but Paul having chosen Silas went forth, committed by the brethren to the grace of God.
Paul and Barnabas have just fallen out over whether to take John Mark with them. Some read what happens next — the church at Antioch sending Paul and Silas off with a commendation — as an ordination service. Others say it is something quite different.
The brothers had already done this for Paul once, when they first sent him out with Barnabas from Antioch. The second time settles what it means:
Barnabas then goes his way; that was his will. Paul chooses Silas, and the brothers commend him to the grace of God — a second ordination, if ordination were the question, but it is quite another thing.
Some older translations read "the grace of God" here, where the ESV has "the grace of the Lord." Either way, the hands laid on Paul passed nothing to him:
I have no objection to laying hands on someone in this way. It claims to