Acts 28

Acts 28:1-15

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 27:1-44 - 28:1-15 Acts 27:1-44 - Acts 28:1-15 The words of Luke in the fourteenth verse of chapter Twenty-eight (Acts 28:14), “So we came to Rome " indicate the value for us of this long section of the book. A grouping of brief statements scattered over ten chapters will help us to gather up the story which ends at this point. “I must also see Rome “(Acts 19:21). “So must thou bear witness also at Rome” (23:11). “Unto Caesar shalt thou go” (Acts 25:12). “Thou must stand before Caesar” (Acts 27:24). “So we came to Rome " (Acts 28:14).

The first of these words was spoken by the apostle himself in Ephesus, just before the uproar. They were words expressive of the passion of this man’s heart as a missionary of Christ. “I must also see Rome.” He knew that Rome stood at the strategic centre of the world. He knew how her highways ran out through all the known world, and he coveted that centre as a base of operations for Christian service.

Then in the lonely night, in Jerusalem, after the scourging and the buffeting and the bruising, into the quietness of the cell the Lord had come, and had spoken to His servant, saying, “So must thou bear witness also at Rome.”

Later there had been definite if unconscious cooperation with the desire of the apostle, and the will of the Lord, when the Roman governor, Festus, had said, “Unto Caesar shalt thou go.” That word was spoken in Csesarea. The next word had been spoken by the angel visitor; when, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of the storm and tempest, and the stress and strain, he had said, “Thou must stand before Caesar.”

The last word was that of Luke, the companion of the perilous voyage and journey, “So we came to Rome.” The “So” of Luke covers the whole story, even though it had immediate reference to the voyage and journey.

This voyage and journey occupied, as we find by observing the time notes of the story, about six months. Lewin, who has attempted to date these stories, declares that Paul left Caesarea in August A. D. 60, and that they were shipwrecked at the beginning of November. That is indicated by the fact that they were three months on the island of Melita, that they sailed again after the three months’ stay there at the beginning of February A. D. 61, and arrived in Rome about the first day of March. This story is full of interest geographically and nautically, revealing a most intimate and accurate acquaintance with the methods of navigation at that time.

The main interest for us, however, centres in Paul himself. Let us then glance briefly at the incidents of the voyage; in order that we may gather up some of the lessons which the whole story teaches.

We observe first that on this voyage and journey Paul had as close companions two, namely Luke and Aristarchus. There is perhaps a speculative and yet very interesting line of study, that namely of following these men of the early days, who cross the pathway of the reader now and then, in association with more prominent figures. Aristarchus first appeared in the nineteenth chapter, where this whole movement toward Rome began. Almost immediately after the apostle had said, “I must also see Rome,” Aristarchus is seen as one of his travelling companions. When in the uproar at Ephesus they were unable to find Paul, they arrested Gaius and Aristarchus. Then we find that Paul returned from Europe to Asia, accompanied by Aristarchus, who had preceded him there, and then returned to meet Paul.

Here we find that he was a Macedonian of Thessalonica, in all probability he was a convert of an earlier ministry of the apostle. We now know that he went with him all the way to Rome, and certainly remained with him throughout the period of his imprisonment there; for in the Colossian letter, and in the letter to Philemon he is referred to as being in company with the apostle, with others. So when we watch the apostle in the midst of tempest and tumults, we must remember that he had with him two men, dear to his heart, of one mind with himself in the purpose and passion of his life and ministry.

The first incident to note is that of Paul tarrying for a few hours at Sidon among friends, when the ship made its first call. Imagine the refreshment and quiet of those hours. Then the ship took its way, and arrived at its destination, and the passengers were transferred into another boat.

Paul then warned those in charge-himself a prisoner in charge of a centurion-of the danger of the proposed voyage.

In the midst of the storm itself, he gently reproved those men that they had not listened to him, and then spoke the word of good cheer and of courage, so making in the midst of the storm, and in the listening ear of these men, the Roman centurion, the soldiers, the master of the vessel, and the whole of that company of nearly three hundred souls, a good confession of faith. “I believe God,” he said, and therefore this thing must be as He has said to me.

