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The Acts of the Apostles
meaning of those Scriptures which it was their chief boast and glory
that they fully understood. He rebuked their worldliness, their love of
station, titles, and display, and their inordinate selfishness.
In the power of the Spirit, Paul related the story of his own miracu-
lous conversion and of his confidence in the Old Testament Scriptures,
which had been so completely fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. His words
were spoken with solemn earnestness, and his hearers could not but
discern that he loved with all his heart the crucified and risen Saviour.
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They saw that his mind was centered in Christ, that his whole life was
bound up with his Lord. So impressive were his words, that only those
who were filled with the bitterest hatred against the Christian religion
could stand unmoved by them.
But the Jews of Corinth closed their eyes to the evidence so clearly
presented by the apostle, and refused to listen to his appeals. The same
spirit that had led them to reject Christ, filled them with wrath and fury
against His servant; and had not God especially protected him, that he
might continue to bear the gospel message to the Gentiles, they would
have put an end to his life.
“And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook
his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I
am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. And he departed
thence, and entered into a certain man’s house, named Justus, one that
worshiped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.”
Silas and Timothy had “come from Macedonia” to help Paul, and
together they labored for the Gentiles. To the heathen, as well as to
the Jews, Paul and his companions preached Christ as the Saviour
of the fallen race. Avoiding complicated, far-fetched reasoning, the
messengers of the cross dwelt upon the attributes of the Creator of the
world, the Supreme Ruler of the universe. Their hearts aglow with the
love of God and of His Son, they appealed to the heathen to behold
the infinite sacrifice made in man’s behalf. They knew that if those
who had long been groping in the darkness of heathenism could but
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see the light streaming from Calvary’s cross, they would be drawn to
the Redeemer. “I, if I be lifted up,” the Saviour had declared, “will
draw all men unto Me.”
John 12:32
.
The gospel workers in Corinth realized the terrible dangers threat-
ening the souls of those for whom they were laboring; and it was with a
sense of the responsibility resting on them that they presented the truth