THE ENVY OF THE JEWS
‘When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy.’
God summons us to co-operate in His eternal purpose. ‘As the synagogue broke up’ many, not only of ‘the Jews,’ but of ‘the devout proselytes, followed Paul and Barnabas.’ They had, for the first time, understood the meaning of the revelation made to them in their past history, ‘in the law, of Moses and the prophets, and the psalms.’ In the Lord Jesus, winning through the Passion and the Death the triumph of the Resurrection; in Him the Liberator from sins; in Him the source of a real inward righteousness—the Saviour Whom they expected stood revealed.
I. But such a king could not be only for Jews; ‘the grace of God,’ in which the Apostles bade them ‘continue,’ must be for all men. ‘The next Sabbath,’ Luke records, ‘almost the whole city was gathered together to hear the word of God.’ We might have expected to read of the joy of St. Paul’s fellow-countrymen in finding Gentiles ready to share the privileges of which they had been the guardians for the world’s future benefit. The sequel was very different. ‘When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy.’ Bound up with the great promise was a solemn duty: the duty of witnessing to all mankind for a God ‘Whose loving-kindness and righteous faithfulness’ had given them salvation. In that witness, through a narrow, selfish outlook, they failed.
II. To us the warning is plain.—Unless we uphold, as vital, faith in historic facts, filled with vitalising power of truth and grace; unless we rely on the reality of the fulfilment of the promise, the charge laid upon us of witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, unveiling the Divine fidelity and love, will not, and cannot be fulfilled. There is room here for much improvement. The grateful love which would spare no effort that, in obedience to the charge of the risen Lord, ‘repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations,’ is by no means so evident as the occasion demands.
(a) Even at home, many Churchmen are quite indifferent to efforts to gather in the ‘lapsed masses,’ or to restore the fallen and the outcast.
(b) Abroad, many Churchmen, who will even give a small subscription to foreign missions, by no means welcome the native converts in a colonial diocese, or the mission field, into the flock of Christ; are by no means willing to kneel with them before His altar, or join with them in worship and service.
III. Now is the opportunity for some bracing, definite resolution, and those vigorous efforts which control the future. And one way of showing gratitude to the King and Deliverer, Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and through death delivered us who, otherwise, had ‘all our lifetime been subject to bondage,’ is to take some practical step to share in the mission work of the Church which, through the Spirit, is filled with His Life. Most of us know little of that work; many of us care less. We may resolve to acquaint ourselves with its details as a duty: we may resolve to use our new knowledge in prayer that the work may be blessed; we may make a contribution that costs us something to extend it; we may, in witnessing to Jesus and the Resurrection, in some form or another which the Holy Spirit will reveal to us, share by personal service in making known to others the great revelation summed up in the King, Who ‘was dead, and is alive for evermore’ to break in pieces the bonds of sin and death.
—Rev. Chancellor Worlledge.