','<p>4:10- see on Acts 10:35,36.</p><p><em>Be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel-</em> This could mean far more than \'be informed\'. It could be an appeal for the Sanhedrin to \'know\' Christ. The ambition in preaching shown here is inspirational. Peter\'s hope was that the Sanhedrin who had recently condemned the Lord to death, and indeed all Israel, would know Christ. We see the same spirit in the Lord\'s desire to make a witness to the priests (Mt. 8:4); and in Paul\'s attempt at his similar judgment to persuade Agrippa to become a Christian (Acts 26:28). Indeed, this may be one of several examples of where Paul was inspired by Peter to the extent that he even consciously pretended to him, and this even went too far, in that he neglected his own ministry to the Gentiles in order to emulate Peter\'s to the Jews. Peter took seriously his previously stated belief that when Israel accepted Jesus as Christ, He would return, the Kingdom&nbsp;times of refreshing would come with the sending of the Lord Jesus. And so he realistically dreamt of converting all Israel. We could all do with this spirit of ambition in witness, rather than lamely informing people of our positions, certain nobody will be interested.</p><p><i>That in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in him does this man stand here before you healed</i>- He stood before them as if in the witness box.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4309','1','44','4','11','11','<p>4:11 <i>He is the stone that was rejected by you the builders</i>- Gk. \'set at nought\'. The same word used by Luke of how the Lord was \'set at nought\' by Herod (Lk. 23:11). But Peter says that the Jewish leaders had done this, just as He says that it was their hands, and not so much those of the Roman soldiers, who crucified the Lord. Repeatedly, the Lord\'s death was blamed on the Jews. Our arrangement of things is counted as having done it.</p><p><em>Which has become the cornerstone</em>- There could be no evidence of this apart from if a temple was now standing upon that stone. And there was such a temple- comprised of a few thousand believers. The existence of the church, the body of Christ, was the witness to Christ which was before the eyes of the Jews in the first century. We, as the body of Christ, likewise are witnesses to the resurrected body of Christ.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4310','1','44','4','12','12','<p>4:12- see on Acts 2:36.<br /><i>And in no other is there salvation; for</i>- Gk. <em>the</em> salvation, the Messianic salvation and Kingdom of the Old Testament. This is another form of the word translated &quot;made whole&quot; in :9. His \'salvation\' was representative of the salvation of all men.</p><p><em>Neither is there any other name- </em>According to Acts 4:12, there is no salvation &quot;in any other name&quot;; this is the name &quot;wherein we must be saved&quot; (RV). And the early chapters of Acts stress this theme of being &quot;<em>in</em> Christ&quot; (Acts 4:2,7,9,10,12 RV); yet all these things that are possible for those &quot;in Him&quot; require us to be baptized <em>into Him</em>. See on 2 Cor. 5:20. <br />The message they preached had an exclusive nature to it- it was radical preaching: &lsquo;this is the truth, and nothing, nothing else on this earth&rsquo;. Throughout the Roman empire, there was the concept of <em>religio</em>- the gods were thought to bless the empire if the empire worshipped them, and therefore everyone was expected to participate in the state religion. However, in addition, they were quite free to practice their own religions <em>as well</em>. But here, Christianity was intolerant. They preached that there was <em>no other name</em> apart from Jesus through which we might be saved- a direct and conscious attack upon the &lsquo;religio&rsquo; concept. Christ had to be accepted as Lord in baptism, in contradistinction to &lsquo;Caesar is Lord&rsquo;. A Christian could only serve one of two possible masters. He had to love one and hate the other. The whole idea of &ldquo;the Kingdom of God&rdquo; was revolutionary- there was to be no other Kingdom spoken of apart from Caesar&rsquo;s. But our brethren preached the Gospel of the Kingdom <em>of God</em>. And those who openly accepted these principles were inevitably persecuted- expelled from the trade guilds, not worked with, socially shunned, their children discriminated against.</p><p><em>That is given among men under heaven</em>- This is a persistent but unfortunate translation across many English versions. <em>En anthropos</em> is the same phrase in Lk. 12:8: &quot;Everyone who shall confess me <em>before men</em>&quot;. The giving of the Name among or before men was in the form of the confession or witness made by the preachers who preached in His Name. Luke has earlier used the term about how the Gospel speaks of God\'s good will &quot;before men&quot; (Lk. 2:14); but that good news must be placed &quot;before men&quot; by the preachers in order for it to be realized in practice.</p><p><em>Wherein we must be saved</em>- An appeal for baptism &quot;into&quot; Christ for salvation. \'Our\' salvation was therefore prefigured in the making whole or saving s.w. of the crippled man (:9 s.w.).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4311','1','44','4','13','13','<p>4:13 <i>Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they realised that they had been with Jesus<em>- </em></i>The Jews looked at Peter and John &ldquo;and they took knowledge of them i.e. recognized them, as the girl had recognized Peter, that they both had been with Jesus&rdquo;. This is the very language of those who accused Peter of having &lsquo;been with Jesus&rsquo;. John learnt his lesson, and came out more publicly, at Peter&rsquo;s side, inspired by his equally repentant friend. It&rsquo;s an altogether lovely picture, of two men who both failed, one publicly and the other privately, together side by side in their witness, coming out for the Lord. They saw their &ldquo;boldness&rdquo;, and realised they had been with Jesus; for the very same Greek word is used in description of the Lord&rsquo;s &ldquo;boldness&rdquo; in witness (Mk. 8:32; Jn. 7:26; 11:14; 16:25,29; 18:20), and on the cross (Col. 2:15). Peter was an uneducated fisherman. Who was he to appeal to Jerusalem&rsquo;s intelligentsia? He was mocked as speaking <em>a-grammatos</em>, without correct grammar and basic education even in his own language (Acts 4:13; AV &ldquo;unlearned&rdquo;). The way his two letters are so different in written style can only be because he wrote through a scribe (2 Peter is actually in quite sophisticated Greek). So most likely he couldn&rsquo;t write and could hardly read. So humanly speaking, he was hardly the man for the job of being the front man for the preaching of the new ecclesia. But not only did his Lord think differently, but his own depth of experience of God&rsquo;s grace and appreciation of the height of the Lord&rsquo;s exaltation became a motivating power to witness which could not be held in. We all know that the way God prefers to work in the conversion of men is through the personal witness of other believers. We may use adverts, leaflets, lectures etc. in areas where the Gospel has not yet taken root, with quite some success. But once a community of believers has been established, the Lord seems to stop working through these means and witness instead through the personal testimony of His people. We all know this, and yet for the most part would rather distribute 10,000 tracts than swing one conversation around to the Truth, or deliberately raise issues of the Gospel with an unbelieving family member. If we recognize this almost natural reticence which most of us have, it becomes imperative to find what will motivate us to witness as we ought, <em>a-grammatos</em> or not. The fact they spoke <em>a-grammatos</em>&nbsp;(Gk.), without proper grammar, the fact they weren\'t humanly speaking the right men for the job... all this meant nothing to them. The height of the Lord\'s exaltation and the salvation this enabled just had to be shared with others.</p><p>Peter&rsquo;s confidence in preaching to the wise of this world in his <em>a-grammatos</em> way is continued in the way his letters stress that the only true knowledge is that of Christ (2 Pet. 1:5,6; 3:18). He was writing in response to the Gnostic heresy that <em>gnosis</em>, knowledge, enlivens the eternal spark within man until a man&rsquo;s knowledge becomes his &lsquo;immortal soul&rsquo;. Peter didn&rsquo;t leave this for the more erudite to combat. Like an illiterate peasant farmer unashamedly challenging atheistic evolution, Peter powerfully made his point.</p><p>The credibility of a person depended not so much on them but upon their status and place in society- thus the witness of women, slaves, children and poor people was discounted. We see it happening in the way that the preaching of Peter and John was dismissed by the elders because they were of low social status (Acts 4:13). And yet these were the <em>very</em> types of people which the Lord Jesus used as His star and key witnesses in the very beginnings of Christianity</p><p>There was something about Peter and his fellow fishermen which made even the most unsympathetic make a mental note (&quot;took knowledge&quot; AV) that they had been with Jesus of Nazareth. This was the fulfilment of Jn. 13:35, which using the same root word, teaches that the (Jewish) world would &quot;know&quot; the twelve as the Lord\'s men <em>if they reflected His love</em>. So there must have been something in the love that somehow shone between those men as they stood there before that court, which in a manner impossible to describe, revealed them as Christ\'s. This same, difficult-to-describe sense will exude from every one who is the Lord\'s, in whatever context we are in.</p><p><em>&ldquo;Been with Jesus&rdquo; recalls </em>&ldquo;You also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning&rdquo; (Jn. 15:27). It was exemplified in Acts 4:13, where it was apparent from the nature of the disciples&rsquo; preaching that they &ldquo;had been with Jesus&rdquo;. To be with the Lord, to have experience of Him, meant that one would witness to Him; such is the true experience of Him that it is axiomatic that it issues in witness. All who have truly known the Lord will witness to Him. And if we don&rsquo;t... do we know Him, have we &ldquo;been with&rdquo; Him...?</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4312','1','44','4','14','14','<p>4:14 <i>And seeing the man that was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it</i>- The word is only elsewhere used, again by Luke, when recording the Lord\'s Olivet prophecy about the last days: &quot;I will give you the words and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to <em>contradict</em>&quot; (Lk. 21:15). The second coming could have been in the first century; but the various preconditions weren\'t met, and so it was delayed until our last days. But the record here is framed to indicate that in the arraignment of the apostles before the Jews, there was a fulfilment of the Olivet prophecy.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4313','1','44','4','15','15','<p>4:15 <i>But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they took advice with one another, saying</i>- How did Luke know the contents of this secret conversation? It could have been by a flash of direct Divine inspiration; and yet God always seems to prefer to work through some human mechanism. Perhaps some members of the Sanhedrin did indeed convert to Christ as Peter had hoped; and shared the account of what had happened with Luke who included it in his record, albeit under inspiration.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4314','1','44','4','16','16','<p>4:16 <em>What shall we do to these men?</em>- It is Luke (and not the other evangelists) who earlier records how the Jewish leadership held such councils and said the same words about the Lord Jesus (Lk. 6:11; 19:48). Again and again, he is making the point- that in our preaching of the Gospel, we find the situations and experiences of our Lord repeating in our lives. We are thereby in Him, and He in and with us.</p><p><em>For indeed a notable miracle has been done through them</em>- True, legitimate Holy Spirit miracles cannot be denied even by the cynical critics of Christianity. The claims to perform them today sadly and pathetically fail this test; for the claimed miracles can easily be denied and are not admitted as &quot;notable&quot; even by those looking at them with open minds. But this legitimate miracle could not be denied even by the critics, and they even admitted so themselves.</p><p><em>It is obvious to all</em>- The Greek <em>phaneroo</em> is usually used in the sense of \'manifestation\'. Paul uses the same words in saying that through his witness in prison, the Gospel had been made manifest to all (Phil. 1:13). This is one of many examples of where rabbi Paul saw himself as following the steps and leading of illiterate fisherman Peter.</p><p><em>All that dwell in Jerusalem</em>- A specific reference to how 3000 of the \'dwellers in Jerusalem\' had been baptized by Peter on Pentecost.</p><p><em>And we cannot deny it</em>- See on <em>A notable miracle</em>. Miracles of themselves can be seen and recognized but will not inevitably persuade people to believe.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4315','1','44','4','17','17','<p>4:17 <i>But that it spread no further among the people, let us warn them, that from this time forward</i>- The Greek means to threaten. It\'s the same word used of how Saul / Paul threatened the Christians (Acts 9:1); seeing he was in Jerusalem at the time, it would seem likely that he played a part in these threats. Presumably the threats were quite scary. The disciples asked the Lord Jesus to &quot;behold&quot; those threats and to give them boldness to not be swayed by them (Acts 4:29).</p><p><em>They are not to speak to anyone in this name</em>- The Jews later forbad Paul to speak to the Gentiles (1 Thess. 2:16). Yet it was Paul, it seems, who had been involved in forbidding these early disciples from speaking the Gospel. What he had done was done to him; not as punishment, but in order to help him grow spiritually himself, and also in relationship with his brethren. Those he had persecuted, and their families, would also notice that he had in fact suffered so much of what he had done to them, and this would in turn have eased their relationship with Paul and acceptance of him as a brother.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4316','1','44','4','18','18','<p>4:18 <i>And they called them, and ordered them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus<em>- </em></i>This was only really of power and relevance if in fact Peter and John were still considered to be synagogue members. Likewise with Paul\'s beating with rods, which was a synagogue punishment (2 Cor. 11:25). Clearly the early believers remained within the apostate system of Judaism until they were thrown out of it; they were not required by the Lord to stop attendance in an apostate system as a condition of fellowship with Him. Forbidding them to teach sounds very much like forbidding them to stand up in the synagogue and give their opinion on Scripture- a right which was open to all synagogue members, and one which Paul so often used in order to introduce the Gospel to the Jews.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4317','1','44','4','19','19','<p>4:19<i>But Peter and John answered and said to them: Whether it is right in the sight of God</i>- Luke has used this phrase earlier when saying that Zacharias and Elisabeth were \'right before God\'. We too can focus upon Biblical characters and make them programmatic for our life decisions, wishing to emulate them in the decisions we face. The seven previous New Testament references to the presence / sight of God are all in Luke.</p><p><em>To listen to you rather than to God, you must judge</em>- This is quite rightly the flagship proof text for the Christian refusal to obey Governments in ways which break God\'s commandments. &quot;To listen&quot; suggests that Peter saw God\'s word as living and speaking to him in an ongoing sense, just as much as those Jewish leaders were speaking to him. He had made the judgment to listen to God and not men, and he invites them to make a similar judgment.</p><p>In saying this, Peter is showing that he had learnt the lesson of the transfiguration, &quot;hear Him&quot;. So he told the Jewish authorities that he had to hear God&rsquo;s word rather than theirs.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4318','1','44','4','20','20','<p>4:20 <i>F</i><i>or we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard<em>- </em></i>The basis of the Lord&rsquo;s exaltation was the resurrection. When asked why he preached when it was forbidden, Peter didn&rsquo;t shrug and say &lsquo;Well Jesus told me too so I have to&rsquo;. His response was: &ldquo;We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard&rdquo;. It would have been like saying that, say, sneezing or blinking was a sin. These things are involuntary reactions; and likewise, preaching is the involuntary reaction to a real belief in the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection. His preaching was a &lsquo;hearkening unto God&rsquo;, not so much to the specific commission to preach but rather to the imperative to witness which the Father had placed in the resurrection of His Son. When arrested for preaching a second time, Peter says the same. I&rsquo;d paraphrase the interview in Acts 5:29-31 like this: Q. &lsquo;Why do you keep preaching when it&rsquo;s forbidden?&rsquo;. A. &lsquo;Jesus has been raised, and been exalted to be a Prince and Saviour, &ldquo;for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins&rdquo;. We have to obey the wonderful imperative which God has placed in these things: to preach this wondrous message to those for whom so much has been made possible&rsquo;.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not that Peter was the most natural one to stand up and make the witness; he spoke <em>a-grammatos</em>, but it was somehow evident from his body language that he had &ldquo;been with Jesus&rdquo; (Acts 4:13). In rebuking the false teachers, he likens himself to the dumb ass that spoke in rebuke of Balaam- i.e. he felt compelled to make the witness to God&rsquo;s word which he did, although naturally, without the imperatives we have discussed, he would be simply a dumb ass. He told the Sanhedrin that to make true Christians agree not to preach was simply an inappropriate suggestion, because &quot;we <em>cannot but</em>&nbsp;speak&quot; out- it was something which went part and parcel with the experience of the risen Lord Jesus. Peter was not just an illiterate fisherman; so many of his words and phrasing indicate a thorough familiarity with the Greek Old Testament. Here, he seems to have Num. 24:13 at the back of his mind; Balaam says that although Balak is forbidding him to speak, he cannot but speak what God has inspired him with, even&nbsp;if it is intensely unpopular with those around him. Of course, the Christian preacher is not inspired as Balaam was, but the principle is the same: it is impossible to keep quiet, because of the very nature of what we believe and who we are. John had the spirit of Peter when he wrote (in one of his many allusions to Peter&rsquo;s words) that what they had heard and seen, that they declared / witnessed (1 Jn. 1:1,3), as if hearing and seeing / experiencing Christ inevitably lead to witness. Peter also seems to allude to Am. 3:8: &quot;The Lord Yahweh has spoken- who can but speak it forth?&quot;. The speaking of Yahweh was in the death and resurrection of His Son, and our hearing of these words puts us all in the same position as the Old Testament prophets. This is something which once heard simply has to be spoken forth. If we have really grasped the Gospel, there is no way we can hide it. We are immediately made a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.</p><p><em>&ldquo;We saw and heard&rdquo; is a</em> phrase which occurs often in the Gospels. It was not simply a case of repeating words heard. Those words were backed up by experience, what they had seen and known in the Lord Jesus. He was the word of hearing made flesh, made actual and visible. So often, the content of preaching tends to be unbalanced- more on experience \'seeing\' than the word heard, or vice versa.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4319','1','44','4','21','21','<p>4:21 <i>And they, when they had threatened them further, let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people</i>- The same words used of how no cause of death was found in the Lord at His trial (Acts 13:28). Again, the experiences of the apostles, like our own, were arranged to enable them to enter into the experiences of the Lord. The phrase is only again used about how no cause of death was found in Paul (Acts 23:29). This is one of many examples of where the ministries of Peter and Paul are framed as being so similar. They were to take encouragement from each other, thereby realizing that the same Heavenly Lord was working through both of them in their parallel ministries to Jews and Gentiles. Paul perceived this in Gal. 2:8: &quot;For he that worked through Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, worked through me also to the Gentiles&quot;. Our lives are also structured in parallel with others, both in the Biblical record and contemporary to our times. This provides the basis for fellowship now; and also makes the Biblical record of past believers a living word to us, preparing us for eternal fellowship with them in God\'s Kingdom.</p><p><i>For all men glorified God for what was done</i>- Luke uses this term of how the shepherds glorified God after seeing the baby Jesus (Lk. 2:20). But &quot;saw and heard&quot; in the previous verse :20 is also used by Luke of how the shepherds &quot;saw and heard&quot;. Again Luke is demonstrating that the incidents of the Gospel records repeat in essence in the experiences of those who follow the Lord in later years.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4320','1','44','4','22','22','<p>4:22 <i>For the man was more than forty years old on whom this miracle of healing was done</i>- A strange way to put it, if simply referring to \'the healing\'. The healing was a <em>semeion</em>, a sign, of healing. The man was representative of all Israel; hence the mention of his age. For effectively, Israel were 40 years in the wilderness, unable to enter the promised land without Joshua-Jesus. Just as the man was left lame at the entrance to the temple for the same period.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4321','1','44','4','23','23','<p>4:23 <i>And being let go, they came to their friends, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them<em>- </em></i>The ecclesia was a growing family; the apostles returned &lsquo;to their own&rsquo; when they came out of court (Acts 4:23 Gk.). Each baptism was and is a birth into <em>our </em>family. Visiting brethren were <em>gladly</em> received, as one would receive a relative; it was the logical thing to seek out the believers in a town and stay with them (21:7,17; 27:3; 28:14; 3 Jn. 5).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4322','1','44','4','24','24','<p>4:24 <i>And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said<em>- </em></i>All the believers, hearing what the disciples had been told by the priests and elders, immediately each made the connection with Psalm 2, and all came out with it at once. This is an example of the spontaneous fellowship of the Spirit, based around both God\'s word and also common experience. Such fellowship experience is not based on documents or agreements.</p><p><em>O Lord, you that made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that are in them</em>- Quoting from Ps. 146:6. The Psalm goes on to exult that &quot;Yahweh frees the prisoners&quot; (Ps. 146:7), which is what had just happened in that the apostles had been set free (:21 \'Let... go&quot;). Paul uses the same reference to Yahweh as creator of heaven, earth and sea and all that is in them (Acts 14:15)- another example of Peter\'s influence upon Paul. I have suggested elsewhere that Paul imitated Peter partly from respect, partly from perceiving that his ministry was parallel to Peter\'s; and partly from a desire to pretend to Peter\'s ministry to the Jews.</p><p>The prayer of Acts 4:24-31 speaks of the God who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in it- a classic Jewish liturgy used in the temple prayers. The point being, such prayers didn&rsquo;t have to be made in the temple through the Jewish priests. Further, there is extra-Biblical evidence (from Tertullian, Origen and Cyprian) that the third, sixth and ninth hours were the times for prayer amongst the early Christians- but these were the very hours of prayer in the temple One major obstacle for Jewish minds would have been their perception that prayer and worship were to be carried out in the Jerusalem temple. This would have been a particular barrier for the many Jews in Jerusalem who converted to Christ. Whilst initially it appears the believers did attend the temple services, it is also significant that Acts repeatedly brings out the parallels between prayers and worship performed in the <em>temple</em>, and those performed in the ordinary homes of believers. Some passages about worship in the temple appear to be in parallel with others about such worship in homes. Luke seems to emphasize how important was the home as a place for prayer. Cornelius is presented as praying at home at the ninth hour, which was the hour of temple prayer (Acts 10:3,30). This would have been so hard to accept to the Jewish mind- that your own humble home hence Luke stresses meetings and prayers <em>in homes</em> so much was the house of God. It had been so drummed into the Jewish mind that the temple was &ldquo;the house of prayer&rdquo; (Is. 56:7; 60:7 LXX)- but now they were faced with the wonderful reality that their own home was that house of prayer. Only those brave enough to really reach out for a personal relationship with the God of Heaven would have risen up to this challenging idea. And yet the very height and thrill of the challenge inspired so many to do so.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4323','1','44','4','25','25','<p>4:25 <em>Who by the Holy Spirit</em>- A classic statement of the Divine inspiration of David\'s Psalms.</p><p><em>And by the mouth of our father David your servant, did say- </em>Ps. 2:1,2, a prophecy about opposition to Jesus personally, is here appropriated to those who preach Him, because they are in Him.</p><p><i>Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples imagine vain things?</i>- It is a theme of the Apostolic preaching in early Acts that the Jews are paralleled with the Gentiles in their responsibility for the Lord\'s death. This was doubtless to counter the thought that the blame could be put upon the Romans. In order to bring about repentance and conversion, the Jews had to allow themselves to be fully convicted of their individual and national guilt. So often we as small people assume that the guilt for wrong behaviour is somehow on a group level. But we as individuals empower the group decisions, and this was never clearer than in the Lord\'s death. The Lord makes a similar allusion to Psalm 2 when He assures Paul that He will deliver Paul &quot;from the people of Israel and the Gentiles&quot; (Acts 26:17). This again is encouraging Paul to understand that his mission to the Gentiles was parallel to Peter\'s to the Jews, and the same deliverance would be given him, and Psalm 2 would be true for Paul as it had been for Peter here in Acts 4, and as it was ultimately for the Lord Himself. Yet it seems Paul didn\'t totally take the point, because he veered towards pretending to Peter\'s ministry to the Jews, rather than taking encouragement from it in his own ministry.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4324','1','44','4','26','26','<p>4:26- see on Acts 9:15.</p><p><i>The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ</i>- The disciples understood this to refer to the Lord Jesus (:27) and yet they quote it about their experience before the assembled elders, who were also &quot;gathered together&quot; (:6, s.w.). Thus the early brethren appropriated prophecies of Jesus personally to themselves as they witnessed to Him (also in Acts 13:5,40). The same Greek words are also used in Luke and Acts about the work of Jesus and those of the apostles later; and also, the same original words are used concerning the deeds of the apostles in the ministry of Jesus, and their deeds in Acts. Thus an impression is given that the ecclesia&rsquo;s witness after the resurrection was and is a continuation of the witness of the 12 men who walked around Galilee with Jesus. He didn&rsquo;t come to start a formalised religion; as groups of believers grew, the Holy Spirit guided them to have systems of leadership and organization, but the essence is that we too are personally following the Lamb of God as He walked around Galilee, hearing His words, seeing His ways, and following afar off to Golgotha carrying His cross.</p><p>In arguing that both Jew and Gentile were gathered together against the Lord (God) and His Christ on the cross, Peter thus makes a connection between the Father and Son on the cross. Those who reproached Jesus there reproached the Father (Ps. 69:9).</p><p>The cross of Christ is the gathering point for His people (see on Jn. 12:32; 17:21). But it is also associated with the gathering together of all God\'s enemies (Acts 4:26). Even Herod and Pilate were made friends at that time (Luke 23:12). The cross divides men into two united camps; they are gathered together by it, either in the Lord\'s cause, or against Him. The crucifixion was the judgment seat for this world (Jn. 12:31). Likewise the day of judgment will be a gathering together, either against the Lord (Rev. 16:16; 19:19), unto condemnation (Jn. 15:6); or into the barn of His salvation (Mt. 13:30). And likewise, in anticipation of the judgment, the breaking of bread is a &quot;gathering together&quot; either to condemnation or salvation (1 Cor. 11).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4325','1','44','4','27','27','<p>4:27<em> For truly in this city</em>- Mentioned because Psalm 2 suggests that the gathering together against the Lord would occur in Jerusalem.</p><p><em>T</em><i>here were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles</i>- Herod claimed to be Jewish, so perhaps Peter sees in this the fulfilment of Jew and Gentile gathering together to destroy the Lord. We recall that Pilate was unwilling to crucify Him; but all the same, he did it, and Peter very much considers that to be Pilate\'s guilt. So arguing that we sinned but against our will, making excuses kilometres long, doesn\'t finally justify us.