Verse 6
And when they found them not, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.
The rulers of the city ... The Greek word here is [@politarch], which is not found anywhere in Classical Greek literature; and, of course, there was a time when the radical critics were baying to the moon about "Luke's error"; however, the excavation of one of the arches that led to the ancient city has exposed an old inscription which uses the very title Luke employed here, even giving the names of the seven politarchs, which included the names "Sosipater, Gaius, and Secundus,"[11] all of which were common names of that day, and are found in Acts. The significance of Luke's accuracy in this lies in the fact that:
Aristotle, whose POLITICS well nigh exhausts the list of all known official titles of Greek cities, does not mention it .... It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, nor, indeed, in any classical writer.[12]
Having been proved correct where all the evidence seemed to be against him, Luke's accuracy is again, as invariably, certified. But, as Walker noted:
Despite all these facts corroborative of the truthfulness of the New Testament, some who still call themselves scholars continue to repeat the libelous statements that the New Testament books are full of historical blunders.[13]
These that have turned the world upside down ... The apostles were not "revolutionaries" in the modern sense of that word; but their teachings did entail a reversal of pagan value-judgments. "How greatly the world fears the kingdom of God! How it dreads lest its own works, which are of clay, should be overthrown."[14]
[11] Ibid.
[12] E. H. Plumptre, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), Vol. 7, p. 111.
[13] W. R. Walker, Studies in Acts (Joplin, Missouri: College Press), 2p. 42.
[14] John Peter Lange, Commentary on Acts (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1866), p. 319.
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