The God who Judges and Saves

Why do some people hear the gospel and believe it, while other people do not? Maybe they don’t come right out and say it, but they keep right on living as though God isn’t real or at least as though God doesn’t actually judge sinners.

Why do some people seem to soften over time, as they hear the gospel again and again, as the content of the gospel rattles around in their head, while others seem to harden? They don’t want to talk about Jesus or church or the Bible at all, and when you bring it up, they get openly hostile.

Today we’re going to read a passage in which God judges one sinner and saves another. Our Scripture today is a small portion of the historical narrative which Luke compiled in order to tell the story of God’s unfolding plan of salvation, but it’s a pivotal portion and a profound one.

Acts 13 is both an illustration (our text today) and an explanation (v13-52) of God’s explicit judgment of Israel, through which He brought about the salvation of a great multitude from every tribe and tongue and nation. This is one of those iceberg passages in the Bible… you see a bit on the surface, but there‘s nearly a whole continent down there if you take a minute to look at it.

I want to say up front that most Sundays I feel that there is so much more within and under and beside the text than we can possibly consider at one time. This is especially true today.

So, it’s generally true that we should use a good bit of the content of a sermon as a conversation starter, and not a conversation resolution. “what do you think he meant when he said…?” or “do you see that in the text?” or “how does this apply to me and you right now?”

Well, with this hodgepodge of an introduction in mind, let’s read together about the first missionary journey of Saul/Paul, when he and Barnabas went to Cyprus and proclaimed the gospel.

Scripture Reading

Acts 13:1–12 (ESV)

1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

2 While they were worshiping [or “ministering to” or “serving”] the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John [that is John Mark (12:25)] to assist them.

6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said,

“You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.”

Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

Main Point

God judges and saves through the person and work of Jesus Christ, triumphing over all opposition, and the gospel announces both.

Message

1) Church Leaders Sent Out

A. A strong group of church leaders

v1 tells us that there were “prophets and teachers” in the “church at Antioch.”

Luke has already shown his reader that Barnabas and Saul/Paul made “teaching” their main duty in planting the church in Antioch and in discipling the Christians there (Acts 11:25-26).

The word “prophet,” in the broadest sense, means someone who speaks the word of God.

Certainly there were “prophets” who spoke divine revelation (even telling the future) during the time of the Apostles… and, of course, at various points during the OT (Acts 11:27, 15:32, 19:6, 21:9-10; cf. Deut. 34:10; Judges 6:8; 1 Sam. 3:20).

We are to understand that these “prophets and teachers” made up the leadership of the church in Antioch.

Such are the responsibilities (speaking the word of God and teaching the people to live in accordance with it) these are the responsibilities of church leaders (i.e., pastors or elders or overseers) throughout the New Testament.

v1 also tells us that the leadership of Antioch was a pretty diverse bunch.

There was “Barnabas,” a Jewish “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36), who new Saul/Paul since his earliest days as a Christian (Acts 9:26-28).

There was also “Simeon,” who “was called Niger,” which means black or dark. This was likely a reference to the color of his skin, which would mean that Simeon was probably African.

Then there was “Lucius,” who was from “Cyrene,” which is modern Libya in North Africa and had an Arab culture and language. Lucius may well have been one of the “men of Cyprus and Cyrene” who first brought the gospel to Antioch (Acts 11:20).

Then “Manaen,” who was “a lifelong friend” (or “childhood friend”) of “Herod the tetrarch” (or Herod Antipas; the uncle of the Herod who died in Acts 12 [Lk. 3:1, 9:7-9]). This probably means that Manaen was at least somewhat wealthy and powerful in the Roman world… something of an aristocrat.

And, then, finally, there was “Saul.”

Saul/Paul was a Jew’s Jew, a Pharisee who gave his whole life to serving God with full devotion (Phil. 3:4-6).

Saul had a personal encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ, who commissioned him to evangelistic ministry among the Gentiles (Acts 9:1-19).

And Saul was the kind of man who “immediately” after his conversion began “proclaiming Jesus” as the Christ, saying “He is the Son of God” in the synagogues (Acts 9:19-20).

B. Some leaders were sent out

v2 says that while the church was “worshiping” or “ministering to” or “serving” the Lord, the “Holy Spirit” spoke a word to them… probably through one of the “prophets and teachers” mentioned above (v1).

The divine word was a “calling” to gospel ministry elsewhere.

The Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (v2).

And the church - the congregation of Christians in Antioch - prayed for them, “laid their hands on them” (which is a gesture of commissioning), and “sent them off” (v3).