</p><p><em>And the people of Israel</em>- Peter\'s appeals were for individuals to repent. But he emphasizes the collective guilt of all Israel. He was seeking to convict individuals of the serious sin of empowering a collective decision, helping them to see that a member of the crowd still shares the guilt of the collective crowd. And on this basis, individuals were indeed convicted of their sin and baptized into the One they had effectively crucified.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4326','1','44','4','28','28','<p>4:28 <em>To do whatever Your hand and Your counsel foreordained to happen- </em>The fact the Lord\'s death had been in some sense predetermined by God and was according to His will did not in any sense mitigate against personal guilt; see on :27 <em>The people of Israel</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4327','1','44','4','29','29','<p>4:29 <i>And now Lord, look upon their threats, and<em>- </em></i>They were surely inspired by the praying of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19:16 using the same words. And these examples ought to specifically fire our prayer life, too. We can discern how their thinking developed; in :25 they perceived the relevance of Psalm 2 to the Lord\'s trials and to their own. But they then recalled the historical application of Psalm 2 to Hezekiah surrounded by the raging Assyrians within Jerusalem. Meditating upon him, they remembered his prayer- and that too became an inspiration and pattern for their prayer. This is how familiarity with the Bible text works in practice; this is what the mind of the Spirit is about.</p><p><em>Grant</em>- They believed that psychological attitudes such as boldness could be given. It was and is a gift of the spirit / mind.</p><p><em>To your servants- </em>They spoke of themselves as God&rsquo;s servants in the same breath as they speak of Jesus as being His Servant (Acts 4:29,30). They realized that all that was true of the Servant was true of them too.</p><p><em>To speak Your word with all boldness</em>- This prayer for a spirit / attitude of mind, involving faith, disregard of consequences and confidence, was given- for in :31 we read that &quot;when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit; and they spoke the word of God with boldness&quot;. That holy spirit which was given them was surely more a spirit / attitude of mind. And such psychological strengthening of the human spirit is available and experienced today. The shaking of the place, presumably by an earthquake, was to reflect the movement or out surge of power / spirit which was going on. It was a reflection in visible terms of the internal empowering going on within their minds, in response to their sincere prayer.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4328','1','44','4','30','30','<p>4:30- see on Acts 3:7.</p><p><em>While You stretch out Your hand to heal</em>- As the apostles preached (:29), in parallel the Lord would stretch out His hand in doing miracles. The miraculous gifts were to support the preaching of the word by the apostles- a specific thing at a specific time. The stretched out hand of God was a Hebraism speaking of God\'s covenant with men. The same phrase occurs in the LXX of Num. 14:30 and Neh. 9:15 &quot;the land for which I stretched out My hand to establish you upon it&quot; (see too Ps. 55:20). As the apostles presented God\'s outstretched hand through teaching the Gospel, so He Himself would stretch out His hand in appealing to Israel through doing miracles. Yet the majority of the 150 or so times in the LXX we read this phrase about God\'s hand stretched out, it is His hand stretched out to judge sin. Hence the significance of asking God to stretch out His hand <em>to heal</em>, when Israel deserved His hand stretched out yet again in judgment. The miracles were therefore to be seen as a special sign of God\'s grace to Israel at this time.</p><p>The stretching out of the Lord\'s hand to save is clearly allusive to what He had done to Peter as he sunk into the waves on Galilee that night. But now, Peter is framed as Jesus, in that he too stretched out his hand to save others as Jesus had done to him (Mt. 14:35 = Acts 5:15,16; Mt. 14:31 = Acts 3:7), bidding them come through the water of baptism as Jesus had done to him. As Jesus was worshipped after saving Peter, so men tried to worship Peter (Mt. 14:33 = Acts 3:11). So Peter went through what we all do- having been saved by Jesus, having come to Him and having been rescued by the outstretched arm, he responds to this by doing the same for others.</p><p>Peter felt that all the work he did by his own hand was effectively the Lord &quot;stretching forth His hand to heal&quot; (Acts 4:30). He realized that&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;hand was now the hand of Jesus, the same hand which had stretched forth s.w. Acts 4:30 to save&nbsp;<em>him</em>&nbsp;on the lake that night. Our experience of salvation simply has to be re-enacted by us towards others. There is great emphasis in the Gospels upon the hands of Jesus- so often stretched out to heal, save and bless; the hands out of which no sheep can be taken, the hands into which all power has been given by the Father, the hands which were nailed through by men in their ignorance and rejection of God\'s salvation. And those hands are our hands. Think through this again- the Lord &ldquo;stretched forth his hand&rdquo; to save Peter (Mt. 14:31); and this is the very phrase used by Peter in Acts 4:30, speaking of how the Lord&rsquo;s hand is &ldquo;stretched forth to heal&rdquo;. Peter saw himself on the lake as typical of all whom the Lord saves. Yet, it was&nbsp;<em>Peter</em>, not the Lord Himself, who stretched forth his hand to do the Lord&rsquo;s healing work&nbsp;on the lame man (Acts 3:7). Again, Peter is thinking back to the incident on the lake and perceiving that he is now Christ manifest as he had intended to be then. Thus it was the principle of God manifestation which inspired Peter to reach out of his comfort zone so dramatically; and properly appreciated, it can motivate us likewise. &nbsp;</p><p><i>That signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus</i>- This is strictly speaking a just about legitimate translation of <em>pais</em>, but the word basically means \'a boy\'. &quot;Servant&quot; would really be the translation of <em>doulos</em>, and this is the word used about the Lord in the \'servant\' passage about Him in Phil. 2:7. The AV is not far off with &quot;holy child&quot;. Their image of Jesus had something in it which reflected that child-likeness about Him which still stuck in their memories. Jn. 5:19 gives a window into the Lord\'s self-perception here. He says that whatever He sees the Father / abba / daddy do, He does &quot;in like manner&quot;. It is the language of a young child mimicking their father. And He speaks of Himself as an adult behaving just like this. There was a child-likeness about Him in this sense. And the disciples seem to have noticed this and perhaps reflect it in this otherwise rather strange title for the Lord.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4329','1','44','4','31','31','<p>4:31 <em>And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together</em>- Presumably by an earthquake. But they were unharmed. The same scenario is found when Paul was in trouble with the authorities in Philippi. In response to his midnight prayers, the place was shaken by an earthquake (Acts 16:26 s.w.). Paul was hereby confirmed in seeking to emulate Peter\'s ministry; for now something beyond his conscious imitation occurred, i.e. an earthquake after prayer, which reinforced his understanding of his ministry as being based upon Peter\'s. His willing taking humble Peter for his example was an essay in humility. See on 4:29 <em>To speak Your word with all boldness</em>.</p><p><em>And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit</em>- The situation is intended to recall that in Acts 2. Here, they are gathered together in one place, presumably that same upper room. They prayed, and were filled with Holy Spirit. I suggested on 4:29 that this was more in the form of internal strengthening. But I think it was also in chapter 2, but there was visible manifestation for emphasis. In this case, the more physical manifestation of the Spirit was in the earthquake. We also observe that being filled with the Holy Spirit was an experience which had to be repeated; they had been filled with it in chapter 2, and were now filled with it again. It gave specific strength at specific times.</p><p><em>And they spoke the word of God with boldness</em>- See on 4:29 <em>To speak Your word with all boldness</em>. When Paul is recorded as speaking the word with boldness (Acts 13:46) and praying that he would speak the world boldly as he ought to (Eph. 6:20), surely he was allowing himself to be inspired by Peter\'s example and consciously seeking to follow it. This huge respect for Peter by Paul is a powerful essay in humility. For they were from very differing social, cultural and educational backgrounds; in secular terms, Paul the Roman citizen was born far higher than Peter the Galilean fisherman.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4330','1','44','4','32','32','<p>4:32- see on Acts 2:44.<br /><i>And the full number of those who believed were of one heart<em>- </em></i>Sitting there in Babylonian captivity, God offered His people a new covenant (Ez. 11:19,20,25 cp. Heb. 10:16); they could have one mind or heart between each other, and a heart of flesh. But Israel would not, and it was only accepted by those who turned to Jesus Christ in accepting the new covenant in Him. Their being of &ldquo;one heart&rdquo; after baptism was a direct result of their acceptance of this same new covenant which Judah had rejected. In the hearing of offer of the new covenant, we are essentially in the position of those of the captivity, hearing Ezekiel&rsquo;s words, and deciding whether or not to remain in cushy Babylon, or make a painful and humanly uncertain aliyah to Zion. &nbsp;</p><p><em>And soul</em>- The phrase only occurs again in Phil. 1:27, where Paul writes that having &quot;one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel&quot; is an outcome of a way of life appropriate to &quot;the gospel of Christ&quot;. Such unity, encompassing now around 5000 people, was a psychological phenomenon. It was only possible on account of joint belief in the Gospel. It is a lack of focus upon that basic Gospel and working together for it which allows all manner of issues to creep in which then cause disunity.</p><p><em>And not one of them said that anything of the things which he possessed was his own</em>- As a result of this, many sold what superfluous things they had. But those who didn\'t, we later learn, had their possessions and lands stolen during the persecution of the Hebrew believers that soon followed (Acts 11:19 cp. Heb. 10:32-34). God took back what He had lent them, even before their death. Their realization that they owned nothing was not just a temporary height of enthusiasm; they appreciated a principle which was true before, then and now. That principle applies today just as much as it did then.</p><p>In the early church, &ldquo;not one of them <em>said</em> that any of the things which he possessed was his own&rdquo;. I wonder- and maybe I&rsquo;m clutching at straws and justifying us all- if the emphasis is upon the word &ldquo;said&rdquo;. Their <em>attitude</em> was that they didn&rsquo;t personally possess anything. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, we are to buy and sell and deal in this world, as if we didn&rsquo;t really buy anything or gain a thing, as if it&rsquo;s all somehow performed by us as in a disconnected dream. See on Lk. 14:33. This attitude that nothing is personally ours is a great freedom- from worry about what we have, about security, changes of values, and from coveting what we might be able to own.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4331','1','44','4','33','33','<p>4:33 <i>And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all<em>- </em></i>This is paralleled with &quot;great s.w. grace&quot; being with them. <em>Charis</em>, &quot;grace&quot;, means a gift, and is often used about the gifts of the Spirit. We may simply be learning that there were great gifts of Holy Spirit power to perform major miracles. But the parallel between &quot;great power&quot; and &quot;great grace&quot; may mean that the disciples appreciated very deeply God\'s grace given to them, and this gave a convicting power to their witness to it. John the Baptist had the grace of God &quot;upon&quot; him (Lk. 2:40 s.w.) but &quot;John did no miracle&quot;. So this passage doesn\'t have to refer to miraculous support of their testimony. Our experience of grace will likewise give great power to our witness. This is why the most powerful preachers are often those who perceive the most deeply their experience of grace.</p><p>The early brethren had seen and known Jesus,&nbsp;despised, hated, dropping from exhaustion in the boat, slumping dehydrated at a well, covered in blood and spittle, mocked in naked shame. And now they knew that He had risen, that He had been exalted to God\'s right hand so as to make the salvation of men possible, and surely going to return. They spoke this out, because they knew Him. And yet through the Gospels and with the eye of faith, we know Him too. And this must be the basis for our witness.&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4332','1','44','4','34','34','<p>4:34<i>For neither were there among them any that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold</i>- The referent is to the great multitude of 5000 believers (:32); not just to the apostles, for the sellers put the money at the feet of the apostles. Whether 5000 people really did sell all their property in a relatively short period of time... is somewhat doubtful. Surely we are being presented with an idealized picture of the early church, just as inspiration at times presents a positive take on things, e.g. the early Kingdom of Solomon as recorded in 1 Kings.</p><p><em>&ldquo;Sold them</em>&rdquo; is the same word translated &quot;things which he possessed&quot; in :32 is to be found in Lk. 12:33 &quot;Sell that which you have and give alms&quot;. This verse was surely hammering in their conscience as they sold their goods. The implication is that they realized the capital quickly. But in the East, especially in the first century, no commercial transaction was done quickly. They would have sold for low prices; reflecting their radical devaluing of possessions. There was no specific command given to them to sell their goods, or at least, the Acts record doesn\'t record it. Rather was their motivation \'just\' one word from the Lord Jesus in Luke\'s Gospel. This should be the power to us of \'just\' one recorded word from the Lord, now staring at us from a page of thin paper or a screen, the radical demands of \'only\' one verse...</p><p><em>&ldquo;Brought the proceeds</em>&rdquo; is Gk. \'carried the value\'. As they apparently sold things quickly, payment was likely not only in coinage but in material goods, which they brought to the apostles.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4333','1','44','4','35','35','<p>4:35 <i>And l<em>aid them at the apostles\' feet-</em></i> The same words in Greek used about how God would <em>make </em>(s.w. &quot;laid down&quot;) His Son\'s enemies a stool for His feet. Peter has just been preaching this in Acts 2:35, and I commented there that being at the footstool meant worship and repentance. Peter quotes the passage in an appeal for Israel to repent and come to the stool of the Lord\'s feet. So it could be that following hard on from this idea being preached, the new converts saw the apostles as the manifestation of the Lord, and brought the symbols of their humanity to His feet. Such giving up of materialism is indeed part of repentance and truly coming on our knees to the Lord.</p><p><em>And distribution was made</em>- The apostles had before them a huge and unexpected pile of precious metals, coins, garments and other items of value. And now they had to distribute them. The word occurs in describing how the Lord gave the loaves to the apostles and they distributed them to the crowds (Jn. 6:11). He led them, as He does us, through one experience in His service in order to prepare them for another.</p><p>Time and again, it becomes apparent that the Lord especially designed incidents in His men&rsquo;s experience which they would learn from, and later be able to put to use when similar experiences occurred after He had ascended. This was essential to the training of the twelve disciples. Thus He made <em>them </em>distribute the food to the multitude (Jn. 6:11); yet now, after His ascension, we meet the same Greek word here in Acts 4:35, describing how they were to distribute welfare to the multitude of the Lord&rsquo;s followers.</p><p><em>To each</em>- Welfare aid is best given directly to the needy person by the donor, rather than through their representatives.</p><p><em>According to anyone&rsquo;s need</em>- Not according to what they were asked to give, but in response to need.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4334','1','44','4','36','36','<p>4:36 <i>And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (we say Son of exhortation)- </i>An example of the Biblical record going along with the incorrect perceptions of faithful men is to be found in the way the apostles nicknamed Joseph as &lsquo;Barnabas&rsquo; &ldquo;under the impression, apparently, that it meant &lsquo;son of consolation&rsquo;. On etymological grounds that has proved hard to justify, and the name is now generally recognized to&hellip; mean &lsquo;son of Nabu&rsquo;&rdquo;. Yet the record &lsquo;goes along&rsquo; with their misunderstanding. In addition to this, there is a huge imputation of righteousness to human beings, reflected right through Scripture. God sought them, the essence of their hearts, and was prepared to overlook much ignorance and misunderstanding along the way. Consider how good king Josiah is described as always doing what was right before God, not turning aside to the right nor left- even though it was not until the 18th year of his reign that he even discovered parts of God&rsquo;s law, which he had been ignorant of until then, because the scroll containing them had been temporarily lost (2 Kings 22:2,11).</p><p><i>A Levite, a man of Cyprus by race</i>- Levites weren\'t supposed to own property; so they owned land outside the territory of Israel. He realized that this was just getting around God\'s intention. But how quickly he managed to sell it is remarkable. Perhaps he sold the title deeds for a knockdown price to someone in Jerusalem. Note that although Barnabas was Jewish, he is identified as &quot;a man of Cyprus by race&quot;. This explains why there were devout Jews, Hebrew speakers, living in Jerusalem- who spoke of how they heard the Gospel in their own languages in which they were born.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4335','1','44','4','37','37','<p>4:37 <i>H</i><i>aving a field, sold it; and brought the money and laid it at the apostles\' feet</i>- Perhaps he was motivated by how all Judas could buy for his pieces of silver was a field. He too had a field, held illegally before God. And he wanted to get rid of it quickly. He brought money cash for it to the apostles, whereas :34 speaks of others carrying the proceeds of what they sold as if those proceeds weren\'t simply cash. I would conclude from this that he sold the title deeds quickly, for a cheap price, to someone in Jerusalem. Otherwise we are to imagine him sailing to Cyprus, finding a buyer, and then returning- which at the speed business was done in the East, would\'ve taken maybe a year. The field however may not have been in Cyprus.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4336','1','44','5','1','1','<p>5:1 <i>But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession</i>- As others in the community did (the same words are used in Acts 4:34). Ananias and Sapphira wished to appear like them; for without doubt they would have been praised and commended by all for such selfless giving.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4337','1','44','5','2','2','<p>5:2 <i>And w<em>ith his wife\'s knowledge-</em></i> The initiator of the act and doer of the deed was Ananias; he alone brought the money to the apostles, for his wife was not with him at that time. But Sapphira was likewise punished because the essence of the sin was pride, and she shared in this.</p><p><em>Kept back </em><i>part of the proceeds, and brought only a part of it<em>- </em></i>Gk. \'to keep for oneself\'. It is translated &quot;petty thieving&quot; in Tit. 2:10. But who was the theft from? All he had belonged to God. His sin was therefore in assuming that what he had was really his; and anything he gave to God was a gift, and the rest he could legitimately keep as his. But as Peter points out, the money remained \'his\' in the sense that God had delegated those funds to him. His sin was therefore not so much in keeping a part for himself, but in giving the impression of greater devotion and sacrifice than was actually the case. This lie, or as the Greek means, \'deception\', resulted in his death. It\'s a sober lesson- not in generosity, but in never giving the impression to our brethren of a greater level of sacrifice than in fact we have made. And we have all likely failed at this point at some time to some extent.</p><p><em>And laid it</em>- This translates <em>tithemi</em>, which is the same word translated &quot;conceived&quot; in :4 &quot;you have <em>conceived</em> this thing in your heart&quot;. I suggest the connection is in the way that Ananias and Sapphira imagined how they would lay down the money at the feet of the apostles, with others watching... the sober nodding in agreement, the kind words of approbation, the tears of gratitude from the poor, the body language of respect from the apostles... all these things were their motivation. They laid up in their heart that moment of laying down the money at the feet of the apostles. Their sin was not theft or fraud- but pride.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4338','1','44','5','3','3','<p>5:3 <i>And Peter said: Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart</i>- Peter could plead with men, both in and out of the Faith, with a credibility that lay in his ready acceptance of his failures, and his evident acceptance of his Lord&rsquo;s gracious forgiveness and teaching. Consider how he tells Ananias that Satan has filled his heart (Acts 5:3), alluding to what everyone full well knew: that Satan had desired to have him too, and in the denials he had pretty well capitulated (Lk. 22:31,32). Peter&rsquo;s disciplining of Ananias, so soon after his own deference to the pressures of Satan as opposed to those of the Lord, would have been done surely in subdued, saddened and introspective tones.</p><p><em>To lie to the Holy Spirit</em>- Gk. \'to deceive\'. See on 5:2 <em>Kept back</em>.</p><p><em>A</em><i>nd to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?-</i> To make the generosity look credible, the amount they kept was probably not that great. And yet people betray their Lord and throw away their eternal life for very small sums of money.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4339','1','44','5','4','4','<p>5:4 <i>While it remained, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your power?<em>- </em></i>When they sold their property, the Holy Spirit&rsquo;s comment in Acts 5:4 was that the money was &ldquo;their own&rdquo; and &ldquo;under their own power&rdquo; Gk. <em>exousia</em>. They could have chosen to give all or part of that money to God. It was theirs and not God&rsquo;s, the implication was. This is a startling insight. What wealth we have has been genuinely entrusted to us by the Lord, and in that sense it is indeed &lsquo;ours&rsquo;, under our power. Yet we are to realize that of course as those under the sphere of God&rsquo;s rulership / Kingdom, we are under <em>His</em> &lsquo;exousia&rsquo;. Absolutely <em>all</em> power of <em>exousia</em> in any part of Heaven or earth has now been given to the Lord Jesus (Mt. 28:18; Jn. 17:2; Col. 2:10). And yet He has given &ldquo;authority&rdquo; or <em>exousia</em> to us His servants, and will judge us on His return as to how we have used this (Mk. 13:34; Jn. 1:12). We need to make this connection- that although He has delegated to us wealth, and placed it under our power or <em>exousia</em>, if we are truly part of His Kingdom, we are to give back the <em>exousia</em> or power / authority over our wealth to Him.</p><p><i>How is it you have <em>conceived this thing in your heart</em></i>- Acts 5:3 provides an example of the connection between the Devil and our sins. Peter says to Ananias: &ldquo;Why has Satan filled your heart?&rdquo;. Then in verse 4 Peter says &ldquo;Why have you <em>conceived this thing in your heart?</em>&rdquo;. Conceiving something bad within our heart is the same as Satan filling our heart. If we ourselves conceive something, e.g. a sinful plan, then it begins <em>inside us</em>. Note that when Peter speaks of how Ananias has &ldquo;conceived this thing in your heart&rdquo; he&rsquo;s alluding to the LXX of Esther 7:5, where the wicked Haman is described as one &ldquo;whose heart hath filled him&rdquo; to abuse God&rsquo;s people (see RV). Note in passing that the LXX of Esther 7:4 speaks of Haman as <em>ho diabolos</em> with the definite article &ndash; a mere man is called &ldquo;the Satan&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s been suggested that &lsquo;Satan filling the heart&rsquo; was a common phrase used in the first century to excuse human sin; and Peter is deconstructing it by using the phrase and then defining more precisely what it refers to &ndash; conceiving sin in our heart, our own heart filling itself with sin. But about &quot;conceived&quot;, see on 5:2 <em>Laid it.</em></p><p><em>You have not lied to men, but to God</em>- He had, of course, lied to men. We must read in an ellipsis here: \'You have not so much lied to men, but also to God\'.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4340','1','44','5','5','5','<p>5:5 <em>A</em><i>nd Ananias, hearing these words, fell down</i>- Both Ananias and Sapphira fell down at the apostles&rsquo; feet (:10)- exactly the place where they had laid their money. Truly, they perished along with their money. Perhaps Peter reflected on this to the point that he told Simon Magus that his money would perish with him (Acts 8:20). What God wanted was them- not their appearance of giving money. With reflection I am personally convinced that Peter\'s words to Simon were indeed a result of reflection upon how Ananias and Sapphira had fallen down at his feet, upon their money or at least, Ananias did.</p><p><i>And breathed his last; and great fear came upon all that heard it-</i> This apparently spread in the three hours after Ananias died. So we can assume it refers to the Christian community. &quot;Great fear&quot; is a phrase elsewhere used several times in the New Testament for fear of condemnation. If my analysis of the reasons for Ananias\' judgment is correct, then this is understandable- because we have all at some times and in some ways sought the approbation of our brethren, and given an appearance of spirituality and self-sacrifice which is beyond where we really stand. Ananias died for this. No wonder an appropriate fear spread amongst the believers, as it does in our hearts too when we think of the holiness of God and totality of His demands upon men. This of course lays the groundwork for a marvelling, grateful acceptance of God\'s patient grace towards us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4341','1','44','5','6','6','<p>5:6 <i>And the young men arose and wrapped him up</i>- Perhaps a technical term referring to a group of young men who did the practical things in the church. Paul refers to a similar group when he writes of &quot;the messengers of the churches&quot; (2 Cor. 8:23).</p><p><i>And they carried him out and buried him</i>- A fairly rare word is used for &ldquo;carried&rdquo;, occurring only 7 times in the New Testament, three of them here in this incident (:6,9,10). It cannot surely be insignificant that the word is used again in such close proximity to this incident, in describing the result of it- the sick were &quot;carried out&quot; and placed at Peter\'s feet (:15 s.w.), so close to him that the shadow cast by his body fell on them. Being carried to the feet of Peter might seem a risky undertaking, given what he had done. But here we behold both the goodness and severity of God. The harder side of God attracts; when His judgments are in the earth, then and thereby shall men come to Him. The judgment of Ananias and Sapphira at the hands of Peter did not drive people away; rather did it bring people closer to Peter and the Lord he represented. This is why &quot;judgment to come&quot; is part of the Gospel message; a vaguely defined message of a fuzzy love and candy for the kids will not of itself be attractive to people. There is another side to life, to God and to His Son; and every human being subconsciously knows that. And directly engaging with it, and finding that through all that, God is love... is what makes the Gospel so compelling, and what reached to the very soul of even Felix and almost persuaded Agrippa to be a Christian (Acts 24:25; 26:28).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4342','1','44','5','7','7','<p>5:7 <i>And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in</i>- But in the three hours after her husband died, the news spread around (:5). We wonder therefore where exactly Sapphira had been. As she approached Peter, nobody apparently told her \'By the way, your husband just got slain by Peter because he lied about the money\'. Indeed, it would appear from :6 that Ananias was buried immediately, for Peter tells her &quot;Behold, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door; and they shall carry you out&quot; (:9). Perhaps she went to Peter privately. But it\'s a good question for eager, imaginative Bible students: \'Where was Sapphira in the three hours after Ananias died?\'.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4343','1','44','5','8','8','<p>5:8 <i>And</i> <em>Peter said to her</em>- Gk. \'Peter answered and said to her\'. What he said to her was therefore a response. But there is no record of what she said. Perhaps she said nothing; but came in to the apostles giving the impression she had generously given to the Lord, seeking their approbation.</p><p><em>Tell me whether</em>- We can only speculate as to the tone in Peter\'s voice. Was it the even tone of the prosecutor asking a question which he knew would decide the fate of the accused? Or was there in his tone some hint of pleading for her repentance, as if to say \'Did you <em>really</em> sell the land for that much?\'. The question itself should have made Sapphira guess that something was up, and that they had been busted. In that split second, she had the choice between life and death; and it was her pride which made her choose death by lying.</p><p><em>You sold the land</em>- You plural. Although Ananias sold it, it was counted as if she had too.