Continue in the grace of God
Acts 13:38-43 · Vern Peterman · Nov 26, 2017
Acts (2017-18), No. 42
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926610221003

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Jingle bells will never come across the same to me again. So anyway, and that's a good thing. So anyway, here we are in Acts chapter 13, 38 through 43. I think this is a real exciting passage as we look at it. And just to kind of bring us up to speed what's been happening so far in the chapter.

One of the things we saw is right at the outset here are The believers gathered there in Antioch. This is Antioch on the Orontes River. This is also called Syrian Antioch. And as they're gathered there, upon the clear direction of the Holy Spirit, and by that I mean the Holy Spirit is said to have set this up at the outset. They prayed, they fasted, they all concluded together that Paul and Barnabas should be sent. And then it even says that the Holy Spirit sent them so I mean it's before and after Very clearly confirmed. It was the Holy Spirit's work.

They were to be Missionaries into the Gentile lands and that does not mean just to the Gentiles but to the Gentile lands Both Jews and Gentiles and as we'll see Jews first and then the Gentiles so they went and began at the Isle of Cyprus, which as it turns out is where Barnabas was from. And from there they went to Perga.

At that point Mark left them. And so we'll take a closer look at the map here shortly. Mark left them and headed back to Jerusalem. We're not going to be leaving that point because it's not the end of the story with Mark. As a matter of fact, what we find is though it looks bad, it ends up being a turning point for him. So, then in Pisidian Antioch, Paul began speaking in the synagogue, right? Going from Abraham to John the Baptist to King David, and he presented there in the synagogue, in the midst of this, he presented Christ as the Savior, he presented Christ as the descendant from David, and then that takes us into the passage we'll be looking at here today. You have on the top of page one, and we'll repeat it as we continue through Paul's first missionary journey, you have them leaving Antioch, going on to Cyprus, starting with Salamis and leaving at Paphos, and then landing at Perga, at which point John Mark heads back to Jerusalem, and then heading on to Pisidian Antioch, that is Antioch, same name as the other one that they started from, But it's a different name.

One of the things we pointed out is there are over a half dozen different places in the United States named Denver. And so the one we're familiar with and are now in is one of them, the largest ones. But in this case, there were two different Antiochs. Both of them were quite large cities. And so this is Antioch in Pisidia, or sometimes called Pisidian Antioch.

They will continue on as we see and proceed through the Book of Acts. They'll continue on in the southern part of what is called Galatia. This will be the source for the Book of Galatians, as Paul will soon write about a year or so after this set of events we're reading here. Here's the chronology. He is about in the middle in terms of the sequence of things, about in the middle of his first missionary journey. In fact, he, however, has about a year or so left to go as he proceeds here.

This is an archaeological reconstruction of Pisidian Antioch. One of the things they do in archaeological reconstructions is they put things by an artist's hand back to the way things would have looked with the help of the archaeologist. and so it gives you a sense of what that would have actually been like. Archaeological ruins, in fact, are certainly less clear and less glamorous looking. Here, for example, is a look down one of the streets. You can see what was there, but it certainly doesn't have quite the same finished look and occupied look. In fact, Pisidian Antioch, though it was once a significant and large city, is now just a ruin to be looked at.

Here are the letters of Paul we want to talk about here. The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Those were all letters to churches or to individuals in each case. So he wrote just about in in numbers relating to the church of almost half of the books of the New Testament. We know that he wrote other letters, too. In other words, we have direct evidence that he wrote other letters.

We have, for example, downstairs the elective where they're going through 1st and 2nd Corinthians. We know from reference from those letters that he refers to other letters that we don't have. And so, in fact, what we call 1st and 2nd Corinthians would then be called 2nd and 4th Corinthians if we had the others, but we don't. He also makes reference in his letter to the church at Colossae, so Colossians, he wrote about a letter to Laodicea, which we don't have. So that particular example is quite possible.

Dr. Luke doesn't mention Paul sitting down and writing any letters. The fact that we do in fact have 13 of Paul's letters is probably a good indication. that he may have written actually hundreds of letters and it could be even into a thousand or thousands, we don't know. But it's quite likely that he wrote a great many more letters, short individual letters like he did with Philemon, longer letters sometimes in a series as we see with, for example, 1st and 2nd Corinthians. So in a number of letters in between he wrote letters like in the case of Romans that will be studied and next year's elective Romans was so far as we know one letter We don't know that he wrote others.