Then,-when presently the vessel was anchored, four anchors being cast out of the stern, and the soldiers wished and prayed for the day, as the ship was near to the land,-mark the apostle’s action. He had observed that by stealth the soldiers were attempting to escape; he knew the danger, and so immediately interfered. He had said he believed in God, and was perfectly sure no harm could happen to them, and that they would be saved; but he was very careful to prevent the soldiers escaping. His courage was proved by his caution. There is also a revelation of a sanctified sanity in his appeal to these men to take food. For fourteen days they had fasted, and he set the example himself by beginning to eat. With the ship threatening to break up, tossed and heaved about, they took food, and were filled with good cheer.

The next incident is that of Paul himself on the island of Melita. There is a subject for an artist, Paul gathering sticks to light a fire. That is apostolic in the finest sense of the word. The viper fastened upon him, and the amazed barbarians imagined first of all, that justice was dogging him, and he would die; but when the viper was shaken off, and the man was unharmed, then they said he was a god.

Then we see Paul in the house of Publius, healing his father; and exercising a healing ministry for all who were brought to him. The story is told in a sentence, but what a picture there is here of the power of Christ in healing, operating through this man. There are many things suggested in the story. There is not a word recorded here of his preaching of the Gospel. Of course the argument of silence is dangerous. Undoubtedly he did preach; but it was a ministry of healing. The man who wrote the story was himself a physician.

The journey was resumed, and Paul does not appear again until forty miles from Rome, or perhaps three and thirty miles, there at the Three Taverns, where He me? the little company coming out from the City. In the sixteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we probably have the names of some of those of that company. It was a great meeting, and Paul thanked God, and took courage. Such are the incidents.

Surveying the scene I am first, and perhaps supremely impressed with the contrasts that run through the whole story. On the one hand there were difficulties and dangers all the way. It does seem, as we read this story, as though all forces were combined to hinder this man, and to prevent his arrival at Rome. If it were possible to read the story without knowing the things that had preceded it, without knowing what the end was, in the process of our reading we should say again and again, This man will never see Rome. Or if, on the other hand, recognizing the truth about this man, we read the story, we could almost interpret it by the book of Job, in imagining that the arch-enemy of mankind himself had somehow gained possession of all storms and tempests, and let them loose upon this ship. For instance, in that story of the girding of the ship, the technical expression is that they f rapped the ship together; a term never used except when a ship was imminently in danger of falling to pieces, when men pass great hawsers round her.

That was a most perilous hour. We see how tremendous was the storm, and how terrific the elemental forces that seemed to be let loose against that ship. All forces seemed to combine to make it impossible for this man to reach Rome. And yet this is not the principal impression produced upon the mind as we read the story. It is that of sure, if slow progress; and in the midst of all the storms, and tempest, and all the difficulties, and buffeting, and darkness, and hopelessness, a man is seen, conducted, cared for, and comforted; until at last, his companion, writing the story at the close, said, “So we came to Rome,” “So,” by these very things, by these storms, and shipwrecks, and all this darkness, and by these difficulties, " So we came to Rome.”

Again looking at the story, mark the recurring hopelessness of situations, and that not once or twice, but over and over again. Humanly speaking the situation was entirely hopeless. Over against that, mark the unvarying hopefulness of Paul. There was never an hour in which he became despondent; never a situation in which he lost heart.

There is another way of looking at the contrast. I see the repeated perils resulting from the excitement and the folly of men; but I also see the persistent sanity and strength of Paul.

We want to discover the secret of the quietness, the strength, and the optimism of this man; for here, wherever we find the storm at its worst, we find the man at his calmest. What was the secret of it all; for the story is a parable. It is this, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” As we look at this picture, or this series of pictures, for the changes are very remarkable, we notice all the way through, that this man was a man who was in personal fellowship with the Lord. On this voyage the Lord did not appear to him. There was one hour when, in the stress and strain of the tempest, amid the howling of Euraquilo, when waves were tossing the ship, an angel came and spoke to him in the night; but the Lord did not appear. Yet all the way through this man was in fellowship with his Lord.