</p><p><em>For so much. </em><i>And she said: Yes, for so much</i>- Pointing to the coins at his feet.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4344','1','44','5','9','9','<p>5:9 <i>But Peter said to her: How is it you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?</i>- I have suggested that pride was the key motive for the sin. But Peter\'s comment suggests another factor. Perhaps they doubted whether Peter truly had the Spirit, and so they had decided to test this. However, it could be that here we have a case of sin being described in terms of what it really is, even though how the sin is now described would be denied by the sinner. He wanted to show her what their pride and lying really amounted to- a putting of God\'s Spirit to the test. The language of testing God is replete with reference to Israel\'s failure in this. They tested God in the wilderness (Dt. 6:16; Ps. 78:18,41,56; 106:14); and this led to their exclusion from the promised land. In essence, Ananias and Sapphira had repeated Israel\'s sin. Despite all the evidence both to them and to Israel in the wilderness, that God\'s Spirit was indeed possessed by the leaders of His people- still they wanted to test whether it really was. But of course it all depends on motive- Gideon tested the Spirit, twice; Paul went against Spirit guidance in continuing his journey to Jerusalem. The same words are also used about how he tested going into Mysia, but the Spirit didn\'t allow him to (Acts 16:7). But what they did appears to have been a conscious, sceptical testing of whether the Lord was really amongst them or not.</p><p><i>Behold, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door; and they shall carry you out</i>- This suggests that Peter suspected she would be impenitent. The young brothers were waiting in expectation of dealing with her corpse; or perhaps &quot;the feet&quot; suggests Peter had heard their footsteps returning from having buried Ananias. We also sense that she was alone with Peter, without the presence of others- as if to try to make the temptation to pride and maintenance of face and image somewhat less. She could have quietly confessed to Peter; but her pride was strong, unto death. We note how in the early church, there was the power of the Spirit to smite with sickness, and also to heal from it; and here we see there was even the power to slay with death.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4345','1','44','5','10','10','<p>5:10 <i>And she fell down immediately at his feet and breathed her last; and the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her next to her husband<em>- &ldquo;At his feet&rdquo;, w</em></i>here the money had been placed. See on 5:5 <em>Fell down</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4346','1','44','5','11','11','<p>5:11 <i>And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all that heard these things</i>- See on 5:5. The phrase &ldquo;great fear&rdquo; is nearly always used in a negative context by Luke, and usually with a commandment not to fear following it. Luke records how the message of the Lord Jesus was to empower God&rsquo;s people to serve Him &ldquo;without fear&rdquo; (Lk. 1:74); and John writes that such fear should be &ldquo;cast out&rdquo; in the experience of those who have the Spirit (1 Jn. 4:18). We conclude therefore that this is a hint at weakness in the church.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4347','1','44','5','12','12','<p>5:12 <i>A</i><i>nd by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders done among the people</i>- It could be that they literally used their hands to do miracles, in obedience to the comment on the great commission, that they would lay their hands on the sick (Mk. 16:18). But the phrase can equally mean \'by the instrumentality of...\', as if to emphasize it was the Lord using them, rather than them doing anything of their own power.</p><p><em>And they were all gathering together in Solomon\'s porch</em>- The point of mentioning this might be because the miracles were done there, at their public meetings. This public nature of these dramatic healing miracles is a far cry from the claims of healed headaches in backstreet church halls made by Pentecostalism. But why the specific mention of &quot;Solomon\'s porch&quot;? Perhaps because it was Stephen who would later point out that it was Solomon who built the temple, although that was not God\'s ideal intention; His desire was to dwell in the hearts of His people, not in buildings made with human hands. Solomon\'s porch was supposed to be the only original part of Solomon\'s temple which had survived. The porch was not large enough for the whole church, so the &quot;they&quot; who gathered there presumably refers to the apostles. However, Solomon\'s porch was open to Gentiles and the unclean too- and that was most likely the reason why they gathered there. The Lord was slowly working on Peter\'s conscience regarding including the Gentiles and the unclean; for Peter would have noticed how such folks were listening to his preaching there. The Lord likewise prods us through meetings and situations, and then makes His direct appeal to us, as happened with Peter in the matter of Cornelius.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4348','1','44','5','13','13','<p>5:13 <i>None of the rest dared join them, although the people held them in high esteem</i>- Who is this group of people? They are put in contrast with &quot;the people&quot;, who respected the apostles and many of whom now believed (:14). Luke has spoken of such a group in describing how the women told the news of the Lord\'s resurrection &quot;to the eleven and to all the rest&quot; (Lk. 24:9 s.w.; also in Mk. 16:13 &quot;They went and told it unto the rest, neither did they believe it&quot;). Just recently in Acts, Luke has spoken of &quot;the rest of the apostles&quot; (Acts 2:37). I suggest this may be a technical term for the inner circle of believers who had followed the Lord before His death. Paul speaks of &quot;the rest&quot; as if they were a group which did not include Peter: &quot;The rest of the apostles, the brethren of the Lord and Cephas&quot; (1 Cor. 9:5). It could be that this group were scared by what had happened because they realized that they too had in some senses not been totally honest before the Spirit of God in whatever way; just as any sincere believer will read the account of Ananias and Sapphira and likewise have a sense of fear. This group are painted in distinction from the crowds generally, who respected Peter even more and increasingly believed, as we read in the next verse. This is an essay in the humanity and weakness of the Lord\'s followers at the time.</p><p>Another possibility is raised by considering the meaning of \'join them\'. The implication could be that Ananias and Sapphira were part of a group who wished to attain to the inner circle of leading apostles. But with their death, the rest of those like Ananias and Sapphira no longer pretended to joining with the leading apostles.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4349','1','44','5','14','14','<p>5:14 <em>And many more believers-</em> The harder side of the Father and the Lord Jesus actually serves as an attraction to the serious believer. The lifted up Jesus draws men unto Him. When Ananias and Sapphira were slain by the Lord, fear came upon &quot;as many as heard these things&quot;. Many would have thought His attitude hard; this man and woman had sold their property and given some of it (a fair percentage, probably, to make it look realistic) to the Lord\'s cause. And then He slew them. But just afterwards, &quot;believers were the more added to the Lord&quot; (Acts 5:12,14). The Lord\'s harder side didn\'t turn men away from Him; rather did it bring them to Him. And so the demands and terror of the preaching of the cross did likewise. The balance between His utter grace, the way (e.g.) He marvelled at men\'s puny faith, and His harder side, is what makes His character so utterly magnetic and charismatic in the ultimate sense. Think of how He beheld the rich man and loved Him, and yet at the same time was purposefully demanding: He told Him to sell all He had and give it to beggars. Not to the work of the ministry, but to beggars, many of whom one would rightly be cynical of helping. It was a large demand, the Lord didn\'t make it to everyone, and He knew He was touching the man\'s weakest point. If the Lord had asked that the man\'s wealth be given to Him, he may have agreed. But to beggars... And yet the Lord made this heavy demand with a deep love for the man.</p><p><em>Were added to the Lord</em>- The RVmg. speaks of them being added &ldquo;to them&rdquo;, i.e. the believers who comprised the body of Jesus. Baptism is not only entry into covenant relationship with the Father and His Son; it is also baptism into the body of Christ, i.e. the body of believers (1 Cor. 12:13). This is where self-baptism shouldn\'t be used too liberally. Thus the record in Acts describes baptisms as believers being &quot;added&quot; to the body of believers (Acts 2:41,47); but also as them being &quot;added&quot; (s.w.) to the Lord Jesus (5:14; 11:24). It is therefore appropriate that there are other members of the body of Christ present at baptisms; baptism is entry into relationship with the community of believers, as well as into a personal relationship with Christ. &nbsp;</p><p>Note that the Lord Jesus added converts to the church (Acts 2:47), but here, they are added to the Lord Jesus (NEV, AV). In this we see the direct connection between the Lord Jesus and His church; as Paul expresses it, the church is the body of the Lord Jesus.</p><p><em>Crowds of men and women</em>- Gk. &quot;Both men and women&quot;. Religion in the first century was largely the domain of men; the inclusiveness towards women would have made Christianity almost unique amongst contemporary religions.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4350','1','44','5','15','15','<p>5:15 <em>So much so</em>- This is picking up from the end of :12. Verses 13 and 14 are a parenthesis, and some versions place them in brackets. What had been done by Peter in the temple area, they believed could be done outside it. Again the Lord was developing the thought in their minds that actually there was nothing so special about that temple, not even Solomon\'s portico, the part of the structure believed to date back to Solomon\'s time. What was achieved in the temple area could be achieved on the streets...</p><p><i>That they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that, as Peter came by</i>- See on 5:6 <em>Carried him out</em>. The scene recalls that of Mt. 14:35: &ldquo;And when the men of that place recognised him, they sent word to all in that region and brought to him all who were sick&rdquo;. In the same way as the Lord stretched forth His hand and saved Peter, so He stretches forth His hand, Peter observed, to save all who would come to Him (Mt. 14:31 = Acts 4:30). But Peter is framed as Jesus, in that he too stretched out his hand to save others as Jesus had done to him (Mt. 14:35 = Acts 5:15,16; Mt. 14:31 = Acts 3:7), bidding them come through the water of baptism as Jesus had done to him.</p><p><em>At the least his shadow</em>- Perhaps in reference to how the mustard seed of the Gospel would become a tree under whose shadow unclean birds would come (Mk. 4:32 s.w.). The sick people were likely all ritually unclean, as were those who carried them. But it was exactly these types who were cured.</p><p><em>Might fall on some of them</em>- Gk. \'overshadow\'. As Peter had been overshadowed s.w. by the Lord\'s glory, so now he was called to reflect that same glory (Lk. 9:34). What we benefit from at the Lord\'s hands often becomes ours to share to others.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4351','1','44','5','16','16','<p>5:16 <i>And there also gathered crowds from the</i> <em>cities round about Jerusalem</em>- This is a phrase taken from the Old Testament, describing how these towns were the centres of idol worship (2 Kings 23:5) and therefore the specific target for Divine judgment (Jer. 1:5). Now, grace was being poured out upon them.</p><p><i>Bringing sick people and those that were vexed with unclean</i>- This is word for word a sentence Luke used earlier about the Lord\'s healing ministry (Lk. 6:18). The point is being developed that the work of the believers in Christ is a continuation of His ministry as He walked around Palestine; and in essence, even if the form differs, that is what we are doing today. This is why the daily reading and reflection upon the Gospel records provides a key to attaching meaning to event and circumstance in our daily lives; for we are intended to be Him in this world.</p><p><em>And every one of them was healed</em>- The scale of healing here is perhaps the greatest of any time in history. There seems nothing analogous in the Lord\'s ministry; He appears to have worked with \'an economy of miracle\'. This healing outbreak was the fulfilment of the promise that when possessed of the Comforter, &quot;greater works than these shall you do&quot; (Jn. 14:12). &quot;Greater&quot; could mean more in number- and that was certainly the case here. &quot;Every one&quot; was healed- there were no failed healings, in marked contrast to the claims of Pentecostalism. This suggests that the healings were not dependent upon the faith of the individual, but were a pure outpouring of grace.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4352','1','44','5','17','17','<p>5:17 <i>But t<em>he high priest rose up</em></i>- Again, precisely the words used of how &quot;the high priest rose up&quot; and condemned the Lord to death (Mt. 26:62). The apostles did the miracles they did of their own freewill. They chose to identify with their Lord and continue His work. And now the same Lord responds by bringing about circumstances beyond their control which confirmed their identity with His death and sufferings. The same happens with us; we make freewill choices to identify with Him, and He on a larger scale arranges circumstance to confirm that identity, to make us know His sufferings and the power of new life in His resurrection.</p><p><em>And all they that were with him</em>- Likewise the same word is used of how the whole multitude of the Sanhedrin \'rose up\' and handed over the Lord to Roman punishment (Lk. 23:1). The \'rising up\' may reflect a Hebraism meaning \'to rise up in giving sentence\'. We note how the same word is used of how Gamaliel \'stood up\' to give his opinion (:34).</p><p><em>Which is the sect of the Sadducees</em>- We read that Gamaliel, a Pharisee, also &quot;stood up&quot; (s.w.) and urged a more lenient approach with the preachers (:34). Perhaps this was partly a reflection of the way the two groups loved to take opposing positions to each other.</p><p><em>And they were filled with jealousy</em>- Jealousy of the receptive audience of others was what caused the Jews to so hate the Christian preachers. The same words are used of how the Jews were filled with jealousy when they saw the crowds responding to Paul (Acts 13:45), and this would seem to me to be an example of the Lord confirming Paul in seeing the similarities between his ministry and that of Peter. It was jealousy which led to the Lord\'s crucifixion (Mt. 27:18); and jealousy of others\' success in preaching has likewise led many in the body of Christ to similar abuse of their own brethren.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4353','1','44','5','18','18','<p>5:18 <i>And a<em>rrested</em></i>- Literally, \'laid hands on\'. See on 4:3 <em>They arrested them</em>.</p><p><i>The apostles and put them in prison</i>- Gk. the public or &quot;common&quot; (AV) prison. That point is mentioned perhaps to draw out the similarities with the Lord\'s sufferings, in that the Jews handed Him over to the Roman authorities for punishment; and the Jews here did likewise, handing over the apostles to the Roman public prison.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4354','1','44','5','19','19','<p>5:19 <i>But a<em>n angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said</em></i>- Exactly the same happened to Peter again in Acts 12. This experience in Acts 5, like many of ours, was to prepare Peter for a future, greater experience when he was released from prison in Acts 12. Peter thought he was dreaming, and only realized he was in reality when he &quot;came to himself&quot; (Acts 12:9,11). Perhaps he had been dreaming, or exploring in his subconscious, this previous release from prison. Again we see the verisimilitude of the Biblical record; it is all so psychologically credible. And again, Peter\'s experiences were repeated in Paul\'s life when the prison doors were shaken open by the earthquake at Philippi. This triple opening of prison doors recorded in Acts is of course allusive to the passage in Is. 61:1 which speaks of the Lord Jesus through the Gospel opening the prison doors to a humanity bound by sin. Those early preachers like Peter and Paul were being made to personally realize the radical, liberating power of the Gospel they were preaching.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4355','1','44','5','20','20','<p>5:20 <i>You go and stand and speak in the temple to the people</i>- A reiteration of the great preaching commission.</p><p><em>All the words of this life</em>- It was Peter who had earlier used this phrase in confessing that the Lord Jesus had the words of eternal life (Jn. 6:68). Now Peter is being told to go and speak them forth, at whatever risk to himself, if he really believes what he has said about the words of life. This connection with Peter\'s statement in Jn. 6:68 would explain the otherwise odd phrase &quot;<em>this </em>life&quot;. It\'s as if the Lord is reading Peter\'s mind and saying: \'Yes, you said that My words are the words of eternal life- so go and preach the words of this life\'. And of course it was the Sadducees who denied eternal life and resurrection. Another approach is to understand &quot;this life&quot; as referring to this present mortal life; the only other usage of the phrase is in 1 Cor. 15:19 &quot;If in this life only...&quot;. In this case, the Angel was asking them to go and tell people the meaning of this life.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4356','1','44','5','21','21','<p>5:21 <em>And when they heard this</em>- Demonstrating their immediate response to a difficult request.</p><p><em>I</em><i>n the morning they entered into the temple and taught</i>-Because of their role as <em>teachers</em>, it is understandable that the anger of the first century priesthood was always associated with Christ and the apostles <em>teaching</em> the people (Acts 4:2), in the belief that they were a new priesthood: Mt. 21:33; Lk. 19:47; 20:1; Acts 5:21. The existing priests felt that their role was being challenged. The main priestly duty was to teach God\'s word to the people. A whole string of texts make this point: Dt. 24:8; 2 Kings 17:27; 2 Chron. 15:3; Neh. 8:9; Mic. 3:11. Note too the common partnership between priests and prophets.</p><p><em>But the High Priest came </em><i>and they that were with him, and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought</i>- He &ldquo;came&rdquo; into the place of meeting of the Sanhedrin? Because :25 implies that they did not personally witness the apostles preaching and were not present with them. The senate was &ldquo;of the children of Israel&rdquo;, the wayward sons of Jacob, and not the assembly of Yahweh.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4357','1','44','5','22','22','<p>5:22 <i>But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, saying</i>- The assistants to the Jewish leadership. It was probably the same men who arrested the Lord, bound and abused Him and who had been with Peter in the courtyard of the High Priest\'s house (Jn. 18:3,12,18,22). They would have been waiting there for instructions from the High Priest, and they were likewise at his disposal now. They may have been the very men who had heard Peter\'s fearful denial of his Lord. And now, they were the ones who saw his fearless witness. The source of the change in this man would have exercised their minds, and was surely part of the reason why the Lord told Peter to go back to the temple and continue preaching, knowing that these were the men who would be sent to arrest him or bring him out from the prison. Whereas we would have wished these men every curse for how they treated the Lord, His way was different. He sought to work in their consciences in order to bring them to recognize Him.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4358','1','44','5','23','23','<p>5:23 <i>We found the prison shut in all safety, and the keepers standing at the doors, but when we had them opened, we found no one within</i>- If nobody at all was in the \'prison\', the \'prison\' may therefore refer to a small arrest room. Or perhaps the language is like this to make the whole situation is so similar to the Lord\'s resurrection. For it was men from the same group of soldiers and officers, who were under the control of the Jewish leadership, who had guarded the Lord\'s tomb. And His body had all the same disappeared. They were being led to realize that the Lord\'s followers were like Him; they were as His body. And the Lord works in the lives of our contemporaries to potentially make them perceive the same about us.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4359','1','44','5','24','24','<p>5:24 <i>Now when the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the upshot of all this would be</i>- Surely the same captain of the temple who had negotiated with Judas about betraying the Lord (Lk. 22:4), and who had come to Gethsemane to arrest Him (Lk. 22:52). And note how it is only Luke of all the Gospel writers who uses this term. Luke is making the connection- the apostles were fellowshipping their Lord\'s sufferings. Then, they had run away from Him and saved their skins. Now, they were experiencing what He did whilst they had hidden somewhere. And it would seem it was the same man or men involved. Surely the Lord was knocking at the door of conscience. His multi-layered, patient work on the hearts of men is wonderful to discern, and that same Lord is just as active today.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4360','1','44','5','25','25','<p>5:25 <i>And there came someone that told them: Behold, the men whom you put in the prison are in the temple standing and teaching the people</i>- In exact obedience to the command to go and stand and teach in the temple (:20). It was usual for rabbis to <em>sit </em>and teach; the Lord Himself <em>sat</em> and taught in the temple (Jn. 8:2 cp. Lk. 5:3). But the Lord asks them to <em>stand </em>and teach. Perhaps He wanted them to show that they were not pretending to the rabbis; and that their teaching was radically different, with no pretension to any authority on the part of the teacher.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4361','1','44','5','26','26','<p>5:26 <i>Then went the captain with the officers and brought them, but without violence</i>- Implying they asked the apostles to come with them, and they did without protest; following the spirit of their Lord, whose final sufferings are constantly alluded to in the record here.</p><p><i>For they feared the people, lest they should be stoned</i>- Luke twice uses this phrase about their experience in trying to liquidate the Lord (Lk. 20:19; 22:2). Popular opinion had swayed back the other way again. And a while later, it was to sway against the Christians again, when &ldquo;there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem&rdquo; (Acts 8:1). This is the fickleness of human support.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4362','1','44','5','27','27','<p>5:27 <i>And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying</i>- Gk. \'stood\' them, the same word used of how the apostles stood and taught; and they continued to stand and preach at their trial.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4363','1','44','5','28','28','<p>5:28 <em>We strictly ordered you not to teach-</em> The same words used of how the Lord strictly ordered Peter, James and John not to speak of the things they saw at the transfiguration until after He had resurrected (Lk. 9:21). Now that He had risen, that \'strict order\' was from the Lord to teach... and so the \'strict order\' from the High Priest sets him up as a kind of anti-Christ. And there was no way that the Lord\'s people could do anything else than speak forth their experiences of Him.</p><p><em>In this name</em>- For them, authority was so important. Likewise the Lord had been asked by what authority He taught and cured. And it is likewise difficult for many today to see beyond mere religion and denominationalism, and realize that individuals who have experienced the Lord will therefore teach Him purely on their own private initiative.</p><p><i>And yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and</i>- The reference in the next phrase to guilt for blood makes us think that they were alluding to the two references to how wicked Manasseh &quot;filled Jerusalem with innocent blood&quot; (2 Kings 21:16; 24:4). Condemning the righteous in Biblical terms and through out of context Scriptural allusion is therefore no new thing.</p><p><em>Intend to bring this man\'s blood upon us</em>- Consider how the disciples responded to the High Priest rebuking them for preaching; he claimed that they intended to bring the blood of Jesus upon them. The obvious, logical debating point would have been to say: &lsquo;But <em>you</em> were the very ones who shouted out &lsquo;His blood be upon us&rsquo; just a few weeks ago&rsquo;. But, Peter didn&rsquo;t say this. He didn&rsquo;t even allude to their obvious self-contradiction. Instead he positively went on to point out that a real forgiveness was possible because Jesus was now resurrected. And the point we can take from this is that true witness is not necessarily about pointing out to the other guy his self-contradictions, the logical weakness of his position&hellip; it&rsquo;s not about winning a debate, but rather about bringing people to meaningful repentance and transformation.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4364','1','44','5','29','29','<p>5:29 <i>But Peter and the apostles answered and said:</i> <em>We must obey God rather than men</em>- Something the Jews often said in excusing themselves from obeying various demands of the Roman empire. Peter is trying to reason with them in language they would understand and which had fallen from their own lips in other contexts. The specific obedience to God he had in mind was in preaching the Gospel. He uses the same word a few verses later in saying that the &quot;Holy Spirit... God has given to those that <em>obey</em> Him&quot; (:32). What he meant was that the Spirit had been given to those who obey His command to preach. Peter was alluding to the great commission, which promised the disciples the gifts of the Spirit in their preaching work which was their obedience to that commission.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4365','1','44','5','30','30','<p>5:30- see on Acts 4:20.</p><p><em>The God of our fathers</em>- A common phrase in the Apostolic preaching (Acts 3:13,25; 7:2,45; 13:17; 26:6). They were not seeking to alienate their audience, but rather to bridge build with them, pointing out what they had in common and seeking to build further from that.</p><p><em>Raised up Jesus- </em>His resurrection is an imperative to preach. When Peter is asked why he continues preaching when it is forbidden, he responds by saying that he is obeying God&rsquo;s command, in that Christ had been raised. There was no specific command from God to witness (although there was from Christ); from the structure of Peter&rsquo;s argument he is surely saying that the fact God raised Christ is <em>de facto </em>a command from God to witness to it which must be obeyed. The resurrection of Jesus is itself the command to preach.</p><p><em>Whom you slew, hanging him on a tree</em>- But the Greek separates the slaying and the hanging on the tree. Earlier, Peter had thought that following Christ to the end could be achieved in a quick, dramatic burst of zeal- for surely his desire to &ldquo;smite with the sword&rdquo; in Gethsemane was almost suicidal, and yet by doing so he thought that he would fulfil his promise to lay down his life for Christ&rsquo;s sake. He learnt the lesson, that crucifixion is a way of life rather than just dramatic death; for he said that the Jews had slain Christ <em>and</em> hung Him on a tree (Acts 5:30; 10:39). This seems strange- that they should have killed Him and then hung Him on the tree. Peter has in mind the practice of hanging an already dead criminal on a tree as a warning (Dt. 21:23). Paul appears to make the same mistake in Gal. 3:13, where he too says that the lifting up of Christ on the cross was typified by the lifting up of the already dead body of a criminal. Christ was not dead when He was lifted up- physically. But first Peter and then Paul came to understand that His death was actually in His way of life- so that He was as good as dead when lifted up. He was the dead bronze snake of the wilderness; the flesh had been put to death by a daily life of crucifixion.</p><p>Perhaps the distinction implies the \'slaying\' was an ongoing process in His ministry, crowned by the final hanging on the tree. Paul speaks similarly in Galatians; as if the body was already dead when it was lifted up on the tree; for he quotes the Mosaic law regarding the body of a dead criminal being displayed on a tree as if it was descriptive of the Lord&rsquo;s death (Gal. 3:13 cp. Dt. 21:23). The veil symbolized the flesh of the Lord; and yet in it was woven scarlet, a symbol of His blood and sacrifice (Ex. 27:16), which permeated His mortal life. The lesson is that the cross is a daily way of life. The Lord taught this when He asked us to take up the cross daily: to live each day in the exercise of the same principles which He lived and died by. Let\'s not see spiritual life as a survival of a few crises, as and when they present themselves. It\'s a way of life, and the principles which lead us to the little victories (when we scald ourselves with hot water, when we dirty a newly washed shirt...) will give us the greater ones also, when (e.g.) we stand before a tribunal, or face death in whatever form.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4366','1','44','5','31','31','<p>5:31- see on Acts 2:33; 10:35,36.</p><p><em>Him did God exalt</em>- The same word is used about the lifting up of the Lord on the cross (Jn. 3:14; 8:28; 12:32). God sees time differently to us; He knew the lifting up of His dear son was the basis of His future exaltation. And so the same word is used about His lifting up and His exaltation.</p><p><em>With His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour- </em>This could mean \'to His right hand\'; for it is there that He is Prince and Saviour. These are ongoing jobs- for the Lord is indeed an active Lord, ruling and saving His people. He is a &quot;Prince&quot;, the same word translated &quot;author&quot; in Heb. 12:2- He is the author and perfecter of our faith. He initiates faith, by giving not only forgiveness but repentance to people; and works out the whole process of their transformation and salvation.