THE PROPAGATION IN ASIA MINOR AND EUROPE
THROUGH PAUL'S MINISTRY AND HIS COMPANIONS (28)
Read and Pray: "The following night, the Lord stood by him and said: Be of good cheer! For as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome." (Acts 23:11)
ENCOURAGED BY THE LORD
Acts 23:11 says: "The following night, the Lord stood by him and said: Be of good cheer! For as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome." The Lord was living all the time in Paul essentially (Gal 2:20). Now, to strengthen and encourage him, He stood by him economically. This shows the Lord’s faithfulness and care for His servant.
The word of the Lord in 23:11, about Paul solemnly testifying about Him in Jerusalem, indicates that the Lord admitted that the apostle had borne a solemn witness to Him in Jerusalem. Testimony differs from mere teaching.
To give testimony requires experiences of seeing, participating, and enjoying. The ascended Christ did not want to use a group of preachers trained by human teaching, doing a preaching work to carry out His heavenly ministry, aiming at His propagation, so that the kingdom of God would be established for the edification of the churches, for His fullness. He wanted to use a Body of His witnesses, martyrs, who would bear a living testimony of the incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ.
Witnesses bear a living testimony of the resurrected and ascended Christ in life. They differ from preachers who preach mere doctrines in letters. In His incarnation, Christ carried out His ministry on earth, as the Gospels record. He did so by sowing Himself as the seed of the kingdom of God, only in the Jewish land.
In ascension, He carries out His ministry in the heavens, as Acts records, through witnesses in His resurrected life and with the power and authority of His ascension to spread Himself as the development of the kingdom of God, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, as the fulfillment of His ministry in the New Testament. All the apostles and disciples in Acts were such witnesses of Christ.
As we will see, in 26:16, Paul testified that the Lord had made him a minister and a witness. A minister aims at ministry; a witness aims at testimony. Ministry mainly relates to the work, to what the minister does; testimony relates to the person, to what the witness is.
Satan could instigate the Jewish religious leaders and use the Gentile politicians to bind the apostles and their evangelical ministries, but he could not bind the living witnesses of Christ and their living testimonies. The more the Jewish religious leaders and Gentile politicians bound the apostles and their evangelical ministry, the stronger and brighter those martyrs, those witnesses of Christ, and their living testimonies became.
The Lord in 23:11, by appearing to the apostle, indicated that He would not rescue him from chains but would leave him in chains and take him to Rome so that he could testify about Him as he had done in Jerusalem. The Lord encouraged him to do this.
In 23:11, the Lord told Paul that he would testify about Him in Rome. This would fulfill Paul's desire, expressed in 19:21, to see Rome. Later, both the Lord's promise and Paul's desire were fulfilled. Paul was strengthened and encouraged by the Lord’s word in verse 11. That word assured him that the Lord would safely take him from Jerusalem to Rome. Assured by that clear word from the Lord's mouth, he knew he was going to Rome and there would bear witness to the Lord Jesus.
THE CONSPIRACY OF THE JEWS
Acts 23:12-15 describes the conspiracy of the Jews against Paul. In verses 12 and 13, we read: "And when it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. Now there were more than forty who had formed this conspiracy." The conspiracy in verses 12 to 15 manifested the falsehood and satanic hatred (Jn 8:44; Mt 23:34) present in the hypocritical religious leaders of Judaism.
In these verses, we see how furious the Jews were against Paul and the hatred they had for him. The forty Jews who entered into conspiracy were perhaps young. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, "We have bound ourselves under a curse that we will eat nothing until we have killed Paul. Now you, along with the Sanhedrin, notify the commander to bring him down to you, as though you were going to make further inquiry concerning him; and we are ready to kill him before he comes near." (Acts 23:14-15).
Literally, the Greek terms translated as "we have bound ourselves under a curse" mean "we have cursed ourselves with a curse." It is a very emphatic expression. It seems that the forty conspirators were saying that if they could not kill Paul, they would not live any longer. They likely intended to kill him within twenty-four hours. Their plan was to ambush him when he was brought to the chief priests and elders for further investigation.
Enjoy more: Hymn 122
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