Remember what happened during the forty days, between our Lord’s resurrection and ascension. What was He doing? He was always vanishing. Into the upper room He came, no door was unlocked. Why did He come? To vanish.

He walked to Emmaus with two men. Why did He walk with them, and talk with them, and enter with them, and break the bread with them; for they never knew Him until He broke the bread? To vanish. In other words He accustomed them to the vanishing, and to the fact that He was always there, though they could not always see Him. The last thing said about this matter in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles is this, not that He vanished, but that He went out of sight. The secret of it all is that these men knew Him nigh at hand, though they could not see Him.

The new spiritual sense was a more real and definite thing to them than the old sensual sense could be. Here is the secret. Here was a man on two ships, one after the other, in storms,; in stress and danger, with howling winds and creaking timbers and rending ropes and buffeting waves. Why was he quiet? Because the Lord was with him, and he knew it.

But there is another element in it. Not only this personal fellowship, but the fact that he knew his Lord’s purpose. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” He had told him, “So must thou bear witness also at Rome.” When the next peril came he always measured it against the power of the Lord. He said, “I must also see Rome.” “Paul will never get to Rome! These foolish men are fascinated, and mistaken by reason of this soft south wind, and they are going, though they ought not! It is a mistake, they will be wrecked! Paul would have stopped them.

But when they persisted, he knew that the One Who was with him had said that he must go to Rome, and though all tempests broke upon the ship, he knew he would reach Rome. He knew the secret of the Lord. Talking along that line to a friend who was not a professing Christian, he said, “Well, then, there is no credit at all, after that man knew the secret; and if he knew what would happen ahead, there was no credit in being quiet.” Quite true. There was no credit to Paul; and Paul would have been the first to say so. But the fact remains that this man was perfectly calm with his Lord, perfectly conscious of His purpose, perfectly confident in His power; and that kept him calm in all the stress and strain.

Mark the activity of the Lord. No Christian man or woman of spiritual understanding, reading this story, can talk about coincidences, happenings. We cannot read the story without seeing this living Lord Himself presiding over everything. Mark His activity on behalf of His servant. The central figure throughout is Paul. Paul is the respected prisoner. Paul is the honoured castaway on the island. Paul is the much-loved friend. Everything is in his favour. A viper fastening on his hand is made the method by which the barbarians are brought to a new respect and a new willingness to listen to him. AH this resulted from the presidency of the Lord and Master Himself. All was by the overruling of Christ.

I like to read this story again and again, and to listen to the whistling winds and the straining ropes, and to feel the buffeting of the waves, and to see danger on danger threatening to engulf the ship; and then to read at the end that wonderfully quiet calm statement, “So we came to Rome.” This story is all condensed in Psalms 107, which declares that God creates the storm, and the calm. The psalmist sang at last, “So He bringeth them unto the haven of their desire.” And Luke wrote, “So we came to Rome.”

What are the things of importance here for us? First that we have a destination, Rome. We may have to change the spelling of the word, and may have to change the geographical location of the destination; but we. must be sure of the place to which God has appointed us. Not heaven. Do not spiritualize this story and spoil it. This is not the assurance that we shall get to heaven some day.

This is a destination on earth, a place of service in this world, a great conviction in the soul that the Lord says, “That is the place of thy service.” A good many may say, “That is our difficulty. We are not sure of our destination.” Then wait on the Lord. But when once the destination is marked and seen, then although the way there may be through storms and by devious ways, we shall reach it. Get the map, and mark the way Paul went to Rome from Csesarea. It is most accurately described in this chapter. It was not a straight way.

By devious ways he came to Rome; through storms, but in the atmosphere of an abiding calm; all the way communicating help to other people.