</p><p><em>To give repentance to Israel and remission of sins</em>- Man cannot truly know God and be passive to that knowledge; he must somehow respond to the God he sees so abundantly revealed to him. And so it is with an appreciation of the height and nature of the exaltation of the man Christ Jesus. This motivates to repentance and conversion, and therefore the man who has himself been converted by it will glory in it, and hold it up to others as the motive power of their salvation too. Acts 5:31 is a clear example. &quot;We are witnesses of these things&rdquo;- in the sense that Peter himself was a witness to the repentance and forgiveness brought about by God&rsquo;s resurrection and exaltation of His Son. Earlier Peter had preached Jesus of Nazareth as &ldquo;made&hellip; both Lord and Christ&rdquo;, and when they heard <em>this</em>, when he reached this climax of his speech in declaring that Jesus was now made <em>kurios</em>, the Greek word that would be used to translate Yahweh, <em>then </em>they were pricked in their heart and repented and desired association with Him in baptism (Acts 2:36-38). Later he boldly declared: &ldquo;Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men i.e. no other name given to any man as this Name was given to Jesus, whereby we must be saved&rdquo; (Acts 4:12). Peter had once struggled with the teaching of the Lord that whoever humbled himself would be exalted (Lk. 14:11). Now he joyfully preached the height of the Lord&rsquo;s exaltation, knowing that by so doing he was testifying to the depth of His humility in His life. Now he valued and appreciated that humility (his allusions to the Lord&rsquo;s washing of feel in his letters is further proof of this).&nbsp;</p><p>Notice that repentance, and not just forgiveness, was \'given\' to Israel. A change of mind was given; and this surely is the gift of a holy spirit or mind. See on Acts 2:33; 10:35,36. But the recipient of the gift still had to respond. In Elijah\'s time, God turned Israel\'s heart back to Him, but they still had to return to Him (1 Kings 18:37). Jeremiah was an example of making good use of the gift of repentance: &quot;Surely after that I was turned, I repented&quot; (Jer. 31:19).<br />The early believers spoke constantly in their preaching of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:21,23; 3:13-15; 5:30,31). The logical objection to their preaching a risen Jesus of Nazareth was: &lsquo;But He&rsquo;s dead We saw His body Where is He? Show Him to us&rsquo;. And their response, as ours, was to say: &lsquo;I am the witness, so is my brother here, and my sister there. We are the witnesses that He is alive. If you see us, you see Him risen and living through us&rsquo;. In this spirit, we beseech men in Christ&rsquo;s stead. Paul in Galatians 2:20 echoes this idea: &quot;I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not <em>my </em>life, but the life which <em>Christ lives </em>in me&rdquo;. The spirit of the risen Christ lived out in our lives is the witness of His resurrection. We are Him to this world. The cross too was something which <em>shone</em> out of their lives and words. They sought to convict men of their desperation, the urgency of their position before God, the compelling nature of the cross, that they were serious sinners; that a man cannot behold the cross and be unresponsive, but rather must appropriate that work and gift to himself through baptism. The urgent appeal for repentance was quite a feature of their witness&nbsp;(2:38; 5:31; 7:51; 11:18; 17:30; 18:18; 20:21; 26:20; Heb. 6:1). May I suggest there needs to be a greater stress on repentance in our&nbsp;preaching, 20 centuries later.</p><p>Our Lord ascended to Heaven <em>so that</em> opportunity of repentance might be given to Israel (Acts 5:31), and <em>so that</em> He might give the Holy Spirit gifts to men (Eph. 4:8-13 cp. John 14-16 explaining how Jesus departed <em>in order</em> to receive the Comforter). It follows that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were given largely in order to convince Israel of the Gospel; and so too around the period of the second coming?</p><p>Note that it was repentance that was given on account of the Lord\'s resurrection and ascension. Not simply forgiveness. The gift of the Holy Spirit that was given on His exaltation was a mental, internal power; it was and is the power to repent. Those who do not repent are therefore stubbornly resisting God\'s powerful desire to see us change. See above on <em>With His right hand</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4367','1','44','5','32','32','<p>5:32 <em>And we are witnesses of these things</em>- Reading carefully, Peter says that he is a witness not only of the resurrection, but of the fact that Jesus is now at God\'s right hand and from that position of power has enabled forgiveness. How could Peter be a witness to <em>that</em>? For he hadn\'t been up to Heaven to check. Quite simply, he knew the extent of his own forgiveness. And so he therefore knew that truly, Jesus had ascended and was there in a position of influence upon Almighty God, to enable forgiveness. His own cleansed conscience was the proof that his belief in the Lord\'s ascension was belief in something true. And yet we ask: does our belief that Christ ascended really have this effect upon us?</p><p>Luke concludes by recording how the Lord reminded His men that they were &ldquo;witnesses&rdquo; (24:48); and throughout Acts, they repeatedly describe themselves as witnesses to Him (Acts 1:8,22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39,41; 13:31; 22:15,20; 26:16). This is quite some emphasis. This Christ-centeredness should also fill our self-perception; that we are witnesses to the Lord out of our own personal experience of Him. They were witnesses that Christ <em>is</em> on God&rsquo;s right hand, that He really <em>is</em> a Saviour and source of forgiveness (5:32); because they were self-evidently results of that forgiveness and that salvation. They couldn&rsquo;t be &lsquo;witnesses&rsquo; to those things in any legal, concrete way; for apart from them and their very beings, there was no literal evidence. They hadn&rsquo;t been to Heaven and seen Him; they had no document that said they were forgiven. They were the witnesses in themselves. This even went to the extent of the Acts record saying that converts were both added to the ecclesia, and also added to Christ. He <em>was</em> His ecclesia; they were, and we are, His body in this world.&nbsp;</p><p>We are &ldquo;witnesses on account of our being in him&rdquo; (Acts 5:32 RVmg.). We are His epistle to men and women; His words of expression consist in our lives and characters (2 Cor. 3:3).</p><p><em>And so is the Holy Spirit, which God has given to those that obey Him</em>- See on 5:29 <em>We must obey God rather than men</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4368','1','44','5','33','33','<p>5:33 <i>But they, when they heard this, were cut to the heart and decided to kill them</i>- They had been reminded that the Lord Jesus was now giving repentance to Israel; He was working in the hearts of Jewish people to bring them to repentance. And they were resisting. No wonder they were cut to the very bone of their conscience. The same word is used of how they were again &quot;cut to the heart&quot; by Stephen\'s appeal to them (Acts 7:54). And they responded the same way- they desired to liquidate the messenger, to destroy the channel of the message. But the message remained. To be twice &quot;cut in half&quot;, as the Greek means, would have left them psychologically shattered. They either repented, or became murderous in their hatred of the preachers.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4369','1','44','5','34','34','<p>5:34 <i>But a Pharisee in the council</i>- See on :17 <em>The Sadducees</em>.</p><p><i>Named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honour by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while</i>- Paul had been his student. Yet Paul differed from him regarding the Christians, for he was for persecuting and destroying them rather than following his teacher\'s advice of leaving them alone (:38). This difference with the respected Gamaliel was surely one of the many goads in Paul\'s conscience that was intended to lead him to accept Jesus as Christ.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4370','1','44','5','35','35','<p>5:35 <i>And he said to them: You men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men</i>- See on 5:39 <em>You might be found to be fighting against God</em>. There is a repeated theme of local authorities being nervous about punishing the Christians (19:36; 22:26; Mt. 27:19). And this was in an age where conscience was not well developed, and there was little justice nor fear of prosecuting people on insufficient evidence. There was simply a sense that somehow God was in all this; and the insistent persecution of the Lord and His people was therefore carried out against all the pricks of conscience, with Saul of Tarsus being the parade example. There is often likewise an undefined sense in our contemporaries that we are somehow of God.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4371','1','44','5','36','36','<p>5:36 <i>For before these days Theudas</i>- The two examples chosen are of charismatic men who attracted followers. Gamaliel is saying that these men should be compared to Jesus of Nazareth, and their followers to His disciples who were now under trial. Gamaliel therefore perceived that the disciples were following a leader- it was that obvious. But the leader was nowhere to be seen. Gamaliel is therefore admitting the possibility that Jesus may have risen from the dead and therefore had attracted followers. The fact he did not close off that possibility completely, and even the Sadducees who denied a resurrection agreed with him (:40,17), is all evidence enough of how the consciences of them all were being pricked. We would rather expect the Sadducees to have responded: \'Well yes, those men were visible men here on earth who attracted a following, but these disciples of Jesus are following a man who doesn\'t exist, seeing we killed Him and the dead do not rise\'. But even they whose advertised position was that there could be no resurrection of anyone... went along with the reasoning and did not make the logical comeback on it. Such was the pressure upon the consciences of these men. No wonder Paul and some of them gave in to it, in accepting that indeed, Jesus had risen.</p><p><em>Rose up</em>- The same word used of the resurrection of the Lord. Again, note that Gamaliel is not closing off the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth had risen; he is saying that others \'rose up\' but in time, came to nothing; and so as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out as to whether Jesus had risen or not. The force of his logic was enough to make the Sadducees, who denied any resurrection, agree with him (:40). And his loyal student Paul was provided with yet another goad in his conscience concerning Christ- for his respected teacher was telling him that it was best to not rule out the possibility that Jesus had risen.</p><p><em>Claiming to be somebody</em>- Luke uses the same words in describing the accusation that the Lord claimed to be the Christ (Lk. 23:2). The similarities are clearly being drawn between the Lord, and these two false leaders.</p><p><em>And a number of men, about four hundred, joined him</em>- This clearly echoes Acts 4:4: &quot;The number of the men the same Greek words are used was about five thousand&quot;.</p><p><em>He was killed</em>- Same word used about the slaying of the Lord Jesus.</p><p><em>And all who followed him </em>- The language used of those persuaded by the cause of Jesus.</p><p><i>Were dispersed and came to nothing</i>- In contrast to the stress in Acts upon the unity of the Christians.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4372','1','44','5','37','37','<p>5:37 <i>After this man, there r<em>ose up</em></i>- See on :36 <em>Rose up</em>.</p><p><em>Judas of Galilee, in the days of the census</em>- Jesus of Galilee also \'appeared\' in the days of the census, as only Luke records. Gamaliel is drawing similarities between these men and Jesus- and leaving the verdict open for the time being, as to whether He had really \'arisen\' and whether following Him was the right thing to do.</p><p><em>And drew away some of the people after him</em>- Exactly as the Jews claimed Jesus had done. The Greek translated &quot;drew away&quot; is used again by Gamaliel in the next verse: &quot;Keep away from s.w. &quot;drew away&quot; these men&quot;. He may be implying that their interest in these men and their invisible Master was in fact leading them to follow Him, to be drawn away after Him. This was an astute psychological observation; he perceived the process going on within his pupil Saul of Tarsus, and he was absolutely correct.</p><p><i>He also perished and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered abroad</i>- This was exactly what happened to the rank and file followers (Acts 8:1,4; 11:19). But Acts 8:1 records that when Saul\'s persecution led to the \'scattering abroad\' of the disciples, the apostles did <em>not </em>scatter. And it was the apostles who were under judgment and are the reference of Gamaliel at this point. Saul was desperately seeking to prove his teacher Gamaliel correct by consciously seeking to scatter the followers of Jesus; but he did not succeed in scattering the apostles. And Gamaliel had reasoned that if this did not happen, then this whole thing was likely of God. The way the apostles didn\'t scatter was therefore another goad in Saul\'s conscience.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4373','1','44','5','38','38','<p>5:38 <i>And now I say to you, <em>Keep away </em></i><i>from these men and leave them alone</i>- See on :37 <em>Drew away some of the people after him</em>.</p><p><i>For if this counsel or this work is of men</i>- Gamaliel\'s reasoning made a deep impression on Paul; for years later he uses the same word in saying that he declared the &quot;counsel of God&quot; (Acts 20:27). Gamaliel had reasoned that this &quot;counsel&quot; was either of God or man; and clearly it was of God. And Paul recognizes this by alluding to his teacher\'s words. The unusual position of Gamaliel, therefore, was surely a goad in Saul\'s conscience. Saul would have carefully noted and thought about his words. Luke has used the same idea in describing the &quot;counsel and deed&quot; of the Jewish Sanhedrin in condemning the Lord to death (Lk. 23:51). Gamaliel is now addressing the Sanhedrin... and so he may be suggesting that the \'counsel and work\' of the Sanhedrin is being compared against the \'counsel and work\' of the apostles, and only time will tell who is of God and who of man. Again, we must note that Gamaliel is open to persuasion that the Sanhedrin may be wrong; he does not condemn the apostles, rather does he urge leaving them alone and leaving time to judge. This very significant position would have irked and concerned Paul deeply, and developed his conscience for Christ. On the basis upon which Gamaliel reasons, I personally would consider it likely that he converted to Christianity. Whilst this appears impossible to prove, it is incidentally the position held within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, where he is revered as a saint. &quot;According to Photius, he was baptized by Saint Peter and Saint John, together with his son Abibo (or Abibas, Abibus) and Nicodemus. The Clementine Literature suggested that he maintained secrecy about the conversion and continued to be a member of the Sanhedrin for the purpose of covertly assisting his fellow Christians&quot;.</p><p><em>It will fail</em>- The same Greek word translated &quot;overthrow&quot; in :39. Gamaliel had surely heard the Lord\'s prediction of the overthrow s.w. of the temple and the Judaism of His day (Lk. 21:6). Again, Gamaliel is heightening the stakes- either Christianity will be overthrown, or the temple will indeed be overthrown as the Lord Jesus had predicted. This heightening of the stakes, and leaving the verdict open, was psychologically a path towards conversion to Christianity. And Paul was goaded down that path, as I suspect Gamaliel himself was.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4374','1','44','5','39','39','<p>5:39 <i>But if it is of God, you will not be able</i>- Gamaliel summarized the issue as being whether it was Judaism or Christianity which was of God or of men. I have mentioned already that Gamaliel is leaving the question open, rather than condemning the Christians; and that this was something which would have deeply exercised the conscience of his pupil Saul. The way Gamaliel\'s words deeply entered Paul\'s consciousness and conscience is reflected by the way in which he later alludes to those words. The choice between being of God or man is reflected in Rom. 2:29, where Paul reasons that a true Jew has commendation &quot;not of men but of God&quot;. This is framed in exactly the terms Gamaliel uses here. This phrase &quot;of God&quot; is very widely used by John in his Gospel and letters, e.g. &quot;We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness&quot; (1 Jn. 5:19). John of course was one of the apostles referred to by Gamaliel; and John too would have heard these words of Gamaliel, and was triumphing in the fact that things had worked out to show that indeed, Christianity was &quot;of God&quot;.</p><p><em>To overthrow them</em>- See on :38 <em>It will fail.</em></p><p><em>You might be found to be fighting against God</em>- Paul would have heard these words, and struggled with them, seeing they came from his respected teacher. He would have realized that indeed he was fighting with God- or as the Lord put it, kicking against the goads. The allusion is surely to Jacob, whose fighting with God in the form of an Angel is therefore read here in a negative light. These &quot;men of Israel&quot;, descendants of Jacob / Israel, were not to be followers of Jacob in his negative aspects.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4375','1','44','5','40','40','<p>5:40 <em>They took his advice</em>- It was unusual for Sadducees to take advice from a Pharisee in this way. See on :17 <em>The Sadducees</em>. The sense that these men might in fact be of God was very strong. Again, the Lord was working on their consciences in an attempt to save even them.</p><p><i>And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go</i>- The same word used about the beating of the Lord, probably at the same hands (Lk. 22:63). Paul uses the same word about how he \'beat\' the Christians &quot;in every synagogue&quot;, and that surely included in Jerusalem (Acts 22:19). His anger at the attitude of his teacher Gamaliel would have been given full vent in beating the Christians. Perhaps Paul even whipped Peter at this time. For Paul was Gamaliel\'s former pupil and was present in Jerusalem at this time. This would explain his deep respect for Peter and what appears to be a desire to follow Peter\'s ministry, in witnessing to the Jews, rather than in developing his own ministry to the Gentiles as the Lord intended. See my comments throughout Acts 20 for more on this. It also makes the more wonderful Peter\'s reference to Paul as his &quot;beloved brother&quot; (2 Pet. 3:15).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4376','1','44','5','41','41','<p>5:41 <i>They therefore d<em>eparted from the presence of the council, rejoicing </em></i><i>that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name</i>- We get the picture of them walking out from those sour faces \'presence\', singing and rejoicing. The Sanhedrin had commanded that they be beaten- so when we read of them departing from the Sanhedrin, this was in order to be beaten. And they went to that beating rejoicing. If indeed Saul was one of those who did the beating see above, and his involvement in the stoning of Stephen makes it likely he was, then this would have been a sight which stayed with him for life. And it would exactly explain why when Paul was beaten at Philippi, he went to prison and sang hymns in the cell. He had probably seen the apostles going to their beating with joy and rejoicing. And he was determined to emulate those fine brethren, especially considering that he himself had been the one who frequently administered such beatings / floggings to Christians (22:19).</p><p>There are about 70 references to there being joy of faith amongst the early brethren. It was undoubtedly a characteristic of the community, despite the moral and doctrinal failures amongst them, the turning back to the world, the physical hardship of life, and direct persecution from the authorities. There was a joy of faith in conversion and in beholding it (Acts 2:41,46; 3:8; 5:41; 8:8; 13:52; 15:3; 1 Thess. 1:6). Letters to new converts like the Philippians reflect this theme of joy, even though it was written from prison. Paul and Silas could sing in prison. The earlier brethren rejoiced that&nbsp;they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Jesus&rsquo; sake (Acts 5:41). Paul rejoiced daily in the fact the Corinthians had been baptized (1 Cor. 15:31). Many a photo taken at baptism reflects this same joy amongst us today. Sower and reaper rejoice together (Jn. 4:36). To hold on to the Truth was described as holding on to the rejoicing of the hope unto the end (Heb. 3:6). &nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4377','1','44','5','42','42','<p>5:42- see on Acts 2:46.</p><p><em>And every day, in the temple and at home</em>- The Sanhedrin were clearly powerless to stop them. But the question arises as to why they felt so powerless? They had twice rebuked them and threatened them... And we wonder whether their lack of power in this case was related to the strange power of conscience which they all had working within them- that in fact, these Christian men were right and they were wrong. Seriously wrong.</p><p><em>T</em><i>hey did not cease to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ</i>- Perhaps the emphasis is on the word &quot;not&quot;. They did not cease as they were asked to in :41.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4378','1','44','6','1','1','<p>6:1 <i>Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose</i><i>- </i>Luke records how the converts were repeatedly &ldquo;multiplied&rdquo; (6:1,7; 9:31; 12:24), using the very word for the &lsquo;multiplying&rsquo; of Abraham&rsquo;s seed as the stars (7:17; Heb. 6:14; 11:12). Every baptism he saw as the triumphant fulfilment of the promises to Abraham, even though many of those who &lsquo;multiplied&rsquo; later turned away. The same word is used again of the multiplying of the new Israel in 6:7, and Stephen surely alludes to this in saying that when Israel &quot;multiplied&quot; in Egypt (Acts 7:17 s.w.), then persecution arose. He is likening the Jewish leadership, with all their strict piety, to Pharaoh. And Saul noticed this point, and on repentance, makes the same point in Romans- that the hardening of the hearts of the Egyptians was as the hardening of Israel\'s hearts. Paul so often alludes to the reasoning of Stephen in his speech.</p>\r\n<p><i>A murmuring </i><i>amongst the Greek speaking Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were</i><i>- </i>This word is used in later appeals for believers not to murmur (e.g. 1 Cor. 10:10). It is murmuring between believers, quiet comments and negative insinuations, which so often stops the powerful advance of the Lord\'s cause. There were dirty politics in the church. The Greek speaking Jews and the Hebrew speaking Jews within the ecclesia started arguing over welfare payments in Acts 6. It was the old tension- the liberals against the orthodox, with the orthodox unwilling to give much of the welfare collection to those they perceived as more liberal. This squabble was tackled by Stephen, and the record then goes on to describe his murder, almost implying that it was Judaist Christians within the synagogues who set him up for this. After all, there was big money involved- Jews were used to paying 10 or 20% of their wealth to the temple, and if this was now going to the ecclesia, with thousands baptized, there could well have arisen a power struggle over who controlled it. It could well be that the division between Paul and John Mark was over this matter; after they had baptized the first Gentile in Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, John Mark went back to the Jerusalem ecclesia (Acts 13:13). Acts 15:38 RV speaks of how he &ldquo;withdrew from them from Pamphylia&rdquo;, hinting at spiritual reasons for his withdrawal. It must also be remembered that Christianity was a new, unregistered religion in the Roman empire, increasingly subject to persecution and discrimination. Judaism was registered and tolerated. It was so much easier to remain under the synagogue umbrella, to deny the radical demands of the Lord Jesus, and to accept Him half-heartedly, in Name but not in reality. &nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><i>Neglected in- </i>Acts 6:1 makes the point that aid to the poor widows was cut off or impaired, because the other believers were arguing amongst themselves. It would appear that the Hebrew Christians went to the temple daily (Acts 2:46), whereas the Greek widows wouldn\'t have done (Acts 7:48,49). So the common theological disagreement about how far the Jewish Law should influence Christian life- resulted in old and needy ladies in the ecclesia suffering. This discrimination would suggest that there was strong dislike of even a whiff of Gentile influence, even amongst the leaders of the church. To accept Gentiles was going to be a very radical thing for them.</p>\r\n<p><i>The daily distribution- </i>Acts 6:1; 2:44; 4:34 imply there were large numbers of very poor people in the church. The Jerusalem ecclesia is an example of how rich and poor were united together. There were clearly wealthy members- Simon of Cyrene owned a farm (Mk. 15:21). Barnabas sold lands (Acts 4:36). Ananias and Sapphira had land. And then there were the middle class. Mary owned a house in Jerusalem and had at least one servant (Acts 12:12-17). Levi was a tax collector wealthy enough to throw a large banquet, implying he had a large home (Mk. 2:13-17). James and John had a fishing business in Galilee that employed day labourers. And then there were the poor. The Lord Jesus and the apostles healed the beggars and diseased, who presumably became members of the church. James the Lord&rsquo;s brother was presumably a carpenter, poor like the Lord was. And yet he was the leader of the early church. Unlike many other religious movements, early Christianity drew its members from right across society; and one of the poorest was their leading light This unity, as we have so often said, would have been their biggest single advertisement. And yet the Acts record artlessly says so little about social or economic class distinctions- precisely because they were not important. Any uninspired writer would have made great capital of this phenomenal feature of the early church.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4379','1','44','6','3','3','<p>6:3 <i>Therefore, brothers, choose from among you seven men</i><i>- </i>James 1:27 may allude here. James defines the essence of Christianity as &lsquo;visiting&rsquo; the fatherless and widows. But the Greek word occurs also in Acts 6:3, translated &lsquo;to look / search out&rsquo;. We are to actually search out others&rsquo; needs, go to them, imagine what they might be in need of and supply it- rather than waiting to be confronted by those needs. It was of course exactly in this sense that God &lsquo;visited&rsquo; us in the gift of His Son.</p><p><i>Of good repute</i>- The qualifications here are alluded to later in the New Testament with regard to who should be appointed to serve in the churches. The early church was not therefore seen as a historical anomaly, a once off phenomenon, but rather a detailed role model for all future churches.</p><p><i>Full of the Spirit and of wisdom</i>- Bezalel and his helpers who constructed the tabernacle are likewise described (Ex. 28:3; 31:3; 35:31,35). The allusion is intended to teach that it was the community of Christian believers, the people, who were now the new tabernacle or temple (cp. 1 Kings 7:14) which the Lord was now constructing. Stephen went to his death for upholding this belief.</p><p><i>Whom we will appoint to this duty</i>- There were no democratic elections. The multitude, the mass of believers, were to somehow come up with seven candidates, and the apostles \'appointed\' them, presumably by their Spirit gifts confirming the choices.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4380','1','44','6','4','4','<p>6:4 <i>But we will continue earnestly in prayer</i>- These are the very words used about the believers generally continuing in prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:42,46). This is true leadership- the style of prayer of the leadership was copied by their converts. We must ask whether our elders are setting such patterns in prayer life.</p><p>The early elders of the Christian church decided that they were spending too much time on practical matters with the result that they weren\'t finding enough time for prayer (:4). And so they made a major re-arrangement to enable them to devote more time to prayer. Let this point sink in: so important was prayer in the early community that the seven deacons had to make arrangements for the practical running of the ecclesia so that they could give themselves more time for prayer; prayerfulness was more important than petty administration. Husbands and wives abstained from sex for short periods so as to more powerfully pray individually (1 Cor. 7:5).</p><p><i>And in the service of the word- </i>A phrase used in contemporary literature to describe how the synagogue minister made pupils memorize Scripture texts. See on Acts 20:35.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4381','1','44','6','5','5','<p>6:5 <i>And the decision pleased the whole crowd; and they chose Stephen, a man</i>- &ldquo;Decision&rdquo; is Gk. <i>logos</i>, translated &quot;word&quot; at the end of :4. The idea may be that the word preached and taught guided the multitude in choosing the seven.</p><p><i>Full of faith a</i><i>nd of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus a proselyte of Antioch</i><i>- </i>The Greek can equally mean \'filled by faith\'. Faith to some extent is a gift from God. The amount of faith in Stephen seems related to the extent of the miracles he did (:8); which would suggest his fullness of faith was on his own account, and also shows that the doing of miracles was related to faith in those doing them.