Let me just take a moment to demystify something that many people talk about today… more in superstitious jargon than in biblical terms.

Who sent out Barnabas and Saul as missionaries from Antioch?

Was it the Holy Spirit? Or was it the church in Antioch?

Yes! It was both!

How was God’s “calling” on Barnabas and Saul announced?

Was it a feeling Barnabas had one night, while praying by himself?

Did Saul tell everyone one Sunday that he and Barnabas were being called by God to another church or ministry?

No! The calling of God was public, clear to the whole church, and affirmed by the church who was sending out these men.

This is not to say that a church member or a church pastor can never do anything without the affirmation of the whole congregation, but it is to say that we ought not throw around a phrase like, “the Lord is calling me,” when what we really mean is “I want to do this” or “I want to go there.”

Let’s not any one of us presume to speak for God… let’s let Him speak for Himself, and let’s do our best to live according to the principles and instructions He’s laid out for us in His word.

If we think we ought to do this thing or that thing, let’s not use the trump card, “The Lord told me.” That way we can avoid blaming God for our foolish decisions, and we can actually benefit from the messier and more rewarding conversations about how best to apply biblical principles in our particular circumstances.

At any rate, Barnabas and Saul (two of Antioch’s best, no doubt) were sent out for ministry away from Antioch… so that others might hear and believe the gospel, and so that others might grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ among new churches in other places.

C. Why are the first missionaries going out from a Gentile church?

There is one more thing about these opening 3 verses that should strike us… and it will be increasingly profound as we continue walking through Acts 13… and down through to the end of the whole book of Acts.

Antioch was the first Gentile Christian church; and it was from Antioch (not Jerusalem or Judea or Samaria) that the first Christian missionaries were “sent off” (v3) or “sent out” (v4).

It is as though Luke is emphasizing the failure on the part of the first century Jews to be the witnesses in the world that God had commissioned them to be.

Israel, after all, was supposed to be the nation/people through whom the whole world would be “blessed” by God (Gen. 12:1-4, 18:18, 22:18, 26:4).

Indeed, the whole world was blessed through the “offspring” of Abraham, but that “offspring” through whom blessing came was Christ (Gal. 3:8, 16), and not Israel.

Let’s now consider what these first commissioned missionaries did.

What is the missionary task? And what can we learn from their example?

2) Christian Missionaries

A. They began in the synagogues

v4 says that Saul and Barnabas traveled “down to Seleucia,” which was a port city just West of Antioch, “and from there they sailed to Cyprus,” about 60 miles away.

Cyprus was Barnabas’s home (Acts 4:36), and there had been gospel witnesses there already.

Luke told us in chapter 11 that “those who were scattered [from Jerusalem] because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch” (Acts 11:19), but these were “speaking the word to no one except Jews” (11:19).

Saul/Paul’s and Barnabas’s gospel ministry in Cyprus started with the Jews, but they fully intended to cast the net wider… even among the Gentiles.

v5 tells us that they first “arrived as Salamis,” which was on the East coast of Cyprus, and it was here that the missionary work began.

Two things are important to note here:

First, Luke says almost nothing about Saul/Paul’s and Barnabas’s ministry in all of Cyprus.

Luke gives incredible detail about something that happened in Paphos, which was the capital city on the West coast of Cyprus, but the only thing he tells us about all of their ministry “through [the rest of] the whole island” (v6) was that Saul and Barnabas started preaching in “the synagogues of the Jews” (v5).

This was Saul/Paul’s method of operation, to preach first to the Jews in the synagogues (which sometimes also included some Greeks) and then to preach to the Gentiles everywhere else.

But this pattern also displays (throughout the Gospels and Acts) a constant refrain of Israel’s rejection of the gospel and opposition to Christ… and this will be all the clearer as our passage unfolds.

The second thing I want to highlight here is that missionary efforts (according to the Bible) are definitionally focused on gospel proclamation and teaching.

B. Christian missions is word-work

What did Saul/Paul and Barnabas do when they arrived in Salamis?

They “proclaimed the word of God” (v5).

What did they do when they got to Paphos, on the other side of the island?

They “taught” the “word of God” (v7, 12).

What did they do when they entered Iconium?

They “spoke” the “word” of Christ’s “grace” (Acts 14:1-3).

What did they do when they came to Perga?

They “spoke the word” to them (Acts 14:24-25).

The strong implication is that Saul and Barnabas preached the gospel… and reasoned from the Scriptures… and called for sinners to repent and believe… at every town along the way until they sailed back to Antioch, “where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had [then] fulfilled” (Acts 14:26).

