Acts 13:16-41

3. Paul’s Missionary Argument at Pisidian Antioch , Acts 13:16-41 .

Luke here at length furnishes a first specimen of Paul’s preaching, enabling us to judge by what methods Paul proclaimed to these provincial Jews that their long expected Messiah had come, and that upon him they must rely for eternal salvation.

1 . In 16-23 he gives a preparatory rehearsal of the main points of Israel’s Old Testament history from Abraham to David, as the Messiah’s progenitor. This furnishes the historic grounding for Jesus. 2. In 24, 25 he grounds the same Jesus upon John the Baptist. 3. We have, 26-31, the Jesus-history given, presenting him as rejected indeed by Jerusalem, but predicted by the prophets, and, when slain by Pilate, raised from the dead by God, as attested by chosen witnesses. Thus the Jesus-history is embedded in the Israel-history. 4. Glad tidings, therefore, (32-37,) does the orator bring, that God’s Messianic promise is fulfilled, as prophesied of old, in the birth of God’s Son, and in his miraculous resurrection as the Holy One above all corruption. 5. A proclamation (38-41) of the joyful conclusion, an era of sin forgiven with a power unknown heretofore to Moses’ law: yet with the sad finale of perdition to all rejecters. Thus we have the skilful Christian argument by which the crucified Jesus is installed and incorporated into the divine history of Israel as her true Messiah, and her only Redeemer from sin and perdition.