Acts 13:42 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

The Result: the Missionaries leave Antioch.

Acts 13:42 reads as if the congregation as a whole invited the preachers to speak to them again on the following Sabbath, but a meeting or meetings at once took place at the instance of many Jews and proselytes in some place not mentioned. The first statement is followed up in Acts 13:44; to account for the crowded synagogue, D and a few other authorities add to Acts 13:43, and it came to pass that the word of God passed through the whole city. There is something awkward in the statement; in the synagogue the Jews need not have allowed the missionaries to speak at all; the scene was possibly elsewhere. The speech which follows is an apology for the Gentile mission which occurs repeatedly in the following narrative, and appears to suggest that the apostles would not have spoken to the Gentiles at all if the Jews had listened to them better. Paul does appear to have spoken to Jews (1 Corinthians 9:20; Galatians 5:11), but in his epistles he never speaks of his preaching to the Gentiles as an ungrateful necessity.

Acts 13:46. unworthy of eternal life: i.e. the life of the coming age; by rejecting the Gospel they declare themselves, before God, unworthy to live in that age. Isaiah 49:6 is represented by the preachers as directly addressed by God to them (cf. Matthew 5:14).

Acts 13:48. ordained to eternal life: cf. Acts 24:7.

Acts 13:50. The women are spoken of before the men; the author tends to bring women forward (cf. Acts 17:4; Acts 17:12; Acts 17:34), and not only in the case of believers. The apostles are compelled to leave Antioch, but they have planted a church there (Acts 14:21 f.).

Acts 13:42-52

42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the nextb sabbath.

43 Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.

46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

49 And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.

50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.

51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.

52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.