Brothers and sisters, this is how we must all understand Christian missions and missionaries and mission agencies and mission budgets.

We must not think of every “Christian” group or organization as a missionary.

Missionaries are (in the technical sense) those people who cross cultural and/or language barriers for the sake of preaching and teaching the gospel.

We must not confuse the “good things Christians can do” with the “good news Christians must preach and teach.”

This is true of our personal and corporate mission efforts.

Some of our church members over the years should be missionaries, but only those who are skilled preachers and teachers of the gospel, not merely do-gooders or eager world-travelers.

We must, as a church, prioritize our own “missions” efforts, aiming always to preach and teach the gospel, not merely to create social programs or to do community projects.

This is true of our personal and corporate missions giving.

We must prioritize giving to those individuals and churches and ministries who’s primary goal is (far and away) to preach the gospel and teach the Bible.

My family or yours may certainly give of our resources to foster-and-adoption care families, to food and housing programs for those in need, and to social-and-economic advancement programs for families near the poverty line… but we must not think of these as “missions.”

This is true of our personal evangelism.

We must not only live lives of virtue and sincerity, we must open our mouths to teach the gospel with the aim to persuade… We want to persuade those who do not yet believe or follow Jesus to turn from their sin and to put their full trust and confidence in the only Savior.

This is true of our church calendar.

We must avoid spending our church time on 1,000 good things so that we can ensure that we are spending our time on those things which we cannot fail to do…

We must be about word-work.

Now, I’m not saying that disaster relief or building projects or food pantries or a host of other good works are bad… but I am saying that word-work is every local church’s unique mission in the world, and everything else can generally be done by Christians simply acting like Christians with their everyday lives.

Luke is clear: Saul/Paul and Barnabas went about Cyprus proclaiming the word of God, but Luke slows the whole story down big time when they get to Paphos.

Let’s see how the “word of God” was received there, and let’s consider why Luke has told the story in this way.

3) Demonic Opposition

A. Luke’s focus on Elymas

v6 says, “When they [Saul/Paul and Barnabas and John Mark] had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician [or “sorcerer”], a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus.”

Luke tells us all about this guy, Elymas… his lineage, his profession, and his opposition to the gospel.

Elymas was a “certain magician” (v6) who was “with the proconsul,” which was something like the governor of Cyprus (v7).

The Greek word can be translated “wise man” or “conjurer,” and the idea is one who knows secret things (wisdom, future, dreams, etc.)… often by supposedly consulting with the dead (i.e., necromancy).

Think “Wormtongue” in Lord of the Rings ...or “Jafar” in Aladdin ...or “Merlin” in the mythical story of King Arthur.

This sort of thing (conjuring, sorcery, necromancy) was explicitly forbidden under the Mosaic covenant (Lev. 19:31, 20:6), and the penalty was death and covenantal cursing (Lev. 20:27; Deut. 18:10-14).

In short, sorcery and reading omens and telling fortunes is what pagans did… not activities for the people of God.

Elymas was also a “false prophet” (v6).

This adds to the kind of picture we’ve already gotten… and it makes Elymas even worse.

Luke seems to be telling us that Elymas not only promoted pagan superstition, but that Elymas did it in the name of God (i.e., Yahweh).

Incidentally, this is what Israel’s and Judah’s kings and prophets notoriously did throughout the Old Testament and right on into the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

Only on very rare occasions did any Jewish leader promote outright worship of a false god… But very often they would promote unbiblical practices and pagan ceremonies and false prophecies as actions in service to Yahweh, the one true God.

v8 gives “Elymas” as his name, but v6 says it was “Bar-Jesus.”

The prefix “bar” simply means “son of.”

Remember the Apostle Peter’s other name was Simon, and he was called “Simon Bar-Jonah” (Matt. 16:17).

So, Elymas was not only a false Jewish prophet, practicing pagan magic arts, but he was the son of a Jewish father named “Jesus” or “Joshua,” which means the LORD saves or Yahweh is salvation.

And Elymas is the arch-nemesis of the gospel and of Christ and of the word of God in this whole passage!

In v7-8, Luke says, “Sergius Paulus… summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas… opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.”

It will become even clearer in just a bit, but Elymas is Luke’s focus in this passage precisely because Elymas personally embodies the posture of all Israel toward God at the very time in history when God was sending the Messiah and the salvation He’d been promising for so long.

B. The opposition is demonic/satanic

The Jewish opposition to the gospel is only an outgrowth of the greater demonic opposition to God in the world.

