New Daily Study Bible

William Barclay

• Publisher: Saint Andrew Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780715208960
• eBook ISBN: 9780861537440
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Presents the history of the early Christian church. This title provides us with glimpses of the great moments in those years after Christ's death. It shows us how the characters and events relate to our lives.

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

POWER TO GO ON

Acts 1:1–5

My Dear Theophilus, I have already given you an account of all the things that Jesus began to do and to teach, right up to the day when he was taken up to heaven, after he had, through the Holy Spirit, given his instructions to the apostles whom he had chosen. In the days that followed his sufferings, he also showed himself living to them by many proofs, for he was seen by them on various occasions throughout a period of forty days; and he spoke to them about the kingdom of God. While he was staying with them, he told them not to go away from Jerusalem but to wait for the Father’s promise, ‘which’, he said, ‘I told you about; for I told you that John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit before many days have passed’.

IN two senses, Acts is the second chapter of a continued story. First, it is the second volume which Luke had sent to Theophilus. In the first volume, his gospel, Luke had told the story of the earthly life of Jesus. Now he goes on to tell the story of the Christian Church. Second, Acts is the second volume of a story which has no end. The gospel was only the story of what Jesus began to do and to teach.

There are different kinds of immortality. There is an immortality of fame. In Henry V, Shakespeare puts into the king’s mouth a speech which promises an immortal memory if the Battle of Agincourt is won:

This story shall the good man tell his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered.

Beyond a doubt, Jesus did win such an immortality, for his name will never be forgotten.

There is an immortality of influence. Some people leave an effect in the world which cannot die. Sir Francis Drake was the greatest of English sailors, and to this day the Royal Naval Barracks at Plymouth are called HMS Drake so that there may always be sailors armed with ‘that crested and prevailing name’. Without a doubt, Jesus won an immortality of influence, for his effect upon the world and lives of men and women cannot die.

Above all, there is an immortality of presence and of power. Jesus not only left an immortal name and influence; he is still alive and still active. He is not the one who was; he is the one who is.

In one sense, it is the whole lesson of Acts that the life of Jesus goes on in his Church. Professor John Foster of Glasgow University told how an inquirer from Hinduism came to an Indian bishop. Without any help, he had read the New Testament. The story had fascinated him, and Christ had laid his spell upon him. ‘Then he read on . . . and felt he had entered into a new world. In the gospels it was Jesus, his works and his suffering. In the Acts . . . what the disciples did and thought and taught had taken the place that Christ had occupied. The Church continued where Jesus had left off at his death. “Therefore,” said this man to me, “I must belong to the Church that carries on the life of Christ.” ’ The book of Acts tells of the Church that carries on the life of Christ.

This passage tells us how the Church was empowered to do that by the work of the Holy Spirit. We often call the Holy Spirit the Comforter. That word goes back to the translation by John Wyclif, made in the fourteenth century; but in Wyclif’s day it had a different meaning. It comes from the Latin fortis, which means brave; the Comforter is the one who fills people with courage and with strength. In the book of Acts, indeed all through the New Testament, it is very difficult to draw a line between the work of the Spirit and the work of the risen Christ; and we do not need to do so, for the coming of the Spirit is the fulfilment of the promise of Jesus: ‘And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).

Let us note one other thing. The apostles were told to wait for the coming of the Spirit. We would gain more power and courage and peace if we learned to wait. In the business of life, we need to learn to be still. ‘Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength’ (Isaiah 40:31). Amid life’s surging activity, there must be time to receive.

THE KINGDOM AND ITS WITNESSES

Acts 1:6–8

So when they had met together, they asked him: ‘Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel at this time?’ But he said to them: ‘It is not yours to know the times and the seasons which the Father has appointed by his own authority. But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power; and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria and to the furthest bounds of the earth.’

THROUGHOUT his ministry, Jesus laboured under one great disadvantage. The centre of his message was the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14); but he meant one thing by the kingdom, and those who listened to him meant another.

The Jews were always vividly conscious of being God’s chosen people. They took that to mean that they were destined for special privilege and for worldwide power. The whole course of their history proved that, humanly speaking, that could never be. Palestine was a little country not more than 120 miles long by 40 miles wide. It had its days of independence, but it had become subject in turn to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. So the Jews began to look forward to a day when God would break directly into human history and establish that world sovereignty of which they dreamed. They thought of the kingdom in political terms.