Then we have the account of the arrival, in spite of all obstacles, through loyalty and faith, and in quietness; and the issue is declared. Put together the end of this story in the book of the Acts, and the end of the psalm paragraph; “Paul . . . thanked God and took courage”; “Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness! “When we are in the place of His appointment, if we will only look back, we shall see by storms and stress and strain, and through devious paths He led us. Have we forgotten to praise Him? “Oh that men would praise the Lord! “Some may not yet be there, but in the midst of the buffeting still. Then let them rest assured that,

“No water can swallow the ship where lies The Master of ocean and earth and skies.” If He have called us to Rome to witness, we must come there. So let there be a song in the heart, and light on the pathway; and as we journey by devious ways, through stress and strain, let us help the soldiers and the sailors and the sick folk, and every one who crosses our pathway; for on the way to destination there are great opportunities of service.

Acts 28:16-31

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 28:16-31 Acts 28:16-31 This paragraph constitutes the last page of the first chapter of the history of the Christian Church. In the course of our study of this book we have followed the story of about a human generation. According to the plan of the risen Lord, we have been following the witnesses in their work in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Luke tells the story of the movement from Jerusalem to Rome, and there he ends; but the end is full of suggestiveness and value. The book is an unfinished fragment, and incomplete. The very first words of the book suggest our need of the knowledge of another book, if we are to understand it. Certain facts are referred to, and are taken for granted, of which we know nothing apart from the Gospel story.

Now having followed this movement, having watched the Church witnessing in Jerusalem, seen its failure there as well as its victory; and having followed this wonderful servant of God, this great pioneer missionary on his journeyings, through perils often; we at last find ourselves with him in Rome. Now we feel that we should like to settle down to a new chapter; we have shared this man’s passionate desire to reach Rome, imperial mistress of the world’s cities, seated upon her seven hills, from whence the highways run out through all the earth; now let us see how things developed. But the book is over, and there is no further record. Why not? Because more was unnecessary. The same story will be repeated in every decade, in every century, in each millennium, until the Lord shall come; and to write the whole history was unnecessary. Enough was written, to reveal the secrets of power, to bring into the light the perpetual perils threatening the Church, to indicate directions, and to provide all that was necessary for the Church to fulfil its mission until the consummation of the age.

But this last page is full of interest, because we arrive at Rome. Paul arrived there in the days when she was under an imperial despotism. The golden days of the Republic had passed away. Gradually the dictators had usurped the power of the people, and at that moment the city of Rome, and the Empire, were under the despotism of an emperor, and of all the emperors perhaps in some senses the worst. These were the days of Nero. When Paul arrived in Rome, Nero would not be more .than twenty-five years of age; but already his hands were red with the blood of murder.

His mother, Agrippina, had been murdered about a year before Paul’s arrival; and in all probability, though this cannot be stated with as much certainty, Octavia his wife was also already murdered. Nero occupied the throne of the Caesars; cruel, lascivious, weak.

Paul did not see Rome as Rome is seen to-day. When he arrived, the central architectural wonder was not St. Peter’s. When he arrived the Colosseum was not there. Upon the Capitol was the temple of Jupiter, and the great Citadel; and on the Palatine the three houses respectively of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, which had been joined together, until they were then united as the palace of Caesar. Passing into Rome, one of the things most conspicuous to the eye of the apostle would be a temple to Mars, reminding all those arriving in the city, of the fact that the strength of the empire was based upon her warlike character.

Rome at that time was the very centre of paganism. There is a brief sentence, and yet full of suggestiveness in Conybeare and Howson’s account of Paul’s journey, in which it is said:

“Rome was like London with all its miseries, vices, and follies exaggerated; and without Christianity.”

What then of the people in Rome? One has to draw an average among conflicting statements concerning the population; but we may safely say that within the circuit of twelve miles, all included within Rome proper, there were resident, when Paul arrived, two million people. One million of these were slaves. Those are approximate figures, but it is accurate to say that about half the population of Rome were slaves. Of the one million citizens, there were about seven hundred senators; a thousand had been the number, but their number was gradually decreased as the power of the emperor increased. There were about ten thousand knights, mostly occupying the public positions in Rome; and about fifteen thousand soldiers.