We make a horrible mistake if we come away from this passage thinking, “How terrible were those first-century Jews!”

No, opposition to God and to Christ in the world is not merely a matter of culture or age or intelligence.

Every son and daughter of Adam and Eve is susceptible to the kind of “deceit and villainy” which Elymas embodies here… because it’s demonic… and we are all (as fallen/sinful people) naturally inclined toward evil and wickedness... and selfish ambition and self-promoting lies... and anti-authority lawlessness and God-hating rebellion.

Ephesians 2 says that the natural state of fallen humanity is to be “dead in the trespasses and sins” (v1), to be “walking” in the “course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (v2), and to be living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” (v3).

All of this makes us naturally “children of wrath” (v3), and not naturally “children of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).

If Elymas represents the state of Jewish rejection of the gospel up to that point in human history, and if all people in the world are (after Genesis 3) naturally just as hostile to the word of God, then:

How does anyone come to hear and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?

What does God do with rebellious sinners who hear the truth of His word and remain openly opposed to it?

And how should those who do believe feel about their reception of grace, even as others around them remain blind to the beauty of Christ and hostile to the only God who can save?

4) Stricken in Judgment

It’s no coincidence that Luke first began to use the name “Paul” in this passage… and in v9 of all places!

“Saul” was his Hebrew name, “Paulus” his Latin (or Roman), and “Paul” his Greek name. And Saul/Paul was uniquely commissioned by Christ as an Apostle to the Gentiles or nations, which predominately spoke Greek in the known world of the first-century.

This is a passage of transition… from Jew to Gentile, not only for Saul/Paul, but for the gospel mission and expansion.

What did God do with Elymas, and how did this represent God’s judgment against all Israel at that time?

A. Divine judgment

Paul was doing the talking, but he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (v9) when he said what he did.

Luke tells us in no uncertain terms that this was God’s judgment through Paul’s mouth, which was backed up by physical consequences in the moment.

Paul and the Holy Spirit judged Elymas as a “son of the devil,” an “enemy of all righteousness,” and one who was “full of all deceit and villainy” (v10).

This teaches and reminds us that there is no neutral position in the world… Paul was preaching the gospel and calling sinners to repent, and anyone who neglected or opposed that message was on the side of the devil.

And, of course, all of this echoes Jesus’s own judgments against the Jewish leaders who opposed Him during His earthly ministry.

Jesus said that His opponents were “of [their] father the devil” and that their will “is to do [their] father’s desires” (Jn. 8:44).

In both lament and judgment, Jesus spoke to crowds of Jews, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood… but you were not willing! Behold, your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:37-38).

And this is exactly the kind of language Paul proceeded to use as he continued to spell out not only divine but specifically covenantal judgment against Elymas.

B. Covenantal judgment

Paul invokes two specific OT forms of judgment:

One, quoting previous covenantal judgment to those presently doing the same;

and Two, applying covenantal curses (either figuratively or concretely) to those who violate the covenant.

Quoting covenantal judgment

At the end of v10, Paul told Elymas, “will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (v10; cf. Micah 3:9-12).

This is a direct quote from the prophet Micah, who spoke warnings of judgment against the leaders of Judah during a time of national prosperity.

Listen to the fuller context of the judgment: Micah said, “9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight... 11 [Your] heads [or leaders] give judgment for a bribe; [your] priests teach for a price; [your] prophets practice divination for money; yet [you] lean on the Lord and say, ‘Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.’ 12 Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins...” (Micah 3:9-12).

This is exactly what Elymas and all the leaders of Israel were doing in Paul’s day… and Paul invoked God’s warning through Micah as the judgment that was now becoming a present reality.

Then, in v11, Paul cursed Elymas with the sort of physical markings which symbolized greater spiritual realities - “darkness” and “blindness” (v11)

Near the end of the book of Deuteronomy, God finished describing all the blessings His people would enjoy in their new land if they obeyed… and God turned to warning them of the curses they would endure if they disobeyed.

If you obey, blessings… “But,” God said through Moses, “if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you” (Deut. 28:15).

Among those curses listed, Moses said, “The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness… (Deut. 28:28-29).

Make no mistake, this was a real judgment that Paul called down on Elymas… he really did lose his sight (at least for “a time”).

But this was also a visible and physical depiction of the greater spiritual “blindness” (the inability to see what should have been plain to them) and “darkness” (a lack of understanding concerning the most fundamental truths which God had revealed in His word) that seemed to overwhelm the people of Israel during the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry and during the time of the Apostles.

And, as I’ve said already, that spiritual blindness is the natural, default setting for all of us (fallen humans).