So we have quite a bit of variety. Nonetheless, today's passage has words. We're going to find our key words, pivotal words, from the letters of Paul in various places, from Romans all the way into Philemon. And we see that in what Paul says, how he speaks. And those exact words are brought up. So key words, key themes, these come up in Paul's writing. And this writing, by the way, is among the more lengthy things that Paul says that's recorded in the book of Acts.

So here's Acts 13, 38, and 39. This was recording what happened mid-July to mid-September in 48 AD. And he says, Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses. So, let's take a look at that.

One of the things we've said is, this sounds like Paul, and one of the ways we know that that's true is he uses therefore. As a matter of fact, in six verses, Acts 13, 35 through 40, as you have it on page two of your handout there, therefore three times, right? And of course, you've all heard the, you know, you have to look at the therefore to see what the therefore is there for, right? But, therefore, three times certainly that fits the way the Apostle Paul wrote repeatedly.

And the Book of Romans is, in fact, one of those books that makes multiple uses of not only this word, but other words of logic. It's my understanding that in centuries past that lawyers were brought up by studying the Book of Romans to follow Paul's logic here. would that they would continue to study such books.

Anyway, so therefore is used by Jesus as you look up that in the Gospels, used by Jesus. It's even used by the Apostle John later on in the New Testament. But it's especially used by Paul the Apostle as one of his logic words. Therefore means this, it means to present what logically follows from what was presented, that is presented before, in speech or in writing. He uses it here in that sense of therefore, therefore, therefore, saying it three times in six verses.

Therefore presents either an interim, and that's what he does here as he speaks in this passage in Acts chapter 13, presents an interim or final conclusion, based on what was given before. So he'd lay out certain facts, he'd lay out certain points, and then he would draw a conclusion. That would either be, as we saw earlier in those earlier therefores, that would either be an interim conclusion upon which he would build, or it would be, as we'll see in today's passage, a final conclusion. But it is used to tie the things that were laid out before, the facts, the perspectives, etc., the observations, to lay those out and then to move on to an interim or final conclusion.

And that's exactly what he's done here. He also makes an appeal to the word brethren. It's important we pay attention to that word because it's used in more than one way in the book of Acts. He addresses these fellow Jews that are gathered here in the synagogue as brethren. We mentioned before this is a term that was used by the Christians among the Jews. Peter did that.

In fact, we make reference here, Acts 2.29, on the day of Pentecost to fellow Jews. So fellow Jews were called brethren. So that was a custom. Peter did it. Paul does it here. He refers to the Jews that are gathered there in the synagogue as brethren.

Starting in Acts 6.3, we find also that the believers in Christ are beginning to call one another brethren. And there is a spiritual basis for that, and that is because we are Christ's brethren. Both Romans and Hebrews, as we give reference here, are books that say Christ is our brother, therefore saying that we are brethren among us, okay?

We have a family relationship. Matter of fact, that's interesting to think about. Just as Roger and Vani are celebrating the birth of twin grandchildren here, isn't it interesting that we're called brethren, but God has no grandchildren? I love being a grandparent. Nancy and I have 11 grandkids now. It's just wonderful. I imagine having twins. I haven't been through that, but anyway, that must be twice as wonderful, I guess. But so anyway, as I look at this, I see we're brethren. That is a specific relationship we have to Christ. We won't have spiritual cousins, right? Or at least the Bible doesn't talk about that.

Now it also says that Paul preached. The apostles before Paul, particularly Peter, preached and Paul continued to do it. The content of the good news of salvation was preached to the people in the synagogue, including the forgiveness of sins. That was included in here as well. Forgiveness of sins was offered to all who believe. See that? Forgiveness of sins was offered to all belief based on Christ's payment on the cross for the sins for every single person on the planet for all time.

So when Christ was on the cross, did he die for the sins of Adam? Yes. When Christ was on the cross, did he die for the sins of Moses? Yes. When Christ was on the cross, did he die for the sins of Saddam Hussein? Yes. Christ was on the cross. Did He die for the sins of you and me? Yes.