</p><p>These names are all Greek. But it was common for Jews to have both Hebrew and Greek names, so we shouldn\'t too quickly conclude that the appointed brethren were all Greek speakers; that would have hardly been wise in the resolving a dispute between Greek and Hebrew speaking Jewish believers.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4382','1','44','6','6','6','<p>6:6 <i>They set them before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them</i>- See on :3 <i>We will appoint</i>. Laying on of hands speaks of the passing on of Spirit abilities or blessing from one who possesses them to another (8:17; 9:17; 13:3; 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:6; Num. 27:18; Dt. 34:9). The apostles who had Spirit gifts to do work they judged they had no time to do therefore passed them on to the deacons. But they prayed first. The idea is not that they had some power which they gave to others. They prayed- and God gave the power to the deacons. For the Father and Son are the source of such spiritual gifts. There is therefore no power in the believers of themselves; hence prayer occurs together with the idea of laying on hands in most of the references listed above.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4383','1','44','6','7','7','<p>6:7 <i>And the word of God increased-</i> Again, God\'s word is put for the preaching of it (:4); such is the imperative within His word to preach it. The apostles had given a conscious focus upon preaching God\'s word and giving this work utter supremacy over welfare and administrative issues (see on :2). Now this was rewarded. &quot;Increased&quot; is an allusion to the parables of the mustard seed and the sower, where the sown seed of the word \'increases\' (Mt. 13:32; Mk. 4:8). This begs the question as to how that seed would grow further after this initial good response.</p><p><i>And the number of the disciples</i>- These regular updates about numbers suggest that some kind of record was kept of the numbers baptized.</p><p><i>Multiplied greatly in Jerusalem</i>- The large number of converts in Jerusalem laid the basis for the Jerusalem ecclesia, although they kept meeting in the temple initially. Nearly all these converts, being from Jerusalem, would have seen and heard the Lord preaching previously- and rejected Him. We must ever remember that those who hear our message and apparently reject it may very well respond later.</p><p><i>And a great many of the priests</i>- This was a wonderful fruit to the Lord\'s endless efforts for these types. In the last six months, the Scribes and Pharisees repeatedly tried to trick the Lord. But He took the time to answer their questions, seeking to lead them to understanding and repentance- and His denunciations of them were probably softly and imploringly spoken, still seeking for the inevitability of future judgment to lead them to repentance. As the Son of God, walking freely in His Father&rsquo;s house, Jesus didn&rsquo;t have to pay the temple tax (Mt. 17:26,27). He could have insisted that He didn&rsquo;t need to pay it, He could have stood up for what was right and true. But doing this can often be selfish, a defence of self rather than a seeking for the Father&rsquo;s glory. And so He told Peter that &ldquo;lest we should offend them&rdquo;, He would pay it. He was so hopeful for their salvation one day that He was worried about offending these wretched men, who weren&rsquo;t fit to breathe the same air that He did. We would have given up with them; but He worried about offending what potential faith they might have. Even at the end of His ministry, He still sought to convert them. He reasoned with them, using carefully prepared Old Testament allusions in the hope they would understand them, when we would almost certainly either have given up, or would just be gritting our teeth, trying to be patient with them because we didn&rsquo;t want to sin&hellip;but He was full of a genuine, unpretended desire for their salvation. And earlier in His ministry, He had told the cured leper to tell no other man but go and offer for his cleansing, in order to make a witness to the priests. All three synoptics record this, as if it made a special impression on everyone (Mt. 8:4; Mk. 1:44; Lk. 5:14). It could be that the Lord is using an idiom when He told the leper to tell nobody: &lsquo;Go and make a witness <i>first and foremost</i> to the priests as opposed to anybody else&rsquo;. Such was His zeal for their salvation. And the fact that &ldquo;a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith&rdquo; shows how this apparently hope-against-hope desire of the Lord for the conversion of His enemies somehow came true.</p><p>The Lord\'s example is to be ours; He spoke of not making the Orthodox Jews stumble by not paying the tribute; yet He goes on to say that one must beware lest we make the little ones who believe, to stumble (Mt. 17:27; 18:6). Is it not that He saw in Orthodox Jewry the beginnings of faith&hellip;a faith which was to come to fruition when a great company of priests were later obedient to the faith in Him? None of us would have had that sensitivity, that hopefulness, that seeking spirit. It is truly a challenge to us.</p><p><i>Were obedient to the faith</i>- This is ambiguous- it could mean obedience as response to faith, in which case it may refer to baptism; or it could mean obedience to the set of propositions which define the one faith. Because doctrine and practice are linked, the Gospel is something to which man must be obedient- it isn\'t merely a set of academic propositions. It results in &quot;the obedience of faith&rdquo; (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). Probably the greatest temptation for all of us, in all stages of our spiritual career, is to be like Israel of old: to <i>know</i> the Faith, on an abstract, surface level, but not to really <i>believe</i> it in our hearts, and therefore not to act in the way God intends. Paul was aware of this difference; he spoke of us as those who believe <i>and</i> know the Truth (1 Tim. 4:3).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4384','1','44','6','8','8','<p>6:8 <i>And Stephen, full of grace and power</i>- Or, &quot;Full of faith&quot; (AV). See on :5 <i>Full of faith</i>. &ldquo;Grace&rdquo;, <i>charis</i>, is so often associated with the gift of the Spirit. And this is the same &ldquo;grace&rdquo; in essence promised to all in Christ. Grace is a major New Testament theme, and it is deeply associated with the gift of the Spirit. This is a central part of the Christian experience which we cannot deny by simply assuming it refers solely to the miraculous manifestations of the Spirit experienced in the first century.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4385','1','44','6','9','9','<p>6:9 <i>Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen</i>- These were probably Jews or their children who had been taken to Rome as slaves and then been made free on the basis that they were Jews. They were therefore very sensitive to any possible problem with Rome and anything which meant that they were to cease identifying as Jews and identify instead as something else, in this case, the followers of the Lord Jesus and citizens of His invisible Kingdom. Opposition to the Gospel is often from those who perceive, even subconsciously, that they have something to lose, or that their historical positions will have to be rejected.</p><p><i>(Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen</i>- Cilicia is where Paul was from. One wonders if he was involved in some way with these people.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4386','1','44','6','10','10','<p>6:10<i> They were not able to withstand</i>- A clear fulfilment of the Lord\'s prediction in the Olivet prophecy: &quot;I will give you the words and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to contradict&quot; (Lk. 21:15). The preceding context of Lk. 21:12 is relevant to what had just happened to the disciples: &quot;They shall lay their hands on you and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name\'s sake&quot;. The Olivet prophecy of \'the last days\' could therefore have come true in the first century- it didn\'t, because the preconditions for the Lord\'s return were not fulfilled, particularly with respect to Israel\'s repentance.</p><p><i>The wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke</i>- This is one of a series of connections between the sufferings of Stephen and those of the Lord Jesus:</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=4 cellpadding=0>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=432 valign=top>            <p><b>The   Lord Jesus</b><br />            Acts 2:22<br />            Luke 4:22<br />            Mark 12:13<br />            Luke 20:20<br />            Matthew 26:59<br />            Matthew 26:61<br />            Matthew 26:65<br />            Mark 15:20<br />            Mark 14:62</p>            </td>            <td width=432 valign=top>            <p><b>Stephen</b><br />            Acts 6:8<br />            Acts 6:10<br />            Acts 6:11<br />            Acts 6:12<br />            Acts 6:13<br />            Acts 6:14<br />            Acts 6:11<br />            Acts 7:57,58<br />            Acts 7:56</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4387','1','44','6','11','11','<p>6:11 <i>Then they secretly induced men to say</i>- The record of what they did is clearly alluding to how Jezebel set up men to falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy (1 Kings 21:10,13). Later in the book of Revelation, Jezebel appears to be the basis for the description of the Jerusalem temple and its associated Judaism and apostate Jewish Christianity.</p><p><i>We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God</i>- This is parallel with &quot;blasphemous words against this holy place and the law&quot; (:13). They had made \'God\' equal the temple and the law. The external trappings of their religion, even the ultimately true religion, had become as a god to them. We can so easily do the same.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4388','1','44','6','12','12','<p>6:12 <i>And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and</i>- The first reference in Acts to the masses being poisoned against the Christians. Again we see how fickle people are.</p><p><i>Seized him, and brought him into the council</i>- This again is the language of the Olivet prophecy about the situation in the \'last days\' (same words used in Mk. 13:11; Lk. 21:12). The prediction there was that when they were &quot;brought&quot; to councils etc., they should not worry what they were to say, because the Spirit would teach them what to say. We can therefore view Stephen\'s speech in Acts 7 as not premeditated but directly inspired by the Spirit in response to his having been &quot;brought&quot; into the council.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4389','1','44','6','13','13','<p>6:13 <i>And set up false witnesses, who said: This man does not cease to speak</i>- Their case was based around the fact that the Christians had been asked to refrain / cease (Acts 5:28) but Stephen had ignored this. The continued case against the disciples was in defiance of Gamaliel\'s advice; and he was seen as one of Judaism\'s most revered ideologues, even during his lifetime. The council had initially agreed with his advice (5:40). This strange going against his advice after agreeing on it, to the point of one of Gamaliel\'s star pupils orchestrating the stoning to death of Stephen, was and is psychologically noteworthy. There was a power of irrational fear and anger at work, which was clearly rooted in a subconscious recognition that in fact, they were wrong and the Christians were correct. Saul was finally honest and owned up; but it would seem that many others of his peer group spent their rest of their miserable, bitter days kicking against the goads of their conscience. And so it can be today; the anger of religious people is never ameliorated in time, because it is rooted in a fundamental wrong turning in their thinking, and they lack the humility to admit it. And this accounts for the masses of bitter, self-righteous religious folks who go to their deathbeds upholding positions and truths over some curious quirk of thinking, or regarding separation from some supposed false teacher, all because they cannot allow a Damascus road to happen; all because their pride is too great to let them admit that they were wrong.</p><p><i>Blasphemous words against this holy place and the law</i>- See on :11. Paul was doubtless deeply involved in setting up Stephen\'s condemnation. And it is no mere coincidence that he was accused in the same city of Jerusalem of profaning &quot;this holy place&quot; (Acts 21:28 s.w.). This is not mere poetic justice, what goes around coming around. Rather was this one of many Divinely arranged echoes of Stephen\'s sufferings in the life of Paul- for Paul\'s education and spiritual maturity. For after all, he and Stephen shall live eternally together.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4390','1','44','6','14','14','<p>6:14 <i>For we have heard him say, that this</i> <i>Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place</i>- The same word used in the accusation against the Lord that He intended to destroy the temple (Mt. 26:61). The Lord\'s trial was only recent history; it should have been apparent to those men that they were repeating exactly the same pattern of events and accusations against Stephen as they had done against Jesus of Nazareth. And surely they must have feared, albeit unspokenly, that likewise their best efforts to silence the strange power behind these men would also come to nothing. The accusation in a sense was true, because the same word is used by the Lord in the Olivet prophecy, speaking of how the Jerusalem temple was to be \'destroyed\' AV &quot;thrown down&quot;; and the commander of the armies of judgment was the Lord Jesus, according to other teachings.</p><p><i>And shall change the customs which Moses delivered to us</i>- Paul was later accused of teaching Jews not to walk after the &quot;customs&quot; delivered to Moses (Acts 21:21 s.w.). Again, Paul was being led to fellowship with Stephen; just as we are brought to understand the feelings and positions of those whom we have hurt in previous years.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4391','1','44','6','15','15','<p>6:15 See on Acts 7:22.</p><p><i>And all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him</i>- The same word is used of Stephen\'s eyes fastened upon his Lord in Heaven (Acts 7:55). When we too are the focus of others\' hate, or even if that is how it feels or appears; we are to in turn focus upon the Lord above who sees and knows all.</p><p><i>Saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel</i>- Within Judaism, seeing the face of an Angel was felt to be inappropriate for sinful man, and likely to lead to death. Hence Jud. 6:22: &quot;Gideon saw that he was the angel of Yahweh, and Gideon said, Alas, Lord Yahweh I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face&quot;. The implication may be that they felt most unworthy; and they had to drown that sense of guilt by an ever deeper obsession with legalism and casuistry. And their anger understandably grew the greater, even unto death, as they were in the presence of this manifestation of God\'s glory. The obvious image is of Moses, whose face shone with the glory of the Angel, before an Israel who condemned him. And so these men, the leaders of Israel, were as it were looking upon Moses and condemning him. For there is no reason to think that the glory just shone momentarily from the face of Stephen; rather is the implication that as those committee men sat there in their seats, they were beholding the glory shining from Stephen\'s face throughout. And hence he begins his defence by speaking of &quot;the God of glory&quot;- that same glory shining from him- and emphasizes Israel\'s rejection of Moses.</p><p><b>Saul, Paul and Stephen</b><br />As well as John the Baptist, it would seem that Stephen likewise had a deep impact upon Paul. Stephen&rsquo;s condemnation had been because he had reminded the Jews of the fact &ldquo;Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool&rdquo; and therefore the temple was not ultimately relevant (Acts 7:48,49). Yet only a few brief years later, Paul was using the very same words and logic on Mars Hill in Athens. It has been observed that Hebrews particularly has enough conscious points of contact with Stephen&rsquo;s words that it would seem that the author was very familiar with Stephen&rsquo;s words:<br />Acts&nbsp;Stephen&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Hebrews<br />7:2,55&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1:1-3; 2:10<br />7:2-5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;11:8<br />7:2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;11:1-31<br />7:9-36&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3:16; 11:21,22<br />7:38&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 11:1-29 cf. 4:1-3<br />7:46&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 9:11,24 cp. Is. 66:1,2<br />7:39-43,52&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3:7-12<br />6:14&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ch. 1-6&nbsp; <br />Stephen&rsquo;s speech (and perhaps other, unrecorded words of Stephen) became imprinted upon Paul&rsquo;s mind and consciousness. In writing to the brethren he had once persecuted, both consciously and unconsciously Paul was reflecting Stephen&rsquo;s words. A clear example is found in the way Stephen describes Israel as &ldquo;thrusting&rdquo; Moses away from them (Acts 7:39); and Paul is the only other person in the New Testament to use this same Greek word- to describe how although Israel thrust God away from them, yet God did not thrust AV &ldquo;cast away&rdquo; His people from Himself (Rom. 11:1,2). The even unconscious influence of Stephen upon Paul is reflected in the way he speaks of himself as &ldquo;born&hellip; brought up&hellip; educated&rdquo; (Acts 22:2,3)- using the very terms Stephen uses in Acts 7 about Moses. See on Acts 7:43.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4392','1','44','7','1','1','<p>7:1 <i>And the high priest said: Are these things so?</i>- The &quot;things&quot; were the accusations of blasphemy against the temple and Mosaic law. Actually Stephen doesn\'t comment on those issues directly, although he does develop the theme that God has relationships with people in any place, and doesn\'t require a temple for that fellowship with man. Rather is Stephen\'s focus upon Israel\'s historical rejections of the Lord\'s prototypes; and it was this which led to the explosion of bad conscience anger which led to Stephen\'s death. But his murder was therefore not related to the &quot;things&quot; of which he was initially accused.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4393','1','44','7','2','2','<p>7:2 <i>And he said: Brothers and fathers, listen<em>- </em></i>Stephen did not consider the Jews to be somehow not his brethren. This open approach to fellowship with the Jews, despite their misunderstandings and misbelief and aggression, is surely a challenge to all who insist on rigid lines of fellowship demarcation.</p><p><em>The God of glory- </em>See on 6:15<em>. </em>In his famous final speech, Stephen evidently had humming in his mind the theme of the glory of God. He begins by saying that &ldquo;The God of glory appeared&hellip;&rdquo;. God heard that speech, and read his mind. And responded in an appropriate way- for to give Stephen final strength to face death, God made His glory appear to Stephen (Acts 7:55). And so it can be for us- although it all depends what we have humming in our hearts. The context of Stephen\'s speech is his defence against the accusation that he was blaspheming the temple. The Jews considered that God\'s glory was uniquely located within that building; even though there is no evidence that the shekinah glory was visible at that time. Stephen\'s response is that God\'s glory was apparent to Abraham in Gentile Mesopotamia, outside even the limits of the land promised to Abraham. There is the implication in the language of \'appearance\' that Abraham had some kind of a vision of the cherubim glory of Yahweh, although Genesis is silent about that.</p><p><em>Appeared to our father Abraham</em>- Stephen was not merely witnessing against these men. He was appealing for their repentance, and does so by building bridges over what was common ground- in this case, having Abraham as their common father. See on 7:19 <em>Our race... our fathers </em>and 7:26 <em>Gentlemen..</em>.</p><p><em>Before he dwelt in Haran</em>- See on :4.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4394','1','44','7','3','3','<p>7:3 <i>And said to him, <em>Leave your land and your kindred</em></i>- Pointedly omitting mention of &quot;your father\'s house&quot;. Gen. 12:1 records that the Lord had told Abram to leave his country, kindred <em>and</em> his father\'s house, but goes on to say that &quot;So Abram departed&quot; from <em>Haran</em> &quot;as the Lord had spoken unto him&quot; (Gen. 12:4). The implication is that the command which he was given in Ur, was repeated to him in Haran, with the additional information that he must now also leave &quot;your father\'s house&quot;. Stephen is making the point that Abraham\'s \'obedience\' was counted to him by grace; righteousness was imputed to him, when he had a shaky start in his faithfulness. For he left because his father\'s family also left... not because he actually was obedient to the Divine call.</p><p><em>And go into</em>- Gk. \'come here into\'; as if God was already there in Canaan.</p><p><em>The land which I shall show you</em>- According to Heb. 11:8, Abraham embarked on the journey not knowing or Gk. \'understanding\' where he was going. Accurate knowledge of the literal details of the Kingdom whither we are headed is not therefore the issue here; rather is it simple faith in response to God\'s calling. This is what is required at the start of the journey; for Abraham is held up as the pattern for us all. Only later was Abraham \'shown\' the land. The same word is used of how the devil of the Lord\'s own thoughts / temptations \'showed\' Him the future Kingdom of God on earth (Mt. 4:8). Revelation of Divine truth is therefore progressive; after some time leading the disciples, the Lord then \'shewed\' them the details of His sufferings (Mt. 16:21 s.w.), and after His resurrection \'shewed\' Peter more details (Acts 10:28 s.w.) and \'shewed\' latter day events to His followers (Rev. 1:1; 4:1 s.w.). Indeed there are seven references in the visions of Revelation to believers being \'shewn\' things. Even the Father\'s \'shewing\' of things to His Son was progressive (Jn. 5:20). We are not, therefore, to require of those just beginning their journey a comprehensive grasp of the things which have been \'shewn\' to us who have been on the road of faith for some time already.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4395','1','44','7','4','4','<p>7:4 &nbsp;<i>Then h<em>e left the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran</em></i>- Stephen begins by pointing out that the father of Israel, Abraham, was himself weak in faith in response to the promises. He was asked to leave his family and homeland in Mesopotamia- but he didn\'t. His father took him and emigrated from Ur. And only when his father died did Abram move on further. According to Jewish tradition, Abraham was 23 years in Haran. &quot;From thence...<em> God</em> removed him into (Canaan)&quot; (Acts 7:4 R.V.). But if God had <em>forced </em>him to be &quot;removed&rdquo;, Abram\'s response to the promises would not be held up for us as the great example of faith which it is. The call of Abram is an essay in partial response being confirmed by God. <em>God</em> removed him through repeating the promises to Abram in Haran, and the providential fact that Terah died there. The fact that Abram &quot;dwelt&quot; in Haran, despite his call to leave, with his kindred and father\'s house shows a slow reaction to the command to leave those things and go to the unknown land, which by now Abram must have guessed was Canaan- or at least, he would have realized that Canaan was en route to it.</p><p><em>And from there, when his father was dead</em>- Instead of doing as he was told and breaking with his father and immediate family, Abraham was only obedient by default. His father died, and he moved on. And there is historical evidence that there was war at the time and many left Haran in any case due to push factors; rather than Abraham being obedient to the simple words of God.</p><p><em>God sent him </em><i>into this land, wherein you now dwell</i>- The Greek word is only used once again in the New Testament, and again by Stephen, in speaking of how God \'carried away\' apostate Israel into captivity (Acts 7:43). The connection may imply that Abraham was not at his strongest when God carried him away into Canaan. Whatever, the point is surely clear enough that Abraham did not go of his own freewill obedience to Canaan, in response to God\'s clear command to him. Rather did God\'s grace as it were pick him up and take him there. This was an Old Testament example of God\'s Spirit working in the lives of His people to bring about their obedience; and it was that same gift of the Spirit which Peter offered to Israel at this time, speaking of how God would give them not only forgiveness but also even repentance itself- a mental attitude.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4396','1','44','7','5','5','<p>7:5 <i>And He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not enough to set his foot on it, and He promised that He would give it to him in possession and to his seed after him, when he had no child</i>- The Jews were therefore wrong in thinking that their dwelling in Palestine was some kind of fulfilment of the promises to Abraham. For God keeps His promises, and Abraham must therefore be resurrected to receive the inheritance in the Kingdom when it is established on earth at the Lord\'s return. He didn\'t get anything in this life, because he had to even buy a plot of land in which to bury Sarah.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4397','1','44','7','6','6','<p>7:6 <i>And</i> <em>God spoke in this way</em>- Because Stephen is changing the pronouns of the original quotation, and also summarizing the essence of what God was saying. Here we have an example of how extra words and verbal devices had to be used in the absence of anything like square brackets. But Stephen is also mixing quotation with interpretation, as was and is the Jewish way of using Scripture.</p><p><i>That his seed should live in a strange land, and that they would bring them into bondage and</i>- Remember that Stephen is seeking to demonstrate that God\'s presence is independent of sacred spaces such as the temple or land of Israel. Heb. 11:9 surely alludes here by saying that Abraham &quot;went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land&quot; (ESV). These are the same Greek words translated &quot;strange land&quot;. For Abraham, the land of Israel was as a foreign land. And here Stephen speaks of Egypt as a strange / foreign land. The confusion is because in a sense, whilst the land is inherited by Abraham, the whole earth is a foreign land to God\'s people- including the geographical territory of Israel.</p><p><em>Treat them badly</em>- The same word as in :19. But this is the term which is used about how the Jews abused the Christian preachers (Acts 12:1; 14:2; 18:10). What the Jews were doing to Stephen put them in the position of the Gentile Egyptians, persecuting the true Israel of God.</p><p><em>Four hundred years</em>- The idea is that it would be unreasonable to suggest that God had no fellowship with anyone amongst His people for such a s long period as four hundred years. And yet they were away from the supposed sacred space of the land promised to Abraham.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4398','1','44','7','7','7','<p>7:7 <i>And the nation to which they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God<em>-</em></i> This is added because Stephen appears to be summarizing the essence of God\'s word rather than making verbatim quotation.</p><p><em>And after that shall they come out and serve Me in this place</em>- This is neither a quotation from the Hebrew Masoretic text nor from the standard version of the Septuagint. The text of Gen. 15:14 reads: &quot;Afterward they will come out with great wealth&quot;. Apparently Stephen is alluding to Ex. 3:12: &quot;When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain&quot;. Perhaps this is why the \'quotation\' is introduced by the otherwise strange comment that &quot;God spoke in this way&quot; (:6). The essence of what Stephen understood God to say is quoted as if it is actual quotation. This kind of thing is common in Rabbinic exegesis. And yet why does Stephen change &quot;this mountain&quot;, of Sinai, to &quot;this place&quot;, a phrase commonly understood to refer to the temple? The point was that God could be served on a mountain, outside of Palestine, just as much as in the Jerusalem temple. For debate about the temple is the context of the whole speech.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4399','1','44','7','8','8','<p>7:8 <i>And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begat Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs</i>- Covenant relationship with God doesn\'t depend upon sacred space, temples, holy land etc.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4400','1','44','7','9','9','<p>7:9 <i>And the patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph</i>- Stephen is clearly presenting Joseph as a type of the Lord. And Luke has recently used the same word to describe how it was jealousy which led the Sanhedrin and Jewish leadership to oppose the Christians (Acts 5:17).</p><p><em>Sold him</em>- Just as the Lord was \'sold\' for 30 pieces of silver.</p><p><em>Into Egypt</em>- This is one of a number of aspersions that the Judaism of Stephen\'s day was no better than Gentile Egypt, the persecutor of God\'s true Israel. Or it could be that we are to see the brothers as representing the Jews, and the selling or \'handing over\' of Joseph into Egypt speaks of how they handed the Lord over to the Gentiles.</p><p><em>But God was with him</em>- God being <em>meta </em>Joseph is an echo of \'Emmanuel\', God with <em>meta</em> us (Mt. 1:23 cp. Jn. 3:2).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4401','1','44','7','10','10','<p>7:10 <i>A</i><i>nd delivered him out of all his afflictions</i>- The same word used of how the brothers experienced &quot;affliction&quot; during the famine (:11), which brought them eventually to repentance concerning Joseph. God likewise works in our lives, so that we realize first-hand the results of our actions against others. Those who shun and disfellowship and misuse others so often end up having the same done to them; not because God operates some measure-for-measure system of judgment, but rather because He seeks our spiritual growth and sensitivity towards others. What the Jews did to Jesus they were to experience themselves, in essence, in order that they might identify with Him and realize what they had done to Him by feeling it themselves- and repent. But sadly, the Jews of the first century did not respond, even in the afflictions of the Jewish war. Yet Stephen clearly saw Joseph as representative of himself; for he says that Joseph had been given &quot;wisdom&quot;, just as Stephen had been. Stephen\'s hope was that his afflictions at the hands of the Jews would lead to their repentance, and his closing words reflect that hope for them. He had clearly learned deeply from his Lord\'s example on the cross.