The vast majority of the remainder of the citizens were paupers. The wealth of Rome was massed in the possession of a very few. This great multitude of pauper citizens were proud of their citizenship, and held the slaves beneath them in supreme contempt. One of the tourists of the time declares that they had but two cries, one was “Bread!” and the other was “The Circus!” Thousands of these pauper citizens had no home of their own. Managing somehow to obtain the bread that satisfied the hunger of the day, crowding to the circuses at night, watching the gladiatorial combats, they were living upon bread and excitement. Thousands of them slept at night upon the parapets, and in public places of the city.

Then think of the million slaves, and remember that these conditions were so different from ours to-day. All the professional men, manufacturers, and trades-people were slaves. These pauper citizens held themselves aloof from those beneath them in the pride of their citizenship, and they disdained to touch, not merely a trade, but also a profession. Slaves were ground under the cruel heel of oppression: so much the property of their masters that these masters could take their life without any protest.

“On that hard Pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. “In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad in furious guise Along the Appian Way. “He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers- No easier and no quicker passed The impracticable hours.” Into that great centre, where ancient paganism was seen in its ultimate results, on the very verge of a break-up, and yet full of an amazing, an awful, and a world-wide power, at last passed Paul, the apostle of Jesus.

When in Rome it was my privilege to listen to some lectures by Dr. J. Gordon Gray, on the Footsteps of Paul in Rome; and under his direction to see some of the places which almost surely were the haunts of Paul. He told us of a bronze medallion of the second century, preserved to-day in the Vatican Library, having upon it portraits of Peter and Paul. It is quite true that these may not be accurate representations, but all subsequent art, whether in sculpture, or in painting, has taken this medallion as being so. Dr. Gordon Gray believes that we have in that medallion a true representation of their appearance. This is his description of Paul:

“Paul is the man of deep thought, wiry in form, slightly bald, with beard long and pointed. The expression of the face is calm, even benevolent, not without a touch of sadness. His countenance has an air of refinement, which is by no means belied by the fact of his having wrought with his hands to minister to his necessities. The impression thus taken from that bronze plate enables us to picture him as he taught in his hired dwelling.”

Paul, at the time, was about sixty years of age, and writing of himself soon after he described himself as “such an one as Paul the aged.” He was prematurely aged by all the toil and the suffering of the thirty years in which he had been a follower and a disciple and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

His first activity on arrival in Rome was that of calling together his own people; for he could not, as his custom had been in other cities, go to them, for he was a prisoner, chained to a soldier. Nevertheless he was most considerately treated during the first imprisonment. The first meeting was by invitation. He claimed, in the presence of those of the Jewish synagogue in Rome, that he was wearing the chain, “because of the hope of Israel.” They said, they had had no letters blaming him, but they knew about this sect, that it was everywhere spoken against. The opinion that they held of the sect was that it was a break with Judaism. There is nothing more interesting in all the addresses and the writings of Paul than his constant effort to show that Christianity was not a break with Judaism, but its fulfillment. For the hope of Israel, for that which had been the central hope of their religion in bygone days, for that imperishable hope that had been at the heart of all their history, for that he wore the chain.

This first meeting was followed by a more formal assembly. We have no detailed account of Paul’s discourse, but Luke has given us the theme of it. He talked from morning till evening to these men of two things. First, “testifying the Kingdom of God.” That was the rock foundation of the Hebrew economy. Notice the fine and wonderful art with which this man in Rome, among the Hebrews, pleaded the cause of his Master. He began by testifying the Kingdom of God; the Theocracy.

That is what the Hebrew people were, in the purpose of God. In that they made their boast. He testified to that, showing first how he had not departed from the foundation position of the Hebrew people. Then secondly, he persuaded them, arguing with them “concerning Jesus,” from their own writings, from Moses, and all the prophets. The picture ends sadly; it is one of division. Some believed, and some disbelieved; they were not able to come to any decision.

They departed, after Paul had spoken his final word.

