Acts 17:5-7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But the Jews which believed not, &c. Although many Jews at Thessalonica received and heartily embraced the truth, there were many who rejected it, and that, as it afterward appeared, with much malignity of heart. For the great success which Paul had in converting the idolatrous Gentiles, raised the envy and indignation of the unbelieving Jews to such a pitch, that, transported with a blind and furious zeal, they hired (των αγοραιων τινας ανδρας πονηρους) certain dissolute fellows who frequented the market-place, and were prepared to do any thing, however bad, for a small reward. These gathered a company Collected a mob; and soon set all the city in an uproar Threw it into the greatest confusion; and assaulted the house of Jason Where Paul and his assistants lodged; and sought to bring them out to the people Whom they had incensed and enraged against them, and by whom they hoped to see them pulled in pieces. And when they found them not As they expected, in the house; (the apostles, it seems, having been advised to withdraw, as being most obnoxious;) they drew Jason A converted Jew; and certain brethren Who were with him; unto the rulers To whom they represented them as very criminal, in having received and harboured dangerous persons, not fit to be tolerated, enemies to the public peace, who threw every thing into disorder wherever they came: crying, These that have turned the world upside down With their new doctrine; are come hither also To create the same disturbance among us; whom Jason hath received Hath sheltered under his roof, and so hath made himself responsible for all the mischief they may do here; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Cesar Not to any particular decree, for there was as yet no law of the empire against Christianity; but contrary to Cesar's power in general to make decrees; saying, that there is another king Not only a king of the Jews, as Christ was himself charged before Pilate with saying; but a universal Monarch, a Lord of all, as Peter called him in the first sermon he preached to the Gentiles, Acts 10:36; for doubtless they alluded to the Christian doctrine concerning the Lordship, or universal dominion of Jesus, which they pretended was inconsistent with the universal lordship of Cesar. It is true, the Roman government, both while it was a commonwealth, and after it came into the hands of the Cesars, was very jealous of any governor under their dominion taking upon him the title of king, and there was an express law against it; but Christ's kingdom was not of this world. His followers said, indeed, that Jesus was a king, but not an earthly king: not a rival with Cesar, nor one whose ordinances interfered with the decrees of Cesar; but who made it a law of his kingdom, to render unto Cesar the things that were Cesar's. There was nothing in the doctrine of Christ that tended to the dethroning of princes, or the depriving of them of any of their prerogatives, as they knew very well; and it was against their consciences that they laid any thing of this kind to the charge of Christ's disciples. And of all people, it ill became the Jews to do it, who hated Cesar and his government, and sought the ruin both of him and it; and who expected a Messiah that should be a temporal prince, and overturn the thrones of kingdoms; and were therefore opposing our Lord Jesus because he did not appear under that character.