</p><p><em>And gave him favour and wisdom</em>- The same words used by Luke about the Lord (Lk. 2:52). Stephen is clearly presenting Joseph as a type of Christ, and also seeing in Joseph a representation of himself, who was likewise given grace and wisdom. Perhaps this was how Stephen\'s thought process developed; seeing similarities between himself and Joseph, to whom wisdom was also given, and who was also abused by his brethren; and then realizing that Joseph was a type of the Lord\'s sufferings. And thereby Stephen was led to the realization that the Lord in His sufferings and death was truly his representative.</p><p><i>Before Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt</i>- The Lord is described with the same word, as &quot;Governor&quot; (Mt. 2:6). Joseph\'s exaltation was therefore typical of the Lord\'s.</p><p><em>And all his house</em>- A term used about God\'s house in Heb. 3:2,5, which the Lord Jesus is now &quot;over&quot;. The multiple similarities in phrasing between Hebrews and Stephen\'s speech have led some to suggest Stephen as the author of Hebrews, especially as it appears to be addressed to the Jerusalem ecclesia, or is perhaps a transcript of a sermon given there.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4402','1','44','7','11','11','<p>7:11 <i>Now there came a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction; and our fathers found no sustenance</i>- Note the focus on these two areas. The entire region was affected, according to Genesis; for peoples from all surrounding nations not just Canaan came to Egypt to buy corn. The intention may be to parallel Egypt and Canaan because of the theme Stephen is developing, that there is no holy land or place; and Israel is as Egypt. See on 7:6; 7:7 <em>After that shall they come out and serve Me in this place</em> and 7:9 <em>Into Egypt</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4403','1','44','7','12','12','<p>7:12 <i>But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers the first time</i>- The laboured emphasis upon Joseph being recognized only the <em>second</em> time is to demonstrate that the Lord Jesus would be recognized by the children of Jacob / Israel the second time. We might be able to reason back from this type and conclude that the first time the brothers came to Egypt, they were intended to repent of their sin and recognize Joseph; but their lack of repentance meant that their eyes were as it were closed from perceiving him. The similarity with the Lord Jesus and Israel is of course acute.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4404','1','44','7','13','13','<p>7:13 <i>And at t<em>he second time- </em></i>The Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth is hard to explicitly prove from the Old Testament, without recourse to typology. Even Isaiah 53 describes the sufferings of Hezekiah, who was typical of Jesus. Thus Stephen&rsquo;s defence of his belief in the Messiahship of Jesus rests largely on typology &ndash; e.g. the fact that Joseph/Jesus was rejected by his brethren at first (Acts 7:13).</p><p><em>Joseph was made known to his brothers- </em>Quoting Gen. 45:1 LXX.</p><p><em>And Joseph\'s race became manifest to Pharaoh</em>- Joseph had first been introduced to Pharaoh as a Hebrew (Gen. 41:12). But what the term &quot;Hebrew&quot; meant to Egyptians isn\'t clear; it could mean just \'one from beyond\'. The &quot;race&quot; of Joseph presumably refers to the fact he was one of Jacob\'s sons; and the Jacob family had already become famous as far as Egypt. Yet Joseph had concealed his connection to that family. It may have partly been because of shame at their behaviour, and their disadvertisment for all the Godly principles which Joseph believed in. Or it may be that because God had performed a psychological miracle on Joseph in making him \'forget his father\'s house\' (Gen. 41:51), he simply did not identify himself as from the Jacob family. Stephen may be making the point that when Joseph, like the Lord Jesus, was recognized by his brethren, he was at the same time recognized by the Gentile world likewise for who he really was. And the same will be true at the latter day repentance of Israel; Rom. 11:15 comes to mind: &quot;For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?&quot;.</p><p>Perhaps this continues Stephen\'s theme of demonstrating that the fathers of Israel were themselves weak in faith. Two of the greatest types of the Lord\'s mediatory work are Esther and Joseph. Esther was perhaps ashamed to reveal that she was a Jewess because of her people\'s behaviour, but given their desperate need she did reveal it in order to plead with the King for their salvation. And only when Joseph really had to use his influence to save his brethren did &ldquo;Joseph\'s race become manifest unto Pharaoh&quot; (Acts 7:13 RV). Does the Lord experience the same sort of embarrassment mixed with an urgent sense of our desperation, in His present mediation for us?</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4405','1','44','7','14','14','<p>7:14<em> And Joseph sent and called to himself Jacob his father and all his extended family</em>- Stephen has been developing Joseph as a type of the Lord Jesus. He sees significance, therefore, in Joseph-Jesus \'sending\', <em>apostello</em>, as it were, by the means of apostles; and thus calling Jacob and his brothers to himself. Even in the last minutes of his life, Stephen saw himself as part of this desperate appeal of Joseph-Jesus to the children of Israel. We all have a great example in Stephen\'s desire to \'call to Jesus\' even his persecutors.</p><p><em>Seventy five people</em>- The Hebrew text at Gen. 46:26; Ex. 1:5 and Dt. 10:22 has \'70\'. But the LXX has 75. The difference is because some extra sons of Joseph\'s children Ephraim and Manasseh are recorded in the LXX; they are listed in 1 Chron. 7:14-21: Ashriel, Machir, Zelophehad, Peresh, sons of Manasseh; and Shuthelah, son of Ephraim. Joseph\'s sons were all half Egyptian; his wife was the daughter of a pagan Egyptian priest. Stephen may be reminding the Jews that their fierce claims to ethnic purity were a nonsense; because the very early fathers of the Jewish people were not ethnically pure, but mixed with Gentile blood from the start. Another possibility is that we have 66 people recorded in Gen. 46:8-26; but if we include the wives of Jacob\'s sons, we have 75. I calculate nine wives on the basis that Joseph\'s wife was already in Egypt; and the wives of Judah and Simeon were dead. So we may have here an encouragement to see the value of women, as equally counted amongst the \'founding fathers\'. Or the 66 people may need to have the nine sons of Joseph added to them; these are mentioned only in the LXX of Gen. 46:27 &quot;And the sons of Joseph born in Egypt were nine souls&quot;.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4406','1','44','7','15','15','<p>7:15 <i>And <em>Jacob went down into Egypt</em></i>- Stephen is developing the point that holy land or sacred space is not required for fellowship with God. Hence the Jewish obsession with the temple space was inappropriate.</p><p><em>And he died, he and our fathers</em>- Acts 2:5 has recorded that there were large numbers of Jews from the diaspora who had come to live permanently at Jerusalem in order to die there; and many of them had been baptized. Stephen is making the point that the Jewish fathers themselves died outside the territory of the land promised to Abraham. Clearly those early Jewish Christians were still struggling with the idea that holy space was no longer to be seen so literally, but was now centred in the person and activity of the Lord Jesus.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4407','1','44','7','16','16','<p>7:16 <i>And they were carried back to Shechem, and laid</i>- The focus is very much upon their bodies, because the final fulfilment of the promises to Abraham involved a bodily resurrection of these men in order to eternally inherit the land promised to them.</p><p><em>In the tomb that Abraham bought </em><i>for a price in silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem</i>- The following possibilities have been suggested: &quot;(1) Abraham bought a cave and field in which it stood (Genesis 23:17). (2) Abraham bought another sepulchre, but it is not stated that he bought the field in which it stood (Acts 7:15,16). (3) Years later, Jacob bought a parcel of ground (Joshua 24:32) or a parcel of a field (Genesis 33:19). This was, in all probability, the very field in which Abraham\'s second sepulchre stood, as this field once belonged to the same owners though they may have been miles apart&quot;. We note that despite the shameful behaviour of Jacob&rsquo;s sons to Hamor, God brought about some degree of reconciliation. This gives hope to all who feel stuck, perhaps by their own fault or that of their brethren and relatives, in situations where reconciliation appears impossible.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4408','1','44','7','17','17','<p>7:17 <i>But as the time of the fulfilment of the promise which God made to Abraham drew near, the people grew</i>- The Greek says simply &ldquo;the time of the promise&rdquo; drawing near- putting &lsquo;the promise&rsquo; for &lsquo;the fulfilment of the promise&rsquo;, so sure are God&rsquo;s promises of fulfilment. <br />The promises to Abraham received their major primary fulfilment at the Exodus. Seeing that their ultimate fulfilment will be at the second coming, it follows that the deliverance of Israel from Egypt was typical of this. Or we can read this as meaning that the Abrahamic promises had their potential fulfilment at this time, involving a resurrection to eternal inheritance of the land- but Israel failed to meet the preconditions, and so their fulfilment was reinterpreted and rescheduled, just as was to happen as a result of their rejection of the Lord Jesus.</p><p><em>And multiplied in Egypt</em>- See on 6:1 <em>Multiplying</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4409','1','44','7','18','18','<p>7:18 <i>U</i><i>ntil there arose another king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph</i>- Just as the Jews did not know the Lord in crucifying Him (Lk. 23:34 s.w.).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4410','1','44','7','19','19','<p>7:19 <i>The same dealt craftily with our race</i>- Again Stephen is seeking to bridge build with his audience by stressing what they had in common; see on :2 <em>Our father Abraham</em>.</p><p><em>And ill-treated our fathers</em>- In fulfilment of the prediction mentioned in :6, where the same Greek word is translated &quot;treat them badly&quot;. Luke uses the word of how the Christians were persecuted by the Jews (Acts 12:1; 14:2; 18:10). Again the Jews are being likened to the pagan Egyptians.</p><p><em>Casting out their babies so that they might not live</em>- As the Jews cast out the \'baby\' Christian converts from the synagogues. But the command of Pharaoh was that the people themselves should cast their baby boys into the Nile; the abuse of the Hebrews was in that they were made to cast their own babies into the river; the Greek grammar here supports this. See on :21.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4411','1','44','7','20','20','<p>7:20 <i>At this time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair; and he was nourished three months in his father\'s house</i>- The word is only used in Heb. 11:23, also about Moses. It means just that- handsome, good. The idea that it means \'fair towards God\' is speculation, and at best interpretation rather than translation. It seems a wilful twist of the Greek <em>asteios </em>, a word related to <em>astu</em>, a city, and meaning literally \'urbane\'. Twisting <em>teos</em> \'God\' into <em>asteios </em>is just not permissible; and if we are to read \'fair to God\' then quite simply the Greek would be different. It seems to be the equivalent of Ex. 2:2, where Jochebed noticed Moses was &quot;a goodly child&quot;, the Hebrew <em>tob</em> meaning no more than \'good\' or \'nice\' and with no hint of \'to God\'.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4412','1','44','7','21','21','<p>7:21 <em>And when he was cast out</em>- A related word to that used in :19 &quot;casting out their babies so that they might not live&quot;; see note there. The picture here presented is of Jochebed being technically obedient to the commandment to cast her baby into the river; by gently laying the child in an ark in the river. And it seems that no sooner had she done so, committing the baby to God\'s care, along walked Pharaoh\'s daughter and picked him up out of the water. Stephen describes the &lsquo;putting out&rsquo; of Moses with the same word used in the LXX for what happened to Israel (Ez. 16:5; Ex. 2:3 LXX). Moses is set up as example and representative of his people Israel. Israel is likened in Ez. 16:5 to a child rejected at birth, but miraculously found and cared for, and brought up with every pampered blessing. Just as Moses was.</p><p><em>Pharaoh\'s daughter took him up</em>- She called him \'Moses\' because she had drawn him out of the water (Ex. 2:10). But the Hebrew <em>mashah</em>, \'drawn out\', is used in the sense of deliverance. And this is from whence <em>Mosheh </em>\'Moses\'; the same consonants are in both words. Indeed, the idea of being drawn out of waters means just that (Ps. 18:16). So we are to imagine the baby about to drown, and the princess saving his life.</p><p><em>And nourished him as her own son</em>- Moses would therefore have been next in line to the throne; and he gave up all that for the sake of trying to save a bunch of down and outs who didn\'t appreciate him anyway.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4413','1','44','7','22','22','<p>7:22 <i>And Moses was i<em>nstructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians- </em></i>Moses and Daniel were in such a similar situation; Daniel appears to have slipped away into the shadows whenever he was promoted to greatness in Babylon, and surely he took inspiration from Moses. There are similarities intended to be discerned between our lives and those of others; and we are to respond. Paul says he was &quot;<em>taught</em> according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers&quot; (Acts 22:3) by Gamaliel, receiving the highest wisdom possible in the Jewish world; but he uses the same word as Stephen in Acts 7:22, describing how Moses was <em>&quot;learned</em>&quot; in all the wisdom of Egypt. Paul perceived his Jerusalem education as equivalent to that received by Moses in Egypt; he saw the very doyen of Judaism as no better than pagan Egypt. And Stephen through his allusions likewise had several times suggested that Judaism was no better than paganism. This speech had a huge effect on Paul, even though Stephen would not have noticed anything at the time.</p><p><em>&ldquo;The wisdom</em>&rdquo; is Gk. <em>sophia</em>. The same word is used in the construction which is translated &quot;dealt craftily&quot; in :19; the wisdom of Egypt was to persecute the Hebrews.</p><p><em>And he was mighty in his words and works</em>- The very phrase used by Luke about the Lord (Lk. 24:19). If Moses was indeed handsome (see on :20) and also mighty in words and works, he really would have been very eligible as the next Pharaoh, being the Pharaoh\'s adopted grandson. Moses really did despise so much worldly advantage for the sake of the far less glamorous calling of God. &quot;Mighty in his words and works&quot; is very much the language which has been used to describe Stephen himself in 6:8-10. Stephen took comfort from the rejection of Moses, and saw himself in Moses\' experiences. This is how we too can make Biblical history a living word to us. Indeed, the Biblical examples which Stephen selects include Joseph who were rejected by the children of Israel despite his &quot;wisdom&quot; (:10), and Moses who also had &quot;wisdom&quot; of the Egyptians but was rejected by Israel- and wisdom was the great characteristic of Stephen (6:10). The way God made Stephen\'s face to shine as if he were an Angel (6:15) is effectively showing how God confirms Stephen in feeling as Moses; for the Angel\'s glory shone off the face of Moses too (Ex. 34:29).</p><p>&quot;I am not eloquent (mg. a man of words) ... I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue&quot; (Ex. 4:10); this is how Moses felt he would be perceived, although actually he was formally quite fluent when in the court of Pharaoh (Acts 7:22). Paul would have remembered Stephen saying how Moses was formerly full of worldly <em>wisdom</em> and &quot;mighty in words&quot;. Paul felt that he too had been through Moses\' experience- once mighty in words as the rising star of the Jewish world, but now like Moses he had left all that behind in order to try to save a new Israel from Judaism and paganism.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4414','1','44','7','23','23','<p>7:23 <i>But when he was nearly forty years old<em>- </em></i>It is worth trying to visualize the scene when Moses was &ldquo;full forty years old&rdquo; (AV). It would make a fine movie. The Greek phrase could refer to Moses&rsquo; birthday, and one is tempted to speculate that it had been arranged that when Moses was 40, he would become Pharaoh. Heb. 11:24 says that he refused and chose- the Greek tense implying a one off choice- to suffer affliction with God&rsquo;s people. It is tempting to imagine Moses at the ceremony when he should have been declared as Pharaoh, the most powerful man in his world&hellip; standing up and saying, to a suddenly hushed audience, voice cracking with shame and stress and yet some sort of proud relief that he was doing the right thing: &ldquo;I, whom you know in Egyptian as Meses, am Moshe, yes, Moshe the Jew; and I decline to be Pharaoh&rdquo;. Imagine his foster mother&rsquo;s pain and anger. And then in the end, the wonderful honour would have been given to another man, who became Pharaoh. Perhaps he or his son was the one to whom Moses was to come, 40 years later. After a nervous breakdown, stuttering, speaking with a thick accent, clearly having forgotten Egyptian&hellip; walking through the mansions of glory, along the corridors of power, to meet that man, to whom he had given the throne 40 years earlier.&nbsp;</p><p><em>It came into his heart</em>- God clearly moved Moses to deliver Israel. We see here yet another example of how God can operate directly upon the hearts of men, giving ideas, motivation and even repentance.</p><p><em>To visit his brothers </em><i>the children of Israel</i>- \'Visit\' is a Hebraism for identifying with, and also saving. It is through the Lord\'s representative sacrifice that God ultimately visited and saved His people. Ex. 4:31 is clear that <em>God</em> visited His people at this time; yet He was strongly manifested in Moses, so that what Moses did and desired to do was a manifestation of God. It is Luke who has recorded already how the work of the Lord Jesus was God\'s visiting of His people (Lk. 1:68,78; 7:16); and he later speaks of how God visited the Gentiles through the work of Peter (Acts 15:14). So often, the words of Stephen are alluded to later by Paul, who would have watched and listened with eagle intensity to Stephen\'s words here- and on his conversion, sought to live in the spirit and reasoning of the man he murdered. Paul uses Stephen\'s phrase here when he speaks of his decision to go \'visit his brothers\' where he had previously preached and suffered (Acts 15:36). Such a decision was at great personal risk; for he had faced death and persecution in those cities. His brave desire to return was perhaps motivated by Moses\' brave decision to visit his brothers, at the cost of losing all things in his secular life and endangering his life. But the thought of following Moses in this was first stimulated by Stephen talking about it. And this is how our lives also work out; we may hear a brother talking about a Bible character like Moses, and it later inspires us in a radical, significant life decision.</p><p>&quot;When Moses <em>was grown</em>, he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens... when he was <em>full forty years old</em> it came into his heart to visit his brethren... by faith Moses, <em>when he was come to years</em>, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh\'s daughter&quot; (Ex. 2:11; Acts 7:23; Heb. 11:24). The implication seems to be that Moses reached a certain point of maturity, of readiness, and then he went to his brethren. &quot; ...Moses <em>refused</em> to be called the son of Pharaoh... <em>choosing </em>rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the <em>reproach of Christ</em> greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward&quot; (Heb. 11:24-28). Moses could have been the next Pharaoh; according to Josephus, he was the commander of the Egyptian army. But he walked away from the possibility of being the riches man on earth, he &quot;refused&quot; it, because he valued &quot;the reproach of Christ&quot; and the recompense of the Kingdom to be <em>greater</em> riches. Yet what did he know about the sufferings of Christ? Presumably he had worked out from the promises of the seed in Eden and to the fathers that the future Saviour must be reproached and rejected; and he saw that his own life experience could have a close association with that of this unknown future Saviour who would surely come. And therefore, it seems, Moses counted the honour and wonder of this greater that the riches of Egypt. Both Paul and Moses rejected mammon for things which are abstract and intellectual (in the strict sense): the <em>excellency</em> of the understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross, and the Kingdom this would enable. Living when we do, with perhaps a greater knowledge of the Lord\'s victory and excellency, our motivation ought to be even stronger.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4415','1','44','7','24','24','<p>7:24<i>And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed</i>- It was God who delivered Israel from their Egyptian oppressors (1 Sam. 10:18); but He did so through Moses. Yet Israel would only be oppressed by Gentiles if they were disobedient to the covenant (Dt. 28:29,33, and the word is often used about their punishments at Gentile hands during the period of the judges). But despite that, the God of all grace through Moses avenged His people who were justly suffering for their sins. Stephen is seeking to remove from Israel any sense of national pride at their Exodus from Egypt, and instead see it as a parade example of God\'s pure grace through the raising up of a Saviour in Moses, who looked ahead to Messiah. And yet the profound truth was that it was through the \'oppression\' of that Messianic Suffering Servant on the cross that Israel\'s salvation would be enabled (Is. 53:7). And no wonder then that the brief summary of the Gospel in Acts 10:38 uses the word to summarize the work of the Lord Jesus as delivering the oppressed. Stephen, or the Lord speaking through Stephen, was appealing to the audience on all levels. There were many Rabbinic-trained minds there like Saul\'s, who thought constantly on the level of Scriptural allusion, type and antitype. And these words of Stephen, spoken in perhaps his last minutes of mortal life, succeeded in converting at least Saul.</p><p><em>Striking the Egyptian</em>- The same word used of how the Jews \'smote\' the Lord with death (Mt. 26:31). The point is being developed, as with the language of \'oppression\', that it was through the Lord\'s smiting that He smote the oppressors of His people.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4416','1','44','7','25','25','<p>7:25 <i>And h<em>e supposed that his brothers understood</em></i>- &quot;Supposed&quot; translates <em>nomizo</em>, connected to the noun <em>nomos</em>, \'law\'. The Law of Moses ought to have brought Israel to perceive the Lord Jesus as their Saviour; but for whatever reason, they failed to make that connection.</p><p><em>That God by his hand </em><i>was giving them deliverance</i>- Moses\' hand. But God had told Moses at the bush: &quot;I will stretch out <em>My hand</em>, and smite Egypt....&quot; . Moses had yet to learn the meaning of God manifestation through men; Stephen is bringing out the weakness of the fathers, even Moses.</p><p><em>But they understood not</em>- Another phrase of Stephen\'s that stuck in Paul\'s mind to the end of his days; for on arrival in Rome he lamented that the Jews &quot;understood not&quot; (Acts 28:26 s.w.). Stephen\'s speech is a superb example of powerful preaching that left ideas and words in the minds of his hearers that remained for decades afterwards. The Lord had many times lamented that Israel &quot;understood not&quot;; we can therefore infer that Israel could have accepted Moses\' deliverance the first time. But they thrust him away from them, and there was a 40 year hiatus in the plan of Israel\'s redemption. This was reflected in Israel\'s rejection of the Lord Jesus and then the possibility arising around AD70 for them to accept Him again. It seems from the New Testament that the apostles clearly hoped for that; but again they refused the possibility, and another, longer hiatus has been interposed.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4417','1','44','7','26','26','<p>7:26 <i>And the following day he appeared to two of them</i> <em>- </em>God sent Moses to be their saviour, pointing forward to His sending of the Lord Jesus to redeem us. Moses came to Israel and &quot;shewed (Greek <em>\'optomai</em>\') himself&quot; to them (Acts 7:26). Yet <em>\'optomai\' </em>really means to gaze at, to watch a spectacle. He came to his people, and gazed at them as they fought among themselves, spiritually and emotionally destroyed by the oppression of Egypt. He invited them to likewise gaze upon him as their saviour. This surely prefigures our Lord\'s consideration of our sinful state. As he grew up in Nazareth he would have thought on this a lot. The same word for &ldquo;appeared&rdquo; is used of the Lord\'s appearances after His resurrection, specifically to the \'two\' on the road to Emmaus. Luke has used the word in Acts 1:3 of how the Lord \'appeared\' after His resurrection for 40 days. And it is the same word used of how the risen Lord appeared to Saul soon afterwards (Acts 9:17; 26:16; 1 Cor. 15:8). Surely Saul made the connection.</p><p><em>As they were fighting</em>- \'Striving\'. The same word is used of how the Jews strove amongst themselves over the issue of Jesus as Messiah (Jn. 6:52). The same striving was going on within the consciences of men like Saul and Gamaliel who were listening to Stephen.</p><p><em>And tried to reconcile them</em>- Paul grasped the point, for in his later letters he writes much of how the Lord\'s work and the outcome of His death was fundamentally the ministry of reconciliation between persons. To glorify, create and perpetuate division between brethren is to miss the point of the Lord\'s work.</p><p><em>Saying, Gentlemen, you are brothers</em>- Literally, \'men\'. They were not to be mere men in their relationship with each other, they were to remember that they were brothers and act accordingly. See on :28. Several times Stephen has appealed to the fact that he and the Jews were brothers, with common ancestry; see on 7:2 <em>Our father Abraham</em>. But just as the point was lost on Israel at the time of Moses, so it was in Stephen\'s day; for they stoned him all the same.</p><p><em>Why do you injure each other?</em>- The same word has just been used of how the Egyptian injured the Israelite (s.w. &quot;suffer wrong&quot;). By oppressing and injuring our brethren, we are acting as Egypt. This was a finely reasoned appeal to Stephen\'s brethren not to treat him likewise. And given the kind of minds listening to him, continually accustomed to such a way of reasoning from Biblical words and precedents, the appeal would have struck home. Especially with Saul.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4418','1','44','7','27','27','<p>7:27 <i>But he that did his neighbour wrong</i>- The same word as &quot;injure&quot; in :26; see note there.</p><p><em>Thrust him away</em>- This incident was typical of Israel\'s attitude to Moses in the wilderness years (:39 s.w.). And again, the listening, angry Paul was deeply impressed by the logic. He got the point, that Moses was a type of the Lord Jesus; and he uses the same word in saying that Israel had thrust away the Gospel of Christ (Acts 13:46), although he also marvels at how although they had done this, God had not \'thrust away\' His people Israel (Rom. 11:1,2). God has not treated them as they treated Him through their rejection of Moses and Jesus, who manifested Him.</p><p><em>Saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?</em>- Again there was the question of authority. This was a big issue with the Jews of the first century in their criticisms of both the Lord and His preachers. Stephen is demonstrating that it was this concern with authority which had led Israel to initially reject Moses. The Lord Jesus of course is described with the same words, as the ultimate ruler (Rev. 1:5) and judge. Luke clearly connects with these words by being the only evangelist to record the Lord\'s comment: &quot;Who made me a judge or a divider over you?&quot; (Lk. 12:14). The answer was, \'God\'. The parallels were clearly being developed by Stephen between Moses and the Lord Jesus, and they would not have been lost upon his audience.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4419','1','44','7','28','28','<p>7:28 <em>Would you kill me</em>- Moses had made no threat at all. He had come to save his brethren, not kill them. Later, Israel liked to suppose that Moses and God Himself were some kind of psychopaths who had led them out of Egypt intentionally to murder them in the desert. Legion feared the Lord had come to torment rather than save him (Mt. 8:29). The disciples feared that the Lord didn\'t care that they perished in the storm (Mk. 4:38). Here we have a psychological phenomenon; the saviour is feared to be a destroyer by those he seeks to save. This has been observed from various angles in many studies and observations. The reason is that the group to be saved do not believe that the saviour can save them; and they justify that disbelief by thinking that actually, they are correct in disbelieving him- because actually, he is a deceiver and wishes to kill them. This is why strong opposites of reaction are produced by the challenge to faith which there is in the person of Jesus and in the Gospel. It is why messengers of that Gospel and of Jesus are so strongly slandered by those who disbelieve that Gospel. It is why nobody can stand on some passive middle ground when they encounter the Lord. Here too is the explanation for Saul\'s manic reaction against the Lord, and then such a strong reaction the other way. The very way we are wired means that we respond to salvation either in trust, or in strong reaction the other way. In our witnessing to men and women, we often meet the claim that folks are undecided or indifferent. However politely stated, that is in fact an excuse for unbelief.