How did Jesus see it? Let us look at the Lord’s Prayer. In it, there are two petitions side by side. ‘Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ It is characteristic of Hebrew style, as any verse of the Psalms will show, to say things in two parallel forms, the second of which repeats or amplifies the first. That is what these two petitions do. The second is a definition of the first. Therefore, we see that, by the kingdom, Jesus meant a society upon earth where God’s will would be as perfectly done as it is in heaven. Because of that, it would be a kingdom founded on love and not on power.

To achieve that, men and women needed the Holy Spirit. Twice already, Luke has talked about waiting for the coming of the Spirit. We are not to think that the Spirit came into existence at this point for the first time. It is quite possible for a power always to exist but for people to experience or take it at some given moment. For instance, no one invented atomic power. It always existed; but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that anyone was able to access that power. So God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit; but there came a special time when people experienced to the full that power which had always been present.

The power of the Spirit was going to make them Christ’s witnesses. That witness was to operate in an ever-extending series of concentric circles – first in Jerusalem, then throughout Judaea; then Samaria, the semi-Jewish state, would be a kind of bridge leading out into the world beyond Israel; and finally this witness was to go out to the ends of the earth.

Let us note certain things about this Christian witness. First, a witness is someone who says: ‘I know this is true.’ In a court of law, hearsay is not accepted as evidence; witnesses must give an account of their own personal experiences. A witness does not say ‘I think so’, but ‘I know.’

Second, the real witness is not of words but of deeds. When the journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley had discovered David Livingstone in central Africa and had spent some time with him, he said: ‘If I had been with him any longer, I would have been compelled to be a Christian – and he never spoke to me about it at all.’ The witness of Livingstone’s life was irresistible.

Third, in Greek, the word for witness and the word for martyr is the same (martus). A witness had to be ready to become a martyr. To be a witness means to be loyal whatever the cost.

THE GLORY OF DEPARTURE AND THE GLORY OF RETURN

Acts 1:9–11

When he had said these things, while they were watching, he was taken up and a cloud received him and he passed from their sight. While they were gazing into heaven, as he went upon his way, behold, two men in white garments stood beside them; and they said to them: ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing looking up into heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up into heaven from you will come again in the same way as you have seen him go to heaven.’

THIS short passage leaves us face to face with two of the most difficult ideas in the New Testament.

First, it tells of the ascension. Only Luke tells this story; and he has already given an account of it in his gospel (Luke 24:50–3). For two reasons, the ascension was an absolute necessity. One was that there had to be a final moment when Jesus went back to the glory which was his. The forty days of the resurrection appearances had passed. Clearly, that was a time which was unique and could not go on forever. Equally clearly, the end to that period had to be definite. There would have been something quite wrong if the resurrection appearances had just simply petered out.

For the second reason, we must transport ourselves in imagination back to the time when this happened. Nowadays, we do not regard heaven as some place located beyond the sky; we regard it as a state of blessedness when we will be with God for all time. But in those days everyone, even the wisest, thought of the earth as flat and of heaven as a place above the sky. Therefore, if Jesus was to give his followers undeniable proof that he had returned to his glory, the ascension was absolutely necessary. But we must note this. When Luke tells of this in his gospel, he says: ‘they . . . returned to Jerusalem with great joy’ (Luke 24:52). In spite of the ascension, or maybe because of it, the disciples were quite sure that Jesus had not gone from them but that he was with them forever.

Second, this passage brings us face to face with the second coming. We must remember two things about the second coming. First, to speculate when and how it will happen is both foolish and useless, as Jesus said that not even he knew the day and the hour when the Son of Man would come (Mark 13:32). There is something almost blasphemous in speculating about something which was hidden from even Christ himself. Second, the essential teaching of Christianity is that God has a plan for us and the world. We are bound to believe that history is not a haphazard conglomeration of chance events which are going nowhere. We are bound to believe that there is some divine far-off event to which the whole creation moves and that, when that final fulfilment comes, Jesus Christ will be Judge and Lord of all. The second coming is not a matter for speculation and for a curiosity that is quite out of place; it is a summons to make ourselves ready for that day when it comes.

