Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER XVII.
1. The four evangelists bid adieu to the sorrowing saints at the house of Lydia, travel southward,
thirty-three miles to Amphipolis, where they do not tarry because there is no Jewish synagogue.
Judgment begins at the house of God. Hence they give the preference to the Jews constituting the
popular church of their day, always preaching to them first, thus making their start in every city. So
the four pedestrians travel on south thirty miles to Apollonia, which they pass for the above reason,
arriving at Thessalonica, thirty-seven miles farther south, one hundred from Philippi, where they find
a Jewish synagogue.
2, 3. They spend three weeks preaching on the streets and in the houses, and in the synagogue on
the Sabbath, Paul showing up clearly from the Scriptures that Jesus the Nazarene is the Christ of
Israel, the Shiloh of prophecy and the Savior of the world. Quite a host of both Jews and Greeks,
including many prominent and influential men and women, are gloriously converted and the work
is moving triumphantly.
5-9. Meanwhile the unbelieving Jews, mad and jealous of the Gentiles, run round and stir up the
uncouth rabble, assault the house of Jason where the apostles were lodging, aiming to kill them, but
the Lord having hidden them so they can not find them, they drag out Jason and certain brethren
before the rulers of the city, the mob roaring aloud, “These men who have turned the world upside
down have come here also, whom Jason has received.” Frequently Satan accidentally tells the truth,
as he did in this case. God made the world right side up; the devil turned it over in the Fall, so it has
ever since been wrong side up. Therefore the work of the gospel is “to turn the world upside down,”
which is the only way to get it again right side up. “All these act contrary to the decrees of Cæsar,
saying that there is another king, i.e., Jesus.” Read Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, and you find
them full of the Lord’s glorious coming again to reign in righteousness. This is the reason they
charged the apostle with preaching that Jesus is King, because he not only preached Jesus the Christ,
the Savior of the world, but our glorious coming King. “Receiving satisfaction from Jason and the
rest, they released them,” i.e., when Jason and the other brethren whom they had seized satisfied
them that they did not have the apostles in their possession nor know where they were, then they
released them.
10-13. Now leaving Timothy at Thessalonica to continue the meeting, Paul, Silas and Luke
continue their journey southward, fifty-seven miles to Berea, also a prominent city, where there is
a synagogue of the Jews. Paul invariably began his labors in the Jewish synagogues, always
succeeding in the conversion of some of the members to the Christhood of Jesus, and thus dividing
the church unless, by the grace of God, he succeeded in capturing it all, as in case of the large
synagogue at Berea and the small one at Philippi. They have a glorious time at Berea, where the
church unanimously fall in with Paul, receiving with delight his powerful preaching and irresistible
prophetical proofs of the Christhood of Jesus. We hear a universal hue and cry against the holiness
people for dividing the churches. That has been the case in all ages and will continue till Satan is cast
out and the millennium ushers in. Jesus said: “I came not to send peace on earth, but division.” When
Satan has a church [and he has many], there is no chance to save the people without separating them