</p><p><em>As you killed the Egyptian yesterday?</em>- The Hebrew assumed that Moses was going to treat him too as he would an Egyptian. The Hebrew had failed to realize the unique identity of himself as a Hebrew and not as a mere man. See on :26 <em>Gentlemen, you are brothers</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4420','1','44','7','29','29','<p>7:29 <i>And <em>Moses fled at this saying </em></i><i>and went to live in the land of Midian</i>- Ex. 2:14 says that &quot;Moses was afraid, and said, Surely this thing is known&quot;. But Heb. 11:27 gives a different perspective: &quot;By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the anger of the king. For he endured...&quot;. See on Heb. 11:27. It seems that Moses had at best a mixture of motives, or motives that changed over time; yet God sees through his human fear, and discerns an element of calm faith within Moses as he left Egypt.&nbsp;Moses is described as having &quot;endurance&quot; at the time he fled from Egypt (Heb. 11:27), even though in the short term his faith failed him at the time and he fled in fear (Ex. 2:14,15). Yet God counted him as having that basic ability to endure, even to endure through his own failure and weakness.&nbsp;<em>This</em>&nbsp;is what God looks at, rather than our day-to-day acts of sin and righteousness.&nbsp;Stephen emphasizes the weakness of Moses to seek to lead his audience away from national pride and an idolizing of Moses; he wished them to see the prophet greater than Moses, Jesus the Messiah, as indeed greater than Moses. In Judaism, there was and still is a tendency to perceive Moses as the acme of spirituality, far greater than Messiah.</p><p><em>Where he begat two sons</em>- Neither of whom did he circumcise; and their mother was a non-Israelite. Such a person would have been excluded from the synagogues by Moses\' spiritual descendants. Again, Stephen is portraying the weaker side of Moses in order to lead his listeners to a position where they sought the greater than Moses.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4421','1','44','7','30','30','<p>7:30 <em>And when forty years were fulfilled</em>- The language of \'fulfilment\' suggests that God planned the 40 years ahead of time. The suggestion seems to be that God gave them this period as a punishment- for not accepting Moses the first time. Stephen and the early apostles appear to have had the idea that likewise, a 40 year period was being given to Israel to repent after their rejection of the Lord. But even when that was fulfilled, they still refused to repent. The idea of years being fulfilled is using the words used in the LXX for the 70 years judgment upon Judah which was fulfilled (2 Chron. 36:21,22; Jer. 25:12). This confirms us in understanding this period as a judgment upon Israel; their sufferings in Egypt were prolonged by their refusal to accept Moses\' deliverance.</p><p><i>An angel appeared to him</i> <i>i</i><em>n the wilderness of Mount Sinai</em>- The point being once more that sacred space is not only in the temple nor only in the territory of the land of Israel. The wilderness where Moses kept sheep for 40 years was also the same area where he shepherded Israel for the next 40 years. 40 years is a long time; during it, Moses went from being a handsome young man, next in line for the throne, eloquent in words and works... to a man broken by 40 years of manual work in the cruel desert, stuttering, having forgotten Egyptian, needing a spokesman. And then, he was ready for God to use as the greatest leader of His people apart from the Lord. Monotonous experience over decades can be used by the Father to prepare us for another stage of life; whilst we cannot attach specific meaning to event at the time it happens, we can rest assured that there is meaning to event, even if it takes 40 years to realize it.</p><p><em>In a flame of fire</em>- The appearance of the Spirit as flames of fire on the heads of the apostles thereby connected them to Moses; and the Jewish opposition to them made those learned religious men no better than the Egyptians.</p><p><em>In a bush</em>- It is Luke who uses this word in recording how the Lord made the point that figs and grapes, the classic symbols of Israel under blessing, do not come from such thorny bushes (Lk. 6:44). But it was there, in that context and negative associations, that Yahweh revealed Himself as Israel\'s saviour through Moses. And He had done the same in the Lord Jesus whom Israel now likewise despised.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4422','1','44','7','31','31','<p>7:31 <i>And when Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight; and as he drew near to observe</i>- &ldquo;Wondered&rdquo; translates a Greek word which is often used in a negative sense concerning people lacking faith and insight when they should have had it. Another reference to Moses in weakness, preparing the way for presenting Jesus as Messiah as the greater than Moses.</p><p><em>There came the voice of the Lord</em>- Actually of an Angel (:30). But the Angel was spoken of as if it were God, in that it was speaking God\'s voice. In this lies the basis for a correct understanding of the highly exalted nature of the Lord Jesus; not God Himself in a Trinitarian sense, but the supreme manifestation of Him.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4423','1','44','7','32','32','<p>7:32 <em>I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob</em>- The Angel spoke those words; and it would be fair to say that in reality, the patriarchs conceived of God in terms of His Angel. Jacob is quite clear about this in Gen. 48:15,16.</p><p><em>And Moses trembled and dared not look</em>- This is in intentional contrast to the way in which he later spoke face to face with the Angel, as a man speaks with his friend (Ex. 33:11); and with how he had the ambition to ask to see God\'s own glory (Ex. 33:20). The point is that Moses grew spiritually in closeness to the Angel who manifested the Father. And it was such growth in relation to the Lord Jesus which Stephen was urging. See on :34 <em>Come</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4424','1','44','7','33','33','<p>7:33 <i>And the Lord said to him, <em>Take off the shoes from your feet</em></i>- Stephen says that this request came <em>after</em> God had introduced Himself as the God of Abraham etc. (:32). But the order is apparently different in Ex. 3:5,6: &quot;Take your sandals off from your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.<br />Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob&quot;. It could be that the &quot;he said&quot; is to be understood as \'He <em>had </em>said\'. But another alternative is that Stephen was inspired to understand that God introduced Himself twice to Moses; and the first time Moses didn\'t comprehend it. This would fit with Stephen\'s point that Joseph was made known to his brethren the <em>second </em>time; and Moses likewise was accepted by Israel the second time he came to them. And now Stephen would be saying that Moses himself only grasped the manifestation of God in the Angel at the second time. All this of course was prodding the Jewish conscience about their rejection of their Messiah the first time; but at His second appearing, the \'second time\'... they will accept Him.</p><p><em>For the place upon which you stand is holy ground</em>- Literally, in the Greek, \'the holy land\', the phrase beloved of Jews to describe Israel. Stephen was speaking in the context of arguing that the temple was no longer required for worship, house meetings were just as valid; and so he makes the point that a spot of scrubland in the Sinai desert was just as much the holy land as the territory of Palestine and the temple mount itself.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4425','1','44','7','34','34','<p>7:34 <i>I have surely seen the affliction of My people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them; and now</i>- Their groaning was heard by God as a prayer; He sees situations as prayer. Otherwise, if prayer is simply words, then those who are better able to verbalize would have more powerful prayers. But ability to verbalize isn\'t the necessary thing in order for God to hear prayer.</p><p><em>Come, </em><i>I will send you into Egypt</i>- Gk. \'come here\'. The Angel in the bush invited Moses to come closer to Him, whereas Moses &quot;dared not look&quot; (:32). It was his own intimacy to God which would be the basis of Israel\'s salvation; hence the paradox of &quot;Come here, I will send you away into Egypt&quot;. As noted on :32 <em>Moses trembled and dared not look, </em>Moses grew in relationship and intimacy with that Angel, just as he grew in ability to save Israel.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4426','1','44','7','35','35','<p>7:35 <em>This Moses- </em>Israel hated him, they thrust him from them (Acts 7:39); due to their provocation he failed to enter the land. He had done so much for them, yet they bitterly rejected him- &quot;this Moses&quot;, as they called him (Ex. 32:1,23 cp. Acts 7:35). But when God wanted to destroy them and make of Moses a great nation, he pleaded for them with such intensity that he achieved what few prayerful men have: a change (not just a delay in outworking) in God\'s categorically stated intention.</p><p><em>Whom they refused, </em><i>saying: Who made you a ruler and a judge?<em>- </em></i>The same word used of Israel\'s denial or refusing of the Lord Jesus (Acts 3:13,14). The loneliness of Moses as a type of Christ in showing this kind of&nbsp;love must surely represent that of our Lord. They went to a height which was generally beyond the appreciation of the men among whom they lived. The Spirit seems to highlight the loneliness of Moses by saying that at the same time as Moses <em>refused</em> to be called the son of Pharaoh\'s daughter, Israel <em>refused</em> him (the same Greek word is used; Heb. 11:24; Acts 7:35). He was rejected by both the world and God\'s people: for 40 long years. As Israel envied Moses for spiritual reasons (Ps. 106:16; Acts 7:9), so they did Christ (Mt. 27:18), after the pattern of the brothers\' spiritual envy of Joseph (Gen. 37:11). Spiritual envy leading to persecution is quite a common feature in Biblical history (Job, Jeremiah, Paul...). And it isn\'t absent from the Christian experience either. &nbsp;</p><p><em>Him God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer, </em><i>by the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush</i>- &quot;Ruler and judge&quot; becomes &quot;ruler and deliverer&quot;. God fundamentally and essentially wishes to deliver / save rather than to judge. Although Israel rejected Moses as their ruler and deliverer, &quot;the same did God send <em>to be</em> a ruler and a deliverer&quot;. They didn\'t want to be saved from Egypt through Moses, and yet God did save them from Egypt through Moses. Israel at that time were exactly like us; while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, we were redeemed in prospect from a world we didn\'t want to leave. We were saved- and are saved- almost in spite of ourselves. That we were predestined to such great salvation is one of redemption\'s finest mysteries.&nbsp;</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4427','1','44','7','36','36','<p>7:36 <i>This man l<em>ed them out</em></i>- The grammar here might suggest that the completed \'leading out\' was after the 40 years journey, and the AV reflects that. Our path in spiritual life is likewise a leading of us out of Egypt; it is not all achieved at the moment of&nbsp;crossing the Red Sea / baptism. The lead up to the Red Sea crossing was just as much a part of the leading out process. This is why separation from the world and unto the things of the Kingdom is an essential part of our salvation process. And it\'s why that process will involve progressive disillusion and bad experience with the world.</p><p>&quot;He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs... in the wilderness forty years&quot; (AV); yet Ex.12:41; 33:1 say that the bringing out of Israel was at the Red Sea. These two \'bringings out\' of Egypt (the flesh) are experienced by us, firstly at baptism, and secondly in actually entering the Kingdom at the second coming. Our bringing out from the Kingdom of darkness into the sphere of God\'s rulership only occurs in prospect at baptism and must be confirmed at the end of our wilderness wandering.</p><p><i>Having done wonders and signs i<em>n Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years</em></i>- This confirms that the \'leading out\' was both from Egypt and at the end of the wilderness journeys. The wonders done at the exodus were in essence done throughout the 40 years. Thus the cloud in which they were baptized at the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1) continued with them for 40 years. Their baptism in this sense was ongoing, and this idea is repeated in the discourse on baptism in Romans 6.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4428','1','44','7','37','37','<p>7:37 <em>This is the Moses who said to the children of Israel</em>- Implying \'Moses would have believed in Jesus as Messiah if he were here today\'.</p><p><i>A prophet like me shall God raise up to you from among your brothers</i> - A clear statement of the Lord\'s humanity. As the Passover lamb had to be taken out from among the flock, so the Messiah was taken out from amongst His brothers. And Stephen has just stressed that Moses was a man (&quot;This man...&quot;, :36). Messiah was to like him. Yet there was an initial possible fulfilment of this prophecy in Aaron, whom Moses was told would be his prophet (Ex. 7:1), and who was literally one of Moses\' brothers. Aaron could have been the Messiah figure, but failed. Again we are introduced to the idea of conditional prophecy; which was highly relevant to Israel at that time. If they accepted Jesus as Messiah, then prophecies would be fulfilled- but if they did not, then those prophecies would have another and more difficult for Israel outworking.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4429','1','44','7','38','38','<p>7:38 <i>This is he that was i<em>n the congregation in the wilderness- </em></i>The ecclesia, the church. We find Moses as a type of Christ also presented as representative of Israel, and therefore able to completely sympathise with them in their physical afflictions and spiritual weaknesses. Thus the Spirit says (in the context of presenting Moses as a type of Christ) that Moses was &quot;<em>in</em> (not &quot;with&quot;) the ecclesia in the wilderness&quot;, stressing the way in which he was in their midst rather than distanced from them.&nbsp;The Lord Jesus is portrayed in Acts as very much &quot;in&quot; the church, active and present just as much as Moses was. Paul\'s later reasoning in 1 Corinthians 10 about the church in the wilderness is yet another example of how the reasoning of Stephen remained with him over the years, and he developed the ideas.</p><p><em>With the angel- </em>Acts 7:38 (especially the Diaglott translation) speaks as if the Angel was physically present with Moses on the journey, and was as much in the congregation as Moses was: &quot;He (Moses) was in the church in the wilderness with the Angel which spake to him in the Mount Sina and with our fathers&quot;. In passing, this implies that it was the same Angel (Michael) who gave the promises to Abraham, who gave the Law, and who went with them through the wilderness. Truly He is the Angel connected with Israel Stephen\'s point was that like the Angel in the wilderness, the Lord Jesus was no less \'in\' the early church although mostly invisible.</p><p><em>That spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers</em>- But their \'fathers\' didn\'t want the Angel to speak with them directly, and wanted Moses alone to meet God on Sinai. This was the stock they were descended from; and it was no pedigree to be proud of. Stephen is implying that the descendants of those \'fathers\' were likewise not willing to listen to the voice of God; or as Hebrews puts it, they turned away from Him who spoke from Heaven (Heb. 12:25- Hebrews might have been written by Stephen).</p><p><i>Who received living words to give to us</i>- God\'s word is unlike any human word; it has the ability to speak to subsequent generations directly in their context. In this sense, the words given to Moses were also given to Stephen\'s generation, and spoke to them of Jesus. Just as the record of Jacob\'s wrestling with the Angel is God speaking to us today (Hos. 12:4). Moses trembled and Sinai shook and the people fled when they heard God\'s word. &quot;God\'s voice was heard at Sinai: the same voice spoke in the Psalmist\'s words. But the appeal stands written in Scripture and therefore Paul can say that &quot;Today&quot; is a time with limits, but it was yet &quot;today&quot; when the Hebrews was written and Paul repeats the word of the Psalmist as God\'s voice to the Hebrews of his day. It is significant that Paul immediately adds that &quot;the word of God is living and powerful&quot;. The words he quoted were no dead message but God\'s living voice&hellip; The exhortation &quot;My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord&quot; was God speaking &quot;unto you&quot;, says Paul to the Hebrews. Is it less so to sons of any generation?&quot; John Carter, <em>Delight In God\'s Law</em>, pp. 232,233. Heb. 12:5 alludes to this idea of a living word by speaking of an Old Testament passage as \'reasoning\' (R.V.) with us. The Lord Jesus spoke of how the spiritual man is to live by every word which proceeds (present tense) from the mouth of God (Mt. 4:4); as if He perceived God\'s words written in the book of Deuteronomy to be &quot;proceeding&quot; from God\'s very mouth in an ongoing sense. Moses speaks of how God says to each dying man &quot;Return, you children of men&quot; (Ps. 90:3)- as if Moses understood to speak the words of Gen. 3:19 to every man who dies. Likewise the Lord spoke as if the Jews of His day ought to be&nbsp;<em>hearing</em> Moses and the prophets speaking to them in urgent warning (Lk. 16:31); yet despite studying their words syllable by syllable, the Jews didn\'t in fact perceive it was a living word speaking to them directly and urgently. Abel, through the account of him in Scripture, &quot;is yet spoken of&quot; (Heb. 11:4 AVmg.). Isaiah was prophesying directly to the hypocrites of the first century, according to the Lord in Mk. 7:6 RV. There is an active quality to the words we read on the pages of our Bibles. The passage in the scrolls that said &quot;I am the God of Abraham&quot; was &quot;spoken unto <em>you</em> by God&rdquo;, Jesus told first century Israel (Mt. 22:31). Note in passing how demanding He was- expecting them to figure from that statement and usage of the present tense that God considered Abraham effectively still alive, although he was dead, and would therefore resurrect him. Although God spoke to Moses alone in the mount, Moses stresses that actually God &quot;spake unto <em>you</em> in the mount out of the midst of the fire&quot;. The word of God to His scribes really is, to the same gripping, terrifying degree, His direct word to us (Dt. 4:36; 5:45; 10:4). This explains why David repeatedly refers to the miracle at the Red Sea as if this had affected him personally, to the extent that he could ecstatically rejoice because of it. When Dt. 11:4 speaks of how &quot;the Lord has destroyed the Egyptians unto this day&quot;, it sounds as if we are to understand each victory and achievement of God as somehow ongoing right down to our own day and our own lives and experience. Thus Ps. 114:5,6 RV describes the Red Sea as even now fleeing before God&rsquo;s people. And thus because of the records of God\'s past activities, we should be motivated in our decisions now.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4430','1','44','7','39','39','<p>7:39 <em>Our fathers would not be obedient to him- </em>The early church was &quot;obedient to the faith&quot; (Acts 6:7 s.w.). Again Stephen is demonstrating the weakness of \'our fathers\', whom the Jews were so proud of.</p><p><em>But thrust him from them and turned back in their hearts to Egypt</em>- Stephen stresses the way in which Moses was rejected by Israel as a type of Christ. At age 40, Moses was &quot;thrust away&quot; by one of the Hebrews; and on the wilderness journey the Jews &quot;thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt&quot; (Acts 7:27,35,39). This suggests that there was far more antagonism between Moses and Israel than we gather from the Old Testament record- after the pattern of Israel\'s treatment of Jesus. It would seem from Acts 7:39 that after the golden calf incident, the majority of Israel cold shouldered Moses; their hearts, their thinking, was back in Egypt, reminiscing about Egyptian food... Once the point sank in that they were not going to enter the land, these feelings must have turned into bitter resentment. They were probably unaware of how Moses had been willing to offer his eternal destiny for their salvation; they would not have entered into the intensity of Moses\' prayers for their salvation. The record seems to place Moses and &quot;the people&quot; in juxtaposition around 100 times (e.g. Ex. 15:24; 17:2,3; 32:1 NIV; Num. 16:41 NIV; 20:2,3; 21:5). They accused Moses of being a cruel cult leader, bent on leading them out into the desert to kill them and steal their wealth from them (Num. 16:13,14)- when in fact Moses was delivering them from the house of bondage, and was willing to lay down his own salvation for theirs. The way Moses submerged his own pain is superb; both of their rejection of him and of God\'s rejection of him from entering the Kingdom.</p><p><em>&ldquo;Turned back&rdquo; suggests a</em>n anti \'conversion\', which is how the word is elsewhere translated. We meet the word again in :42, where in response to this turning back, God in response likewise turned back from Israel. There is a mutuality in response between God and man, and yet overarching that there is also His grace and continued enthusiasm to save even those who turn away from His offer.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4431','1','44','7','40','40','<p>7:40 <em>Saying unto Aaron</em>- Their desire for the golden calf was part of their mental return to Egypt; it was surely an Egyptian idol deity.</p><p><em>Make us gods</em>- They made a singular calf, but understood it as a plurality; a many-in-one god. This is classic paganism, and is reflected in the false doctrine of the Trinity to this day.</p><p><em>That shall go before us</em>- The constant, visible presence of the cloud and fire leading them failed to register. Visible miracles seem to have little effect in bringing people to spirituality. They wanted to be led back to Egypt and needed a leader through the trackless waste to get back there. Yet they had leadership going before them through the desert towards the promised land. Clearly, people choose a form of leadership which they perceive will lead them to where they themselves want to go. If the Bible and the living word of the Lord Jesus are our chosen guides, then we are to follow wherever they lead, rather than choosing leadership which takes us where we ourselves would wish to go in the short term. So many struggles over church leadership today come simply back to this.</p><p><em>As for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him-</em> Their concern was that the trackless desert required a guide. They wilfully chose to ignore the fire and cloud leading them, and chose instead to focus on the man who was their leader. This happens today; people excuse not following God\'s word and Spirit direction because of their issues with the human leadership. Luke may be making a connection with the way he uses the same word for \'led out\' in speaking of how after His resurrection, the Lord led His people as far as Bethany and then ascended to Heaven, becoming their invisible leader (Lk. 24:50).</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4432','1','44','7','41','41','<p>7:41 <i>And they made a calf i<em>n those days</em></i>- The days Moses was in the mount.</p><p><i>And brought a sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their hands</i>- A phrase used about idols several times; :43 stresses that they &quot;made&quot; the idols. Trust in our own works is therefore a form of idolatry; Stephen is saying that although the Jews were strictly against idols, their justification by works was a form of idolatry, just as it can be today. The doing of works becomes an addiction and a form of justification rather than simple faith in Christ. They &quot;rejoiced&quot; in what they had made, whereas earlier at the Exodus they had rejoiced in God\'s grace of salvation towards them.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4433','1','44','7','42','42','<p>7:42 <i>But <em>God turned and gave them up to serve the host of heaven</em></i>- On their journey to Canaan, the Israelites worshipped idols. Because of this, &quot;God turned, and gave them up (over) to worship the host of heaven... I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts&quot; (Acts 7:42; Ps. 81:12 AVmg.). God reached a stage where He actually encouraged Israel to worship idols; He confirmed them in their rejection of Him. And throughout their history, He encouraged them in their idolatry (Ez. 20:39; Am. 4:4). God will confirm us today in whichever way we chose to go. See on :39 <em>Turned back</em>.<br /><i><br /><em>&ldquo;Gave them up to serve&rdquo; </em></i>implies that God held them back from worshipping the idols they had carried with them. But then He withdrew this psychological restraint. This is evidence enough that God is able to work in the hearts of men in order to hold them back from sinning, as He did even with gentile Abimelech. This is one of the many functions of His Holy Spirit; their behaviour is specifically described in :51 as resisting the Holy Spirit.</p><p><i>As it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?<em>- </em></i>Stephen pointed out, by the inflection which he gave to his OT quotations, that Israel\'s service of God was meaningless because at the same time they worshipped their idols: &quot;<em>Have you offered</em> to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?&quot;. This was a rhetorical question. They offered the sacrifices, but actually they didn\'t. And what is the difference between &quot;slain beasts&quot; and &ldquo;sacrifices&quot;? Aren\'t sacrifices only slain beasts? The point is that the animals they gave were only slain beasts; nothing more, not real offerings, not real, acceptable sacrifice. &quot;They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the Lord accepteth it not&quot; (Hos. 8:13). And likewise we can dress up our devotions with the appearance of real sacrifice when there is nothing there at all.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4434','1','44','7','43','43','<p>7:43 <i>You took up t<em>he tabernacle of Moloch- </em></i>Ezekiel 20 describes how Israel took the idols of Egypt with them through the Red Sea; indeed, they lugged a whole pagan tabernacle system with them through the wilderness, in addition to the true tabernacle (:43,44). This of course is a warning to us who were as it were baptized also at the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1). Are we carrying two tabernacle systems with us or more on our wilderness journey?&nbsp;</p><p><i>And the star of the god Remphan, figures which you made to worship</i>- See on :41 <em>The works of their hands</em>. These were in contrast to the &quot;figure&quot; of the tabernacle (:44). It was an anti-tabernacle which they carried, just as all false religion is a fake imitation of the true and just as the anti-Christ is not a person so much against Christ (although he is that), but a fake imitation of Him.</p><p><em>And I will carry you away- </em>As they had carried their idols. There is a mutuality between God and man in how God responds to human sin.</p><p><em>Beyond Babylon</em>- Paul&rsquo;s relationship with Stephen becomes even more acute when we reflect upon how Stephen says that Israel were taken into judgment to <em>Babylon</em>. He is quoting here from Amos 5:26, which in both the LXX and Masoretic text says that Israel were to go &ldquo;to Damascus&rdquo;. Why does Stephen purposefully change &ldquo;Damascus&rdquo; to &ldquo;Babylon&rdquo;? Was it not because he knew there were many Christians in Damascus, and he didn&rsquo;t want to speak of &lsquo;going to Damascus&rsquo; as a figure for condemnation? And yet <em>straight afterwards</em> we are reading that Saul &lsquo;went to <em>Damascus</em>&rsquo; to persecute and kill the Christians there. It&rsquo;s as if Saul was so infuriated by Stephen&rsquo;s subtle change that he wanted to prove him wrong; he would &lsquo;go to Damascus&rsquo; and not be condemned, rather he would condemn the Christians there, and make it <em>their</em> place of judgment. This suggestion may seem farfetched. But we have to remember the Pharisaic way of reasoning and thinking. Every phrase of Scripture was so valuable to them, and major life decisions would be made over one nuance of the text or interpretation of it. No wonder that in later life, Paul alludes to his dear friend Stephen so much. What a joy it will be to see them meet up in the Kingdom.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4435','1','44','7','44','44','<p>7:44 <i>Our fathers had t<em>he tabernacle of the testimony i</em></i><i>n the wilderness, even as He who spoke to Moses</i>- The contrast is with the tabernacle of Moloch which they also carried with them. The &quot;testimony&quot; implies an evidence, a witness. There was no such witness in the false tabernacle. This is the word commonly used for the testimony or witness of the early preachers (Acts 4:33 and often in Paul\'s letters). This testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was ignored by the Jews of Stephen\'s day just as Israel in the wilderness preferred the witness of Moloch\'s tabernacle which was in fact not a witness at all, for it was a silent assembly of materials and nothing more. The hint was that this was all the Jerusalem temple now amounted to, for the Lord had left that house desolate; the glory had departed from it. To draw a parallel between the Jerusalem temple and the tabernacle of Moloch was a radical thing to do. No wonder Saul and his colleagues were cut to the heart and beside themselves with anger.