THE FATE OF THE TRAITOR

Acts 1:12–20

Then they made their way back to Jerusalem from the hill which is called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, about half a mile away. When they came in, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James were there. All of them with one united heart persevered in prayer, together with certain women and with Mary, Jesus’ mother and with his brothers.

And in these days Peter stood up among the brethren and said – the number of people who were together was about 120 – ‘Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold through the mouth of David about Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus, because he was one of our number and had received his allotted part in our service. (This man bought a piece of ground with the proceeds of his wicked deed; and he fell headlong and burst asunder and his bowels gushed out. This became a well-known fact to all those who lived in Jerusalem so that the piece of ground was called in their language Akeldama, which means the place of blood.) For it stands written in the book of Psalms: “Let the place where he lodged be desolate and let no one stay in it.” And: “Let another receive his office.” ’

BEFORE we come to the fate of the traitor Judas, there are certain things we may notice in this passage. For the Jews, the Sabbath was entirely a day of rest when all work was forbidden. A journey was limited to 2,000 cubits, and that distance was called a Sabbath day’s journey. A cubit was eighteen inches; so a Sabbath day’s journey was rather more than half a mile.

It is interesting to note that Jesus’ brothers are here with the company of the disciples. During Jesus’ lifetime, they had been among his opponents (Mark 3:21). It may well be that for them, as for so many others, the death of Jesus opened their eyes and penetrated their hearts in a way that even his life could not do.

We are told that the number of the disciples was about 120. That is one of the most uplifting things in the New Testament. There were only 120 pledged to Christ, and it is very unlikely that any of them had ever been outside the narrow confines of Palestine – but these 120 ordinary men and women were told to go out and evangelize the whole world. If ever anything began from small beginnings, the Christian Church did. We may well be the only Christians in our shop, our factory, our office, in our circle of family and friends. These disciples gallantly faced their task, and so must we; and it may be that we too will be the small beginning from which the kingdom in our area of life will spread.

The great interest of this passage is the fate of Judas. What exactly the Greek means here is uncertain; but in Matthew’s account (Matthew 27:3–5) we are left in no doubt that Judas committed suicide. It must always be a matter of speculation why Judas betrayed Jesus. Various suggestions have been put forward.

(1) It has been suggested that Iscariot means man of Kerioth. If it does, Judas was the only non-Galilaean among the apostles. It may be that he felt himself the odd one out and grew so embittered that he did this terrible thing.

(2) It may be that Judas became an informer to save his own skin and then saw the enormity of what he had done.