This whole book of the Acts is the story of God’s final striving with the Hebrew people. In the life of our Lord He came first to the Hebrew, the Jew. He said upon one occasion to a woman who asked His help, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to the dogs.” That little incidental word revealed the fact that He came first to the Hebrew people. They rejected Him. They had their new opportunity beyond His rejection at Pentecost, and yet another in that period in which this man had stood in Jerusalem. Jerusalem finally rejected Christ when it rejected Paul.

After that Paul strove to reach them in every city. He went first to the synagogue, first to the Hebrew. The word of Paul in Rome was the final word. Ere very many years had gone, after a period of oppression, tyranny, and suffering, the Roman eagles were carried through Jerusalem, and the nation was swept out. It was the occasion of the last and solemn abandonment of the people, this word spoken by Paul to the Hebrew rulers in that city of Rome, the central city of the world.

The words he quoted were words which had been spoken to Isaiah in that great vision, the record of which we have in the sixth chapter, when his whole ministry was changed. Our Lord quoted these very words in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, in the course of the parables of the Kingdom. When He was showing why the Kingdom was to be taken from the Jewish people, He quoted the same words. John also quoted exactly the same word in the twelfth chapter of his Gospel, where he was giving the last things in the presentation of the Kingdom to Israel. Mark these occurrences of these words in the Bible: Isaiah, Jesus, John, and Paul. If we say that Paul quoted them from Isaiah, we shall say that which is correct, but do not forget that they were not the words of Isaiah, but the words of Jehovah spoken to Isaiah about these people.

The declaration is that they themselves had closed their eyes, because they would not see; and therefore God had made them blind; that they themselves had hardened their heart, because they would not yield; and therefore God handed them over to their own hardness of heart. But it is interesting and solemn to remember that here in Rome, the city to whose yoke the Hebrew people had bowed the neck anew, in order to encompass the death of Christ, Paul’s final word of excommunication was spoken.

So we pass to that which is in some senses the most interesting part of this final page, the last two verses. There were two years, of which we only know what these two verses reveal, and what is found in the letters to the Philippians, the Colossians, the Ephesians, and Philemon; for those four letters were written undoubtedly, during this first imprisonment, and not during the second.

There is a difference between the “lodging” of verse Twenty-three (Acts 28:23), and the “hired dwelling” of verse thirty (Acts 28:30). First he was in a lodging, possibly the guest of some friend, his soldier guardian still by his side. It was in a lodging where he received the Jews; but after that he turned to the Gentiles, he was for two years in his own hired dwelling. He was a prisoner, and a prisoner of Rome, waiting the pleasure of the emperor. At any hour it might be that he would be called to appear before the emperor to whom he had appealed. Consequently he was in Rome at the charges of Rome.

But in order that he might do his Christian work in Rome, he hired his dwelling. Independent of the patronage of Rome must the apostle be, if he would deliver the Gospel to Rome. There came an hour when a Roman emperor espoused the cause of Christianity, when he provided the house in which there should be the Christian worship of God, when he became a patron of the Christian Church. That was the darkest and most disastrous hour that ever came to that Church. When the emperor provides the house, he will dictate the message. When the secular power governs the affairs of the Church, the word “Church” will be employed, in order to meet the requirement of the secular power.

Simple and yet sublime is the graphic word of the last picture in the Acts of the Apostles, that a prisoner of Rome, at the charges of Rome, will yet for the doing of Christian work in Rome, hire his dwelling.

There he kept open house, receiving all that came to him. Undoubtedly many patrician Romans went in those two years into the dwelling of that strange and wonderful Hebrew Christian, and listened to him. We shall find in his letters references to nobles in Rome, who had passed under the influence of the Gospel. But there came to him, visiting him, abiding with him, a little band of faithful souls, referred to in his letters as coming ’to him in Rome. Luke and Aristarchus had accompanied him, and remained with him. Tychieus was there for a while, but was presently sent away with a letter to Ephesus.