All the way from Adam to the last person born on this planet, who hasn't even been born yet. Someone born during the Millennial Kingdom. Possibly as soon as a thousand and seven years from now, right? He paid the price for every person of all time. That forgiveness is applied when they believe. The payment is made for all. The forgiveness is applied when they believe.

We see Peter back when he was presenting the gospel to the house of Cornelius in Acts 10.43. Of him all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. That is the exclusive means by which that forgiveness of sins is applied.

The payment is made for all. That's why Jesus could be on the cross and with one Greek word, tetelestai, He could say, it's all paid. It's all done. He paid the price for every single one that one afternoon. He paid the price for all. Everyone who believes receives the benefit of that payment in the forgiveness of sins. By the way, bearing witness... There's your bear witness, okay? Alright, okay.

Now, here's Acts 10.43, looking at it, through Christ's name, that's what Peter is spelling out here. It says, through his name, and that's not just name-dropping, is it? Right? Through his name means all of who he was, is, and has done. That's what he means by the name. He's not just dropping a name. He's not just using magic, where if I say the right formula, that's what happens.

All of who he was, is, and has done. Every single person, that's what he means by everyone, every single person who puts trust and confidence in Christ's payment for sins to the satisfaction of the righteous character of God the Father receives the complete forgiveness of sins. Complete. Is there any sin that you or I have committed that is not covered here? No, not happening. Every single one For all the things that I've done, there's none of them so bad that this isn't covered. That's a good thing.

That's why I can even say, he died for the sins of Saddam Hussein. He died for the sins of Adolf Hitler. And then, as you look at it, that full benefit of the total payment carried out by Christ on the cross is applied. That's forgiveness of sins. The payment is made for everyone. Belief is the one thing that's necessary to have that forgiveness of sins.

So as to be redeemed and bought out of the slave market and so justified, declared righteous. See, God doesn't just declare us righteous because He can do that. He does so because we've been forgiven of all sins and redeemed, bought out of the slave market. Then He is able to say, declared righteous. I need to make one other distinction here.

Did Christ ever need to be declared righteous? He did not, because He was fundamentally righteous. You and I, having our sins forgiven and being redeemed, we then, can be declared righteous. Christ didn't need to be declared righteous. He already was fundamentally righteous.

Now, freed from all things. Now, what do you mean by freed from all things? Is that just a get-out-of-hell-free card? As if we were playing eternal monopoly here. Right? Hey, I'm going to pull out my get-out-of-hell-free card. See, there we go. I pulled it out of the stack. No. That's not what he's talking about.

The Greek word translated freed twice in this passage, and the new American standard anyway, is elsewhere translated justified. So the short definition of that word means declared righteous. That is, it's a judicial act. God says, you are righteous, you are not guilty of the things of which you've been accused. It is a judicial declaration. God can declare anyone righteous who has believed the gospel. That is, they are redeemed, bought out of the slave market of sin, and forgiven of sins. As Paul wrote, in him we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

There's something very similar, I would quote Colossians 1.14, something very similar is going to be included in this Ephesians elective coming up, Ephesians 1.7. In him we have the redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Now, so just to get this clear, the Bible pictures sin as a debt owed.

We can see that in the Gospels, Colossians 2.12 spells out that very thing. Sin is a debt owed to God. To be redeemed is to be bought out of the slave market of sin. And so when we believe the debt is paid, when we believe we are bought out of the slave market of sin, what do we do? We believe. That's all. God did the rest. That's very important for us to understand. God did the rest. Christ paid full price for our sins to be forgiven and to have us redeemed. I think that's something for us very important to get. God did not negotiate a bargain price. He paid full price for you and me. There was no bargain deal. Jesus didn't say, here's a 20% off coupon. This time of year those are things we especially might look for. God didn't do that.

He paid full price for all the sins. Every single one. Full price. so that we would be forgiven and to be redeemed. Believing takes advantage of the full payment so that we're forgiven and redeemed. Believing is the one thing. People in Christendom get that believing messed up. People want to add to it. Oh, you've got to super believe. And you've got to believe in such a way that you've got to make Christ Lord and never mess up. People will mess up this believing. So, not only today, but in the weeks and months ahead, we need to look real carefully at that and make sure we understand it. Because what is being taught out there by a great many is false doctrine. And really believing what the Bible says, That's the truth, and it's actually quite simple. Don't need to take away from or add to it or tweak it in some way. The Bible spells it out real simply.

