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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 15:5 - 15:5
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But there rose up (exanestēsan de). Second aorist active indicative (intransitive). Note both exō and an. These men rose up out of the crowd at a critical moment. They were believers in Christ (pepisteukotes, having believed), but were still members of “the sect of the Pharisees” (tēs haireseōs tōn Pharisaiōn). Evidently they still held to the Pharisaic narrowness shown in the attack on Peter (Act 11:2.). Note the dogmatism of their “must” (dei) after the opposition of Paul and Barnabas to their “except” (ean me) at Antioch (Act 15:1). They are unconvinced and expected to carry the elders with them. Codex Bezae says that they had appealed to the elders (Act 15:2, Act 15:5). At any rate they have made the issue in open meeting at the height of the jubilation. It is plain from Act 15:6that this meeting was adjourned, for another gathering came together then. It is here that the private conference of which Paul speaks in Gal 2:1-10 took place. It was Paul’s chance to see the leaders in Jerusalem (Peter, James, and John) and he won them over to his view of Gentile liberty from the Mosaic law so that the next public conference (Acts 15:6-29) ratified heartily the views of Paul, Barnabas, Peter, James, and John. It was a diplomatic triumph of the first order and saved Christianity from the bondage of Jewish ceremonial sacramentalism. So far as we know this is the only time that Paul and John met face to face, the great spirits in Christian history after Jesus our Lord. It is a bit curious to see men saying today that Paul surrendered about Titus and had him circumcised for the sake of peace, the very opposite of what he says in Galatians, “to whom I yielded, no not for an hour.” Titus as a Greek was a red flag to the Judaizers and to the compromisers, but Paul stood his ground.