Acts 11:18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When they heard these things, &c.— When they had heard St. Peter's apology, they were silent, and acquiesced, turning their accusations of theapostle into praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God, who had granted unto the devout Gentiles, through Jesus Christ his Son, all the privileges of the gospel; and had received them into the Christian church equally with the believing Jews, without their being first circumcised and brought into subjection tothe whole law of Moses. But though these particular persons now acquiesced, yet this was the foundation of the grand controversy in the apostolic age; for we shall find, as the history proceeds, that it broke out again with respect to the devout Gentiles, ch. 15: and was afterwards extended to the converts from among the idolatrous Gentiles, as appears from most of St. Paul's epistles: and the attentive reader will there find, how very difficult it was to allay the prejudices of the Jews and Jewish Christians against the admission of the Gentiles, unless they would first, according to the Jewish phrase, become proselytes of righteousness, and of course be circumcised.