So we'll be talking about that in the weeks and times to come here. Because we believe the payment is applied, our sins are forgiven, and we're bought out of the slave market of sin, never to be put back into it again. God declares us righteous and justified because of that.

He cannot simply say, oh, you believe? I'll declare you righteous. The sins have to be forgiven and we need to be redeemed, bought out. In Him, we're redeemed and we have the forgiveness of sins. In Him we have those things. Then He can declare us righteous. Because our sins are forgiven, because we've been redeemed, bought out of the slave market of sin, then we're declared righteous. Then we can be declared righteous. As is translated here, completely freed from all those things.

People try to be cheerleaders for Moses as much as they like. And here, in fact, is some Jewish women who just won some rights to get along the Western Wall and pray in certain sections of it. So they're celebrating this. People can be cheerleaders for Moses as much as they like, but the law of Moses frees nobody. That's what the Apostle Paul said. The Law of Moses does not free anybody. Now, as we point out, there are 613 individual statutes in the Law of Moses. Now, which one of those, if you follow it, will get you declared righteous? None. Not one of them. Oh, but wait a minute.

Some people say, well, you know, I think I'll follow the Ten. Those are the Ten, right? If I follow the Ten, won't that do it? Won't I get righteousness if I follow the Ten? I'll try really hard. Do you know that deciding I'm going to follow the Ten Commandments means that you are absolutely committed to breaking the other 603? Oh, that's not good, eh?

Now, here's one other thing. I've heard it taught. It's been taught in churches here in Denver. It's been taught in churches back where Nancy and I just visited. I've heard it taught that the law is written on your heart. What they do is they take that out of Jeremiah 31 and similar passages, and they say, oh, well, the law is written on your heart. In that passage it says that you will know the law by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Now, how many of you can recite all 613 laws without study? How many of you can do that? Any takers on that? No. For various reasons, that being evidence of it, that's false teaching. The law is not written on your heart. You don't need the law written on your heart. Why? If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, Christ is in your heart and he doesn't even need to be declared righteous, he's fundamentally righteous. Does Christ need help from the law to live out righteousness? Not at all.

And therefore, the law is inspired, it was given to Moses by God's inspiration, it is a part of inspired scripture. But we're not under it, and it is not written on our hearts. What is in our hearts is Christ himself. And that's not what, it's a who. The law of Moses doesn't help to free anyone or get them declared righteous or redeemed or even forgiven of any sins.

Do you realize that a person could be eternally saved by faith and yet be stoned to death? How about them apples? Right? A person could actually be saved by faith under the time of the law, a person could actually be saved by faith, they believe in God's provision for salvation, they're saved by faith eternally, but they pick up a piece of firewood a half hour too late on a Friday afternoon, and it's time to study rocks up real close. That's amazing, isn't it? The law will not save anybody, will not get anyone declared righteous, and good luck with it having been written on your heart, but the law can get somebody stoned to death who's saved eternally. About the only thing good about that is it sends them home. Right?

Here's Galatians 5, 3 and 4. Apostle Paul wrote and by the way, this was only written about a year after he said these words that we're looking at here And I testify again to every man who received circumcision that is under obligation to keep the whole law So out of 613 laws, one of them is that the males are to be circumcised on the eighth day He says if you guys volunteer for just that one and you volunteered for how much? the whole thing. Does it do any good to say, ah, I'll just take the ten? No. Because one, the ten isn't a part of circumcision, and if I volunteer for circumcision, I've volunteered for not ten, but how many? Six hundred and thirteen.

He says, you have been severed from Christ, by the way, not in your position, and you are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace, when you've already been justified by what? By grace, through faith. Romans 13, 19 and 20, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. Are you under the law of Moses? No, and as a matter of fact, unless you were Jewish, you never were. And in fact, since Christ came, it's not even possible, right?

But, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God, verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. How many? No flesh. No flesh. Is there any hope that if I pick the right laws and get them all memorized? No. No flesh will be justified in this sight.