Timothy also was there for part of the time. Epaphrodittts came to see him from Philippi, bringing with him the gifts of the Church there. Onesimus, the runaway slave, found his way into the dwelling of the apostle, and was brought under the spell of the Gospel, and to Christ, until he served with love this man in his imprisonment. Mark too, from whom he had parted once in anger, also was there for part of the time, and one called Jesus, or Justus, a disciple of Epaphras. Then Epaphras, whose portrait Paul had drawn in his letters, and who stands upon the page of the New Testament as one of the most wonderful saints of the whole period, " one of you,” who agonized in prayer that the Colossians might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,” he too came to Rome. During those days also Demas was with him.

That group of faithful souls went to that open house, were taught by the great apostle, inspired for new work, and sent out upon new missions.

Two words tell the method of Paul. The first is “preaching,” and the word is not eitaggeltidzo, the preaching of the Gospel, but kerusso, the proclamation of the herald, “preaching the Kingdom.” That picture of Rome is still in our minds, Rome, mistress of the world, with Nero as the central figure. But there was another man in Rome, proclaiming the Kingdom of God. The other word is “teaching” -and it is literally discipling-“the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the Romans, for all visitors outside the Christian faith and economy, there was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God; but for the disciples, there was the teaching of the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is all that Luke has recorded. But during that period Paul wrote some letters: the Philippian letter, the Ephesian letter, the Colossian letter; and the half -page letter to Philemon. Measure the teaching given to the disciples by these letters, then we shall know some of the things he taught concerning Christ during those two years. Christ the well-spring of joy, as in the Philippian letter; Christ in all the glory of essential Deity embodied, as in the Colossian letter; Christ filling His Church, and making it the medium of manifestation in unending ages, as in the Ephesian letter; Christ taking Onesimus back to his master, making his master receive him no longer as a slave, but as a brother. “Teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The last word here is, “none forbidding him,” akolutos. Our translation is I think a little weak. Sometimes we translate all the fire, and passion, and dynamite out of a word. The last word is “unhindered.” But Paul is in prison? Unhindered. But Nero is on the throne? Unhindered. That is the last word, flaming in light, thrilling in power, telling the secret of the new force right at the heart of the world, at its strategic centre. Only one man, mean and contemptible of bodily presence, if we are to believe his own description, but that man unhindered. That last picture of Paul in Rome is full of value.

What must be the deepest note of the Christian witness to the cities of to-day? The Kingdom of God, not the caprice of a king, nor the decision of a parliament, not the will of the people, which may be as mistaken as the caprice of a king. We stand not for monarchy, or democracy; but for Theocracy, for the Kingdom of God, for the government of God, for the fact that He is King of the kings, for the fact that His law must be the criterion by which all human laws are measured, for the fact that only as His will is done can the people enter into the heritage of their own life. The Kingdom of God was the deepest note of the witness of the one man in Rome; and must be the deepest note of the witness of the Church in every city.

But not that alone. Also “teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.” That is to say, that the Kingdom of God must be interpreted by the Lord Jesus Christ, He Himself being an interpretation of the King. We know God as King if we know Jesus. He Himself was also the interpretation of life in the Kingdom, for He was subject to the will of God in all the mystery of His human life. So that in this Lord Jesus Christ we have the unveiling of the King Who is over the Kingdom; and of the men who are in the Kingdom, when they realize the meaning thereof.

Yet the central word is neither that of this interpretation of the unveiled King, nor this revelation of the subjects of the Kingdom. The central word is that of the mystery of the Cross whereby the rebel may be made nigh again, and the chaos may give place to cosmos, and all the weariness and wounding and woe may give place to rest and healing and happiness. Where the Christian witness is true to this Kingdom and to this interpretation, the issue is that the witness is unhindered; in spite of emperors, enemies, prisons, and chains. “The word of God is not bound,” and whatever may be the massed forces against its testimony, it is they which must crumble and pass and perish, as did Rome and Nero, and not this word of the testimony. May it be ours to be true to that testimony in life and speech, to the glory of His name. In proportion as we are so, the one word forever describing the Church will be the word with which this book ends, unhindered!

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