</p><p><em>Appointed</em>- The tabernacle of Moloch was not &quot;appointed&quot; by God. Saul was paying attention to every word; for the Lord then appeared to him and &quot;appointed&quot; <em>him</em> to do the work of <em>His </em>tabernacle (Acts 22:10 s.w.). And by doing so the Lord was inviting Paul and all of us to see Moses not as an icon to be worshipped from a respectful distance, but as a realistic pattern for our own path.</p><p><em>T</em><i>hat he should make it according to the figure that he had seen</i>- See on :43 <em>Figures which you made</em>.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4436','1','44','7','45','45','<p>7:45 <i>W</i><i>hich also our fathers, in their turn</i>, <em>brought into the land with Joshua</em>- Joshua is the same Hebrew word as \'Jesus\'. Joshua-Jesus and the &quot;fathers&quot; brought in the tabernacle into the place previously possessed by Gentiles. I suggest that the tabernacle now referred to people, God\'s dwelling place. The Lord used the same word, so Luke alone records, of how those previously excluded from the temple were to be \'brought in\' by Him and His servants (Lk. 14:21). The \'fathers\' therefore equate with the servants of Jesus; the tabernacle is the new system of worship. Paul was later accused of bringing in Gentiles to the temple (Acts 21:28,29 s.w.). As the &quot;fathers&quot; along with Joshua-Jesus brought the tabernacle into the holy space of the land of Israel, so the early Jewish Christians along with the active Lord Jesus were to bring Gentile converts into the new holy space- not a literal space, but the temple of God\'s invisible church and spiritual temple. It was all just too much for the listening Judaists. That those fishermen believers-in-Jesus could be equivalent to the &quot;fathers&quot;, that the crucified Jesus was as the historical Joshua, that the Gentiles were as the ark, that holy space no longer counted... it was all too much. The intensity and depth of Stephen\'s allusions were increasing as he progressed in his apparently innocent recounting of Israel\'s history. And when men are spiritually and intellectually cornered, they descend to personal attacks, in this case to the extent of throwing Roman law to the winds and picking up stones to stone Stephen to death with.</p><p><i>When they received possession of t<em>he nations that God thrust out before the presence of our fathers</em></i>- Stephen has just drawn a parallel between the early Jewish Christian preachers, many of them illiterate manual workers, and the &quot;fathers&quot; at the time of Joshua-Jesus. And now he says that the Gentiles were cast out before them; the implication was that the Judaist elders were no better than the Gentile inhabitants of Canaan, who were now being cast out of the holy space. The Lord had literally cast out such persons from the holy space of the temple. Saul\'s conscience was badly goaded at this point; but the point was not lost on him. For in the years of his repentance, he wrote of how just as Gentile Hagar was &quot;cast out&quot;, so Judaism had been cast out from God\'s true family (Gal. 4:30).</p><p><em>To the days of David</em>- At first blush, a strange detail to add; that the process of casting out the Gentile tribes from the land was only completed by David, many generations later. The &quot;fathers&quot; hadn\'t done the job; they were not the peerless elders Judaism liked to imagine. And it was David, a clear type of Messiah, whose &quot;son&quot; was to be Messiah, who actually completed the job. The Lord Jesus was likewise doing the same- completing the job of casting the Judaists out of God\'s holy space because He had redefined that holy space.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4437','1','44','7','46','46','<p>7:46 <em>Who found favour in the sight of God</em>- The grace he found was in that he was given the honour of being the \'father\' of Messiah; the Messianic promises of 2 Sam. 7:12-14 were given to David. Luke forces the point home by using the very same words as to how Mary &quot;found favour in the sight of God&quot; (Lk. 1:30), and was chosen to be the woman through whom the Messianic promise to David came true.</p><p><em>And asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob</em>- David\'s desire to &quot;find&quot; a temple for God was matched by how he &quot;found&quot; (s.w.) grace with God. As we learn in 2 Sam. 7, God turned around that desire to \'find\' something for Him by saying that He would \'find\' something for David, namely the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah, being directly a &quot;son of David&quot;. Stephen is setting up the position that all the argument about the temple as holy place was deeply and Biblically misplaced; because God wanted to give Israel His Son, rather than have a temple. And the Judaists were back in the initially mistaken mindset of David, focusing on the physical temple rather than the spiritual house centred in God\'s Son, the true temple. Stephen clearly read negatively Solomon\'s insistence on building a physical temple.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4438','1','44','7','47','47','<p>7:47 <em>But it was Solomon who built Him a house</em>- Stephen was accused by the Jews of blaspheming the temple. In reply, he gives a potted history of Israel, emphasizing how the faithful were constantly on the move rather than being settled in one physical place. He was subtly digging at the Jewish insistence that the temple was where God lived. In this context, he refers to Solomon\'s building of the temple in a negative light. He says that David tried to find a <em>tabernacle </em>for God, &quot;<em>But</em>&nbsp;Solomon built him an <em>house</em>. <em>Howbeit</em>&nbsp;the most High dwelleth <em>not</em>&nbsp;in temples made with hands; as says the prophet, Heaven is my throne... what house will you build me?&quot;. This cannot mean \'God no longer dwells in the temple as He used to before Christ\'s death\', because the reason given is that the prophet Isaiah says that God cannot live in houses. This reason was true in Isaiah\'s time, before the time of Christ. It would seem that Stephen is politely saying: \'Solomon made this mistake of thinking that God can be limited to a physical building. You\'re making just the same mistake\'. And he goes on to make a comment which could well allude to this: &quot;You do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers (including Solomon) did, so do you&quot; (Acts 7:51). Further evidence that Stephen saw Solomon\'s building of the temple in a negative light is provided by the link between Acts 7:41 and 48: &quot;They made a calf... and rejoiced in <em>the works of their own hands</em>... howbeit the Most High dwells not in temples <em>made with hands</em>&rdquo;. The word &quot;made&quot; is stressed in the record of Solomon\'s building the temple (2 Chron. 3:8,10,14-16; 4:1,2,6-9,14,18,19,21). The work of the temple was very much produced by men\'s <em>hands</em>&nbsp;(2 Chron. 2:7,8). Things made with hands refers to idols in several Old Testament passages (e.g. Is. 2:8; 17:8; 31:7). Significantly, Solomon\'s temple is described as being made with hands in 1 Chron. 29:5. And it may be significant that the words of Is. 66:1,2 concerning God not living in temples are quoted by Paul with reference to pagan temples in Acts 17:24, and concerning the temple in Jerusalem by Stephen. The building of the temple became an idol to Solomon. Human motives get terribly mixed.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4439','1','44','7','48','48','<p>7:48 <em>However</em>- Stephen read Solomon\'s building of the temple negatively; see on :47. It was even an example of resisting the Holy Spirit (:51).</p><p><em>The most high dwells not in houses made with hands</em>- Note that it was God\'s clearly expressed wish that He should <em>not</em> live in a physical house (2 Sam. 7:12-16; Acts 7:48; 17:24). Yet He accommodated Himself to human weakness in wanting a physical house in which to worship Him; He came and lived (in a sense) in just such a house. In the same way, He did not wish Israel to have a system of human kingship; but when they insisted upon it, He worked with them through it. Just as He does with our wrong decisions.</p><p><em>As said the prophet</em>- Again the quotation from Is. 66:1,2 is not exact but a summary of God\'s intended sense, quotation mixed with interpretation, as was the habit of Jewish rabbinic interpreters. But the context of Isaiah 66 is of God\'s final message to Judah, telling them that now God is not interested in their rebuilding of Solomon\'s temple, because as the sun began to go down on the prophets, He was now going to focus upon relationship with individuals rather than a formal temple presence.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4440','1','44','7','49','49','<p>7:49 <i>The <em>Heaven is My throne</em></i>- See on :48 <em>As said the prophet</em>.</p><p><em>And the earth a footstool for my feet</em>- As noted on Acts 2:35, God\'s footstool is the place where He is to be worshipped. His worshippers on earth are therefore in view here, and not the literal planet earth in a geographical sense. God wanted hearts as His footstool, not anything physical.</p><p><em>What manner of house will you build Me? </em><i>says the Lord; or what is the place of My rest?</i>- This is a rhetorical question. The sense is not \'You cannot build Me a house\'; rather is it a question- what kind of house do you think I want? And the answer was: A dwelling place in hearts who believe in God\'s Son. Likewise &quot;what is the place of My rest?&quot; is rhetorical. The <em>topos</em> or holy space is not the Jerusalem temple nor the land of Israel; it is in the hearts of believers in God\'s Son. Hebrews 4, whether written by Paul or Stephen, surely alludes to this point by using the same word for &quot;rest&quot; in describing how Christians are entering the &quot;rest&quot; but Judaism is as Israel fallen in the wilderness, who did not enter into the rest promised.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4441','1','44','7','50','50','<p>7:50<em> Did not My hand make all these things?</em>- God lives in what He &quot;makes&quot;, and not in temples made by human hands (:48). Through the agency of the Spirt, God was and is preparing human hearts to be His \'making\'. Paul repeats this reasoning in Acts 17:24 and 2 Cor. 5:1; Stephen\'s very last words before his death struck home and reaped a great harvest in the heart of that angry man called Saul who was listening. And whoever wrote Hebrews, be it Paul or Stephen, says precisely the same (Heb. 9:11,24). The similarities between Hebrews and Stephen\'s speech are many, and they are not just verbal similarities. It\'s as if Stephen\'s thoughts have been developed further. I would therefore suggest that Hebrews is not Stephen\'s letter; it appears to be a further development of his last words. The appropriate author, although we cannot be dogmatic, would seem to me to be Saul / Paul. The verbal similarities have led some to assume it must be Stephen; but it makes more sense to me to realize that this was written by someone who had memorized and developed Stephen\'s speech throughout his life. And Paul is to me the compelling candidate.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4442','1','44','7','51','51','<p>7:51 <em>You stiffnecked- </em>The reference is to how God wished to destroy a &quot;stiffnecked&quot; Israel and make of Moses another people of God (Ex. 32:9; 33:3,5; 34:9). The message contained in that one word &quot;stiffnecked&quot; was lengthy and powerful. The only other time we read of being stiffnecked and uncircumcised in the same verse is in Dt. 10:16; and again there is the point made that circumcision is of the heart more than the flesh: &quot;Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked&quot;. This was an appeal to Israel. Stephen\'s allusion shows that he was not merely imprecating against the Judaists who surrounded him. He was appealing to them to change, so that they might enter the land of God\'s Kingdom. His hopefulness, up to his last words in this world, is amazing. His passion to save at least some of those hard hearts paid off, with the conversion of the worst of them, Saul, to become one of the Lord\'s greatest servants. See on &quot;hearts and ears&quot; below. &quot;Stiffnecked&quot; is formed from the word <em>sklero</em>, &quot;hard&quot;. The Lord uses just that word in telling Saul that it is &quot;hard&quot; for him to kick against the goads. A stubborn ox is literally stiffnecked. The Lord saw that this whole reasoning about being stiffnecked and uncircumcised had struck home in Saul\'s heart. And so He continues the allusion in further appealing to him. He does the same likewise with us in life and the encounters with verses in His written word which He leads us to.</p><p><em>And uncircumcised</em>- To call the circumcised Jews uncircumcised, when circumcision was for them the sign of Divine covenant, was just too much. Stephen is now making explicit what he has been saying earlier by way of allusion and implication- they were no more than Gentiles. And again, the listening, fuming Saul was deeply touched; for later he writes of how circumcision is a matter of the heart and not of the flesh; indeed, this is quite a theme with Paul (Rom. 2:28,29; Eph. 2:11; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11). Each time he thought and wrote about it, he would\'ve remembered how the dying Stephen had made this point, and how furious he had been to hear it. We see in Paul\'s references to circumcision how he had not only taken note of Stephen\'s words, but had taken the reasoning further. Seeing Hebrews is so full of reference to Stephen\'s words <em>and developments of his reasoning</em>, it seems to me that Paul is the likely author; and the letter is addressed to Hebrews, perhaps to the Jerusalem ecclesia, who would have known Stephen.</p><p><em>In heart and ears</em>- They &quot;stopped their ears&quot; (:57). They refused the appeal Stephen was making to circumcise their hearts and ears, even at that late stage. Circumcision was to be not only of the heart, but of the ears. Circumcision of ears may seem a strange idea, at first blush. Stephen is saying that the sign of covenant relationship with God is how we hear; as his Lord had taught, &quot;Take heed how you hear&quot; (Lk. 8:18; again, it is Luke who records this). The circumcised ear will hear God\'s word; and the relevance of this otherwise throw away word &quot;ears&quot; is in that Stephen has been appealing to the Jews from the basis of Israel\'s well known history. He was asking them to hear that familiar Scripture with circumcised ears; and they refused. At least, right then at that moment they did.</p><p><em>You do always- </em>This could just mean \'earnestly, strongly\'. But the idea of regular resistance to the Holy Spirit could refer to their refusal to hear the real Spirit of God\'s word as they regularly read it and encountered the incidents from Israel\'s history in their Bible study. For the Holy Spirit was the agency behind the writing of the Bible. See above on &quot;hearts and ears&quot;.</p><p><em>Resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you</em>- See on :42 <em>Gave them up to serve. </em>The allusion is to Is. 63:10 LXX: &quot;But they disobeyed, and provoked his Holy Spirit: so he turned to be an enemy, he himself contended against them&quot;. This resistance of the Spirit as we read the word of the Spirit, refusing to see the points the Lord is making to us, can be our failure too. The Jews were so proud of being descendants of the &quot;fathers&quot;. But as demonstrated throughout this commentary, Stephen has been pointing out the weakness of the Jewish fathers, and he appeals to them to now have a different Father- God.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4443','1','44','7','52','52','<p>7:52 <em>Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?</em>- Stephen here and in :51 speaks of &quot;your fathers&quot; whereas earlier in his address he spoke repeatedly of &quot;<em>our</em> fathers&quot; (Acts 7:2,11,12,15,19,38,39,44,45). But having tried to build that bridge between himself and his audience, by speaking of their common ancestry, he now makes the appeal for radical change- to disown what those fathers <em>did</em>. Saul, who was intently listening, was guilty of persecuting the Christians (Acts 22:4 s.w.). And the Lord continues Stephen\'s appeal to him by asking him on the Damascus road: &quot;Why do you persecute Me?&quot; (Acts 9:4,5 s.w.). Note that every prophet was persecuted- even if we don\'t read about (e.g. Jonah- although maybe it was Jewish persecution which disinclined him to preach to Gentiles).</p><p><em>And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One</em>- Peter had used the same word in Acts 3:28: &quot;The things which God foretold s.w. by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled&quot;. Stephen may be taking this further in suggesting that the reason they killed such prophets was because the message of a suffering, dead Messiah was so deeply unacceptable to the Jews. Stephen is demonstrating that the Jews\' implacable hatred of Jesus of Nazareth was therefore seamlessly in line with the attitude of an Israel whom God had rejected. The message of Christ crucified cannot be received dispassionately; it forces a reaction, either of humbled acceptance, or anger, even passive anger, but all the same anger- because the human conscience has been touched in a way nothing else can touch it. And that anger is directed at the one who brings the message, for he or she is the human face of Jesus to them. It is Luke alone who records how the Lord Jesus on the cross was &quot;the just one&quot; (Lk. 23:47 s.w.).</p><p><em>Of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers</em>- Judas the singular betrayer was an embodiment of all the Jewish opposition. I suggest this is the key to understanding how the \'satan\' or adversary of Jewish opposition entered into Judas. I develop this theme further in \'The Jewish Satan\' in <em>The Real Devil</em>. The Jews doubtless rationalized the Lord\'s death by feeling that the Romans had done it. But the early preachers repeatedly lay the blame for it upon the Jews; hence Stephen says that they had each one murdered their Messiah; for he speaks of &quot;murderers&quot; in the plural. This demonstrates that \'going along\' with a seriously wrong position can be counted by God as actually performing the crime.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4444','1','44','7','53','53','<p>7:53 <i>You who received t<em>he law as it was ordained by angels</em></i>- That Angels gave the Law is clear from Dt. 33:2 LXX; Ps. 68:17; Gal. 3:19 and Heb. 2:2. But why mention it? Perhaps because the listening Jews were seeing Stephen\'s face as if were an Angel (Acts 6:15). As Israel turned away from the law given by Angels, so they were turning away from the new covenant being presented to them by an Angel.</p><p><em>And did not keep it</em>- That Jewish audience were convinced they were obedient to Torah. To be told they were not, because they didn\'t accept their own Messiah... was the last straw. For the argument here is that to reject Jesus as Messiah was to break the Mosaic law; for obedience to that law was intended to bring people to Messiah. Note that the Mosaic law was designed to bring people to Christ not so much through studying the various types of Christ it contains, but through practically seeking to obey it. That process would bring people to accept Jesus as the Christ; but the fact they didn\'t mean they had not properly kept it. Paul was influenced by these words of Stephen when he wrote that the circumcised do not keep the law s.w., Gal. 6:13.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4445','1','44','7','54','54','<p>7:54 <i>Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart<em>- </em></i>See on Acts 5:33 &quot;Cut to the heart&quot;.</p><p><em>And they ground their teeth at him- </em>Such language must surely connect with the oft repeated description of the rejected gnashing their teeth at the judgment (Mt. 8:12; 13:42,50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30); as if those Jews acted out their own rejection by their attitude to the word in this life. Judgment is ongoing now, in its essence. As Stephen\'s enemies &quot;gnashed on him with their teeth&quot;, his Biblical mind would therefore have raced to Job 16:9, describing the behaviour of the wicked towards the faithful: &quot;He tears me in his wrath, who hates me: he gnashes upon me with his teeth&quot;. The context goes on: &quot;Now, behold, my witness is in heaven and my record is on high&quot; (v. 19). Surely Stephen had thought ahead to this, for as his enemies gnashed their teeth against him, &quot;he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God&quot; (Acts 7:56). He looked up to Heaven and saw His witness, faithful and true, standing there as he expected.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4446','1','44','7','55','55','<p>7:55 <em>But he, being full of the Holy Spirit- </em>This is twice earlier stated of Stephen (Acts 6:3,5). Those passages suggest this was a permanent characteristic of Stephen (as Acts 11:24 &quot;a good man and full of the Holy Spirit&quot;). So whilst this phrase could mean that Stephen was given a special gift or revelation of the Holy Spirit in his time of final crisis and death, it could also mean that it was because of his Spirit filled life that he saw visibly what he had previously only seen by faith- his Lord Jesus standing at God\'s right hand in Heaven. Likewise if we live a spiritual life, hour by hour, then that same Spirit is powerfully available to us in our times of crises.</p><p><em>Looked up earnestly into heaven</em>- See on 6:15 <em>Fastening their eyes on him</em>.</p><p><em>And saw the glory of God</em>- This made Stephen equal to the revered prophets like Elijah, Moses and Ezekiel who had seen such visions of the cherubim and beheld the shekinah glory. What was so desperately and obviously absent from the Jerusalem temple was just this- the shekinah glory. It was what the Jews so earnestly wished they could see there. But God\'s presence and fellowship was simply not with them. But Stephen now saw it- and not in the holy space of the temple\'s holy place either.</p><p><em>And Jesus</em>- It is normal in the New Testament to describe the risen Jesus with some title, such as &quot;<em>the Lord</em> Jesus&quot;. The simple &quot;Jesus&quot; directs attention to His humanity; and Stephen reflects this by referring to Him as &quot;the son of man&quot; (:56). The Lord\'s humanity was a great encouragement for Stephen in his most desperate human need, just as it is for us. This is a powerful practical outcome of understanding that the Lord was of our human nature and not &quot;very God&quot;. I have observed that whenever the humanity of the Lord is spoken of, His highly exalted status is often juxtaposed with it. So many proof texts misused by Trinitarians are located right next to the clearest statements of the Lord\'s humanity. And so the reference to &quot;the son of man&quot; is not merely a statement of His humanity, but is an allusion to the Daniel 7 vision of the &quot;son of man&quot; coming in judgment in the clouds of Heaven (as Stephen saw Him in the &quot;glory of God&quot;).</p><p><em>Standing </em><i>on the right hand of God; and he said<em>- </em></i>In his time of dying, Stephen saw the Lord Jesus <em>standing </em>at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). But about 13 times in the New Testament, the point is made that the Lord <em>sits</em> there, unlike the Mosaic priests who <em>stood</em> (Heb. 10:12). The Lord Jesus was passionately feeling for Stephen; and He just as emotionally and passionately feels for us in our struggles. This alone should lift us out of the mire of mediocrity. Prayer will have meaning and power. It won&rsquo;t just be the repetitious conscience-salver it can descend into. Many of those 13 NT references to the Lord being seated at the right hand of God are in Hebrews; and this again encourages us to see Hebrews as Paul\'s deeper reflections upon Stephen\'s speech. This would especially be the case if the Jews in the council actually saw something of what Stephen saw.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4447','1','44','7','56','56','<p>7:56- see on Acts 2:33-36.</p><p><em>Look, I see </em><i>the heavens opened</i>- The implication is that if they lifted their eyes, they too could see what Stephen was seeing. It was a desperate appeal for their repentance in his final seconds. He so wanted them to see the Lord Jesus as he saw Him. Stephen\'s passion for the conversion of his enemies is simply matchless. They refused- rather like the earlier elders of Israel were invited to witness the theophany of God coming down on Sinai, but refused; asking Moses to go alone and hear and see it.</p><p><em>And the Son of man</em>- See on :59,60 and :55 <em>Jesus</em>.</p><p><em>Standing on the right hand of God- </em>The allusion could be to a witness or judge standing. As the human judge condemned Stephen- presumably by standing up to condemn him as usually happened in law courts (Acts 7:56 cp. Is. 3:13)- the Lord Jesus stands up in the court of Heaven as intercessor for Stephen. And this happens time and again in our lives, as and when and if we suffer the abuse of human condemnation and misjudgement. Although condemned by an earthly court, he confidently makes his appeal before the court of Heaven (Acts 7:56). Doubtless he was further inspired by the basic truth that whoever confesses the Lord Jesus before men, He will confess him before the angels in the court of Heaven (Lk. 12:8).</p><p>Hebrews- and I have suggested this letter is Paul\'s extended reflections upon Stephen\'s speech- invites us to see Christ as <em>sitting</em> there in Heaven, unlike the nervous High Priests of old on their annual entry into the Holiest <em>standing. </em>The fact Stephen saw the Lord <em>standing</em> at God\'s right hand suggests that He arose from His usual position, caught up, as it were, in the passion of mediation for His suffering servant. Robert Roberts began his life of Christ in <em>Nazareth Revisited</em> with the simple statement that &quot;Christ is real&quot;. Indeed He is real in our lives, actively passionate for us, just as He was for Stephen. And we must ask with the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his final writings at the time of death in a Nazi prison: &quot;Who is Christ for us today?&quot;.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4448','1','44','7','57','57','<p>7:57 <em>But</em>- I suggest this means that they ignored Stephen\'s appeal to \'behold\' the vision of the risen Lord which he was seeing. The power and reality of the Lord Jesus was subsumed beneath a wave of legalism and anger at injured positions and the desperate desire to deny that... they might just have been wrong. And so the real Christ has been obscured, it seems to me, to so many angry legalists, even Christian ones.</p><p><em>They cried out with a loud voice</em>- Not, as we might expect grammatically, \'with loud voices\' in the plural. They were united, and that unity is stated later in the verse- they &quot;rushed upon him with one accord&quot;. Just as Pilate and Herod, and the warring Jewish factions, were united in the condemnation of the Lord Jesus. Their unity, and crying out with a loud voice as the Lord did on the cross, all makes them a kind of anti-Christ, a synagogue of satan. The very words are used of how Stephen &quot;cried with a loud voice&quot; (:60). They were no longer merely folks who held a different theological view; their conscious rejection of God\'s appeal in Christ made them an utterly false system which merited only complete destruction.</p><p><em>And stopped their ears</em>- See on :51 <em>Heart and ears</em>.</p><p><em>And rushed upon him with one accord</em>- The very same words used of how the Jews did the same to Paul and his brethren (Acts 19:29). This means that what Saul and his then brethren did to Stephen, was done to Paul. He came to realize how it felt. And the Lord leads us to the same realization, not to punish us, but to lead us to self-understanding and eternal unity with our brethren whom we have hurt.</p>');
insert into `nev_dcomm` (`id`, `active`, `book`, `chap`, `startverse`, `endverse`, `html`) values('4449','1','44','7','58','58','<p>7:58 <i>And t<em>hey threw him out of the city and stoned him</em></i>- The very words used by Luke about the Lord\'s experience at the hands of His own brethren in Nazareth (Lk. 4:29) and of how the Son is thrown out of the vineyard and killed in Lk. 20:15. Baptism identifies us with the Lord\'s death, and thereby His sufferings become replicated in all of us who are in Him. Stephen quotes his Lord\'s dying words as his own dying words, reflecting his grasp of what was going on- he was indeed sharing his Lord\'s sufferings with which he had willingly identified throughout his life in Him. So the \'throwing out of the city\' was arranged by God to stimulate Stephen to see the similarities between him and his Lord, just as such events are brought into our lives, clearly beyond our control. But then we must use our own freewill to develop that identification, and Stephen does this by quoting the Lord\'s dying words as he himself died. Although the stoning of Stephen was clearly done in hot blood and with no regard to local law nor to Biblical law, the Jews still wanted to show obedience to the principle of stoning the condemned outside the camp. I have repeatedly drawn attention to the similarities between Acts 7 and Hebrews, which I suggest is Paul\'s reflection upon Stephen\'s words and example, and presented initially to the Jerusalem ecclesia. The appeal to go forth with the Lord Jesus &quot;without the camp&quot; (Heb. 13:13) surely continues this impression; we are to be followers of Stephen insofar as he was of the Lord Jesus. If indeed \'St. Stephen\'s gate\' in Jerusalem is correctly located where Stephen was taken through to his death, he would have been dragged over the Kedron and through the garden of Gethsemane, thus encouraging his willing identification with his Lord\'s final sufferings. See on :60 <em>knelt down</em>.</p><p><em>And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul</em>- The implication is surely that Paul was responsible for the stoning, or facilitated it in practice. Paul later was stoned unto death (Acts 14:5), and through this he learnt how his actions to Stephen had actually felt. This was far more than a poetic justice for the sake of it; it was to enable Paul to understand himself and the meaning of his own positions and actions. The Lord works likewise in our education. There is another allusion from Hebrews here- we are surrounded by a great crowd of &quot;witnesses&quot; and should therefore \'lay down\' everything that impedes us from doing the Lord\'s work (Heb. 12:1). These are the same Greek words as used here about the witnesses who laid down their clothes. Paul had been one of those witnesses. The laying aside of garments recalls Aaron\'s death on Mount Hor, and there may be the hint that they were now resigning their priesthood and spiritually dying, outside the promised land.</p>');