Through the law comes salvation. Through the law comes redemption. Through the law comes forgiveness of sins. Through the law you get declared righteous. No. Through the law comes knowledge of sin. Why? Because The law gives you description. Here's what you broke. The law allows you to count. You broke it three times. The law gives quantification and qualification for what you broke. That's it.

The law does not help with forgiveness, with redemption, with being justified. Here's Acts 13, 41 and 40. Therefore take heed so that the things spoken of the prophets may not come upon you. Behold you scoffers and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.

So the Apostle Paul quotes Habakkuk 1.5 So what is Paul doing here by quoting this Old Testament passage? He cautions and challenges those who had failed to believe in the gospel message he and Barnabas had brought to the synagogue there at Pisidian Antioch. He's giving them a warning. So let's look at the context to get an idea. What sort of a warning is he giving them?

This Habakkuk 1.5 was from several centuries earlier, 606 to 604 BC.

At the time when the Assyrian Empire was beginning to decline and fall apart, that was because the Babylonians were defeating the Assyrians. God's telling them, guess what? You guys are cheering that the Babylonians are defeating the Assyrians. Because they were your enemy. But guess what? I'm raising up the Babylonians and it's not good news for you. That's what he's telling me. Can you imagine that?

The Babylonians invaded Judah in three waves of terror. One, about the time that Habakkuk first wrote. Finally tearing down the temple, the walls of Jerusalem, forcing the surviving people of Judah to march to Babylon. It was a horrible time. Three ways of increasing terror came upon them. So, what work is he talking about? There's two kinds.

One, in two decades from this time, this is 48 AD, the Romans will be starting their retaliation and catastrophic destruction in Israel, ending in the ruin of Jerusalem and a holocaust of Jews. More than a million Jews will die in this disaster. And unfortunately, a great many of them Jew against Jew. The Jews who would not fight would be killed by those who would.

You're going to fight them? Nope. Okay, you're gone anyway. You're out of here. In the end, well over a million Jews died in this Holocaust, in this catastrophe. But what's even more important here, God had done a work through Christ, just 15 years before this time, in which Christ paid for sins and was raised from the dead.

And so the eternally important issue, he says, you guys need to make sure you believe, is do you, put in your name, believe it? That's the eternally important issue. He's saying, this is a warning from Habakkuk. You've got some big things coming both to this people, Israel, right now, and all of you have an eternal issue coming that's even greater. Do you believe it? Believing is the issue, isn't it?

So the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was really, really, really awful. I can't have enough reallys in there, it gets monotonous. But how awful it was, was not monotonous. Many Jews died and were put into exile. There were some, a few, who survived and were not included in that.

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans was really, really awful. along with death for many Jews and slavery for those who survived the catastrophe. There were so many Jews put on the slave market, in addition to these million plus who died, so many Jews put on the slave market that they couldn't get a good price for the slaves, because there were so many. It was a glut of slaves. Supply and demand said that they sold the slaves for cheap.

But Paul's warning points to this, an eternity in hell for those who refuse to believe, who are the scoffers, is awful beyond description. What happened with the Babylonians? Really horrible. What happened with the Romans? Really, really, really horrible.

For the person who turns down Christ's payment for sins, the work that God has done, it's awful beyond description. What's very interesting is while there are apocryphal works that go and describe the horrors of hell, the Bible actually doesn't go into great detail about it. Very interesting. It seems to be a preoccupation with people to try to put detail to what the Bible does not. Nonetheless, the Bible has no good description of it.

Paul, in quoting Habakkuk 1.5 here, is warning them about all the horrible outcomes from failure to believe.

In Acts 13.42, as Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these might be spoken to them the next Sabbath.

So you can imagine here, the synagogue service did end, but it doesn't sound like they wanted it to end. The opportunity to influence the synagogue ruler there at the end and to invite speakers back was right then, just as the service ended. So imagine them going to the synagogue ruler and saying, hey, we want this guy to come speak again.

You know, we really need to have him come and talk with us again. We get the picture of the people who heard Paul speak were not just mildly interested, like, that's kind of fascinating. I'd like to hear about that some more. But instead, they were intensely interested in what he had to say. It says they begged for more. Oh, please, let's have some more of that.