(3) It may be that he did it simply out of greed for money. If he did, it was the most dreadful bargain in history – for he sold his Lord for thirty pieces of s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Series Foreword (by Ronnie Barclay)
• General Introduction (by William Barclay, 1975)
• General Foreword (by John Drane)
• Editor’s Preface (by Linda Foster)
• Introduction to the Acts of the Apostles
• Power to Go on (1:1–5)
• The Kingdom and its Witnesses (1:6–8)
• The Glory of Departure and the Glory of Return (1:9–11)
• The Fate of the Traitor (1:12–20)
• The Qualifications of an Apostle (1:21–6)
• The Day of Pentecost
• The Breath of God (2:1–13)
• The First Christian Preaching
• God’s Day has Come (2:14–21)
• Lord and Christ (2:22–36)
• Save Yourselves (2:37–41)
• The Characteristics of the Church (2:42–7)
• A Notable Deed is Done (3:1–10)
• The Shame of the Cross (3:11–16)
• The Notes of Preaching (3:17–26)
• Arrest (4:1–4)
• Before the Sanhedrin (4:5–12)
• Loyalty only to God (4:13–22)
• The Triumphant Return (4:23–31)
• All Things in Common (4:32–7)
• Trouble in the Church (5:1–11)
• The Attraction of Christianity (5:12–16)
• Arrest and Trial Once Again (5:17–32)
• An Unexpected Ally (5:33–42)
• The First Office-bearers (6:1–7)
• A Champion of Freedom Arises (6:8–15)
• Stephen’s Defence
• The Man who Answered God’s Call (7:1–7)
• Down into Egypt (7:8–16)
• The Man who Never Forgot his Own People (7:17–36)
• A Disobedient People (7:37–53)
• The First of the Martyrs (7:54–8:1)
• The Church Reaches Out
• Savaging the Church (8:1–4)
• In Samaria (8:5–13)
• Things which Cannot be Bought and Sold (8:14–25)
• Christ Comes to an Ethiopian (8:26–40)
• Surrender (9:1–9)
• A Christian Welcome (9:10–18)
• Witnessing for Christ (9:19–22)
• Escaping by the Skin of his Teeth (9:23–5)
• Rejected in Jerusalem (9:26–31)
• The Acts of Peter (9:32–43)
• A Devout Soldier (10:1–8)
• Peter Learns a Lesson (10:9–16)
• The Meeting of Peter and Cornelius (10:17–33)
• The Heart of the Gospel (10:34–43)
• The Entry of the Gentiles (10:44–8)
• Peter on his Defence (11:1–10)
• A Convincing Story (11:11–18)
• Great Things in Antioch (11:19–21)
• The Wisdom of Barnabas (11:22–6)
• Helping in Trouble (11:27–30)
• Imprisonment and Deliverance (12:1–11)
• The Joy of Restoration (12:12–19)
• A Terrible End (12:20–5)
• The First Missionary Journey
• Sent out by the Holy Spirit (13:1–3)
• Success in Cyprus (13:4–12)
• The Deserter (13:13)
• An Adventurous Journey for a Sick Man (13:14–15)
• The Preaching of Paul (13:16–41)
• Trouble at Antioch (13:42–52)
• On to Iconium (14:1–7)
• Mistaken for Gods at Lystra (14:8–18)
• The Courage of Paul (14:19–20)
• Confirming the Church (14:21–8)
• The Crucial Problem
• A Problem Becomes Acute (15:1–5)
• Peter States the Case (15:6–12)
• The Leadership of James (15:13–21)
• The Decree Goes out (15:22–35)
• Paul Takes to the Road Again (15:36–41)
• The Second Missionary Journey
• A Son in the Faith (16:1–5)
• The Gospel Comes to Europe (16:6–10)
• Europe’s First Convert (16:11–15)
• The Demented Slave Girl (16:16–24)
• The Philippian Jailer (16:25–40)
• In Thessalonica (17:1–9)
• On to Beroea (17:10–15)
• Alone in Athens (17:16–21)
• A Sermon to the Philosophers (17:22–31)
• The Reactions of the Athenians (17:32–4)
• Preaching in Corinth
• In the Worst City of All (18:1–11)
• Unbiased Roman Justice (18:12–17)
• The Return to Antioch (18:18–23)
• The Third Missionary Journey
• The Entry of Apollos (18:24–8)
• In Ephesus
• Incomplete Christianity (19:1–7)
• The Works of God (19:8–12)
• The Death-blow to Superstition (19:13–20)
• The Purpose of Paul (19:21–2)
• Riot in Ephesus (19:23–41)
• Setting out for Jerusalem (20:1–6)
• A Young Man Falls Asleep (20:7–12)
• Stages on the Way (20:13–16)
• A Sad Farewell (20:17–38)
• No Retreat (21:1–16)
• Compromise in Jerusalem (21:17–26)
• A Slanderous Charge (21:27–36)
• Facing the Fury of the Mob (21:37–40)
• The Defence of Experience (22:1–10)
• Paul Continues his Life Story (22:11–21)
• The Embittered Opposition (22:22–30)
• Paul’s Strategy (23:1–10)
• A Plot Uncovered (23:11–24)
• The Captain’s Letter (23:25–35)
• A Flattering Speech and a False Charge (24:1–9)
• Paul’s Defence (24:10–21)
• Plain Speaking to a Guilty Governor (24:22–7)
• I Appeal to Caesar (25:1–12)
• Festus and Agrippa (25:13–21)
• Festus Seeks Material for his Report (25:22–7)
• The Defence of a Changed Man (26:1–11)
• Surrender for Service (26:12–18)
• A Task Accepted (26:19–23)
• A King is Impressed (26:24–31)
• The Last Journey Begins (27:1–8)
• In Peril on the Sea (27:9–20)
• Be of Good Cheer (27:21–6)
• Hoping for the Day (27:27–38)
• Escape from the Deep (27:39–44)
• Welcome at Malta (28:1–6)
• Help and Healing (28:7–10)
• So we Came to Rome (28:11–15)
• Unsympathetic Jews (28:16–29)
• Freely and without Hindrance (28:30–1)