C. Representative judgment

In the storyline of Acts, Luke has included this episode (and the bit that follows it) to show the reader that God was simultaneously extending the gospel of grace to Gentiles (those who had previously been “blind” and in the “dark”) and condemning the Jews for their rejection of that same gospel.

In a sense, Elymas stands in as a representative of all Israel.

What a devastating reality!?

God brought His judgment upon those who rejected His word, murdered His prophets, and opposed His plans in the world.

And, what a joyful reality for those who hear and believe!

At the same time God was judging those who opposed Him, God was graciously rescuing those who would hear and believe!

Writing to Gentiles about this very point, Paul says, “just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of [Israel’s] disobedience, so [Israel] too has now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all [both Jew and Gentile, alike]” (Rom. 11:30-32).

And having taken a hard look at God’s judgment against demonically aligned sinners, let’s now turn to the last verse of our passage in order to see God’s mercy and grace.

5) Stricken by Grace

A. The Gentile official “believed” (v12)

The episode we’ve been studying this morning ends so abruptly.

v12 simply says, “Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.”

Once again, Luke tells us almost nothing about Sergius Paulus, this proconsul of the emperor of Rome who wanted to hear the word of God which Paul and Barnabas brought to his province.

Luke also doesn’t tell us what Paul’s message was to Sergius Paulus, but we can assume that it was the same sort of gospel that all the evangelists had been preaching throughout Acts up to this point:

God is creator;

humans are sinners;

Jesus is the promised Messiah, the divine King and Savior of all who repent and believe;

and God calls everyone everywhere to turn from their sin and unbelief and to give themselves over to full trust and obedience to Jesus Christ.

And when Paul was done preaching the gospel, and when Paul had condemned the Jewish false prophet who sought “to turn the proconsul away from the faith” (v8), Luke simply tells us that “the proconsul believed… for he was astonished at [or “stricken by”] the teaching of the Lord” (v12).

B. Belief is a gift of grace

Now, we would be going in exactly the opposite direction of Luke is we make our takeaway here at all about Sergius Paulus.

“Be like the proconsul; don’t be like Elymas!”

“Be a seeker and a hearer of God’s word; and don’t oppose Christ and His kingdom!”

All of these applications are true, but these are not (I don’t think) primarily where Luke is directing our attention by including this episode in the story of Acts.

There is a greater New Testament teaching which Luke is tapping into here.

What is the difference between Elymas and the proconsul?

Elymas is a hard-hearted, idolatrous, and biological descendent of Abraham, who opposed the very God who called Abraham out of obscurity and covenantally made him the father of a nation/people.

The proconsul is one among a multitude of Gentiles who were hard-hearted idolators, completely separated from God and His covenant of grace, who had neither God’s word nor God’s visitation of prophets throughout the ages.

At their core, they really aren’t that different after all.

Which of the two are blind and dark throughout Acts 13:1-11?

They both are!

Elymas is blind to the message the Scriptures have aimed to teach him since childhood, and he was darkened in his understanding because of it.

The proconsul is blind to the Scriptures entirely, since he had no access to the only special revelation God had given to the world, and his understanding was dark too… he’s the very embodiment of ignorance.

You see, Luke is not actually pointing us to these obvious characters in the passage.

The main and distinct character of our passage this morning is not Elymas or the proconsul, it’s not even Paul or Barnabas…

The main character is God the Holy Spirit… who sends preachers of the gospel of Christ far and wide… who judges and acts against those who oppose the gospel… and who graciously opens blind eyes and illumines dark minds to the truth of the gospel, which they never would have known otherwise.

And if you or I are beneficiaries of God’s grace today, then we should praise and thank God for His gracious grace…

He has loved us even though there is nothing about us worth loving…

He has committed Himself to us even though we have never demonstrated an unwavering commitment to Him…

He has plucked us from a field of darkness, touched our blind eyes, and made us to behold beauty in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And He has done it all, not because of anything in us, but rather to demonstrate that He is the God…

who judges and saves through the person and work of Jesus Christ…

who triumphs over all opposition, even when that opposition is allied with the devil and all his demons…

And announces both His salvation and His judgment in the message of the gospel.

May we be grateful hearers of that message today, may we join with those Christians who’ve gone before us to proclaim it far and wide, and may we give praise and honor to the God who judges and saves… for His own glory.

Bibliography

Calvin, John, and Henry Beveridge. Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010. Print.

Peterson, David G. The Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.

Polhill, John B. Acts. Vol. 26. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992. Print. The New American Commentary.

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