Acts 13.43, Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God. So the Jews here were those Jews who were ethnically Jewish. They had been descended from Jacob, also called Israel in the Old Testament particularly, and his sons.

These were generally observant Jews of the Law of Moses. Jews who were not generally observant would be essentially pushed out or even disinterested in this meeting. The God-fearing Gentiles were those who, there was actually a range of those who fit into that term. from regarding the Jews respectfully, as some did, to actually being converts to Judaism. So that was kind of the range of what that term covered. The proselytes, because that's the term that's used here, had actually converted to Judaism. They had actually converted to Judaism.

There were certain requirements for having to do that, and so they were ones who had become Jewish converts. They had gone that far. Now, you have on your handout on page 4, I decided to make everything fit without running it to another page to make it sideways. So you'll have to turn your head and do some sort of physical therapy exercise here, or you might even just turn the page, I don't know. But, here's what it looks like.

From Acts 10.22 to Acts 17.17, we have multiple references throughout the book of Acts, And this is starting with the person of Cornelius, the centurion, on down into Acts 17.17, which is in Paul's second missionary journey.

And so what we find is that there was a term that was used, God-fearing. Or you who fear God if he was speaking to them directly, but that that's a patterns you'll find throughout the book of Acts Even now Jews will use the term God fearers, which isn't In here, but it's it's close referring to those who have a regard for the God of Israel, but have not converted necessarily. But anyway, you find it's a consistent term.

Why is Acts the one that has this? Because you're not going to find it anywhere else, by the way, and that's because Luke himself became a Christian believer, most likely being a God-fearing Gentile prior to that time. So what does this word followed mean? Does that mean just that they followed them out of the synagogue and hung out with them? And actually the indications are no. These Jews and the God-fearing Gentile proselytes came to believe in Jesus for salvation. So this is key. In the context of all the book of Acts, those who followed became believers.

You have to turn sideways again. Turn the paper sideways if you like. Otherwise, you can do it as an exercise, right? So, what we'll do is this. This is Acts 11.23, which is prior to this first missionary journey. Here in this missionary journey, and then we're going to see again in chapter 14, this continuing in the faith or continuing in the grace of God, remaining true to the Lord, Those kinds of terms were used of those who were believers, perhaps young believers, but believers nonetheless. And so that would be the indication here.

He was encouraged those who had become believers, who were very, very young believers, to continue in the grace of God as opposed to falling back under reliance in the law of Moses and all the Jewish traditions. So having been saved by the gospel of grace by believing the gospel of the grace of God, Paul and Barnabas urged these believers to continue in the grace of God from then on.

So I ask you, are there hazards to continuing in the grace of God? Not from continuing in the grace of God, but there are hazards out there. Following the law of Moses or a subset or a principle of law are hazards to continuing in the grace of God. Because why? Because it says, I can do something that will help God out.

And so mixtures of law and grace are not what he is encouraging or calling us to. So continue in the grace of God. Do not continue relying upon the law of Moses or your Jewish heritage or the fact that you converted to Judaism as being something that's going to buy you favor with God. It will not get you declared righteous. It will not bring about forgiveness of sins. Those are the hazards. So, he's not done here at Pisidian Antioch, so the question is, how is this going to turn out? After presenting the gospel from the Jewish context, he said Christ is the Savior. He said Christ is the long-promised descendant of David. He said Christ died and was buried and rose again.

You guys need to believe these things, okay? People had responded in faith so as to be saved after they begged to hear for more, right? We could wonder how things actually did turn out the next Sabbath, because after all, they were very interested, right? Did just as many people come to the synagogue as before, or were there quite a number? So we'll find that out. Were they also just as eager to hear?

What would be the response to the gospel of grace? What would be the response? to the message that salvation is by grace, through faith alone, and nothing else, and nobody else, and through Jesus and what He has accomplished, and no other means. So we'll take a look at that next time. Let's pray.

Thank you, Lord. As we look through this passage, it's very clear what you have spoken through Paul. It is, in fact, entirely consistent with everything that we have seen in Paul's letters. He has stated it very well. And we also see, Lord, that the gospel has been presented in a Jewish context here. We thank you for what was presented then. We pray that we would have as much clarity as Paul and you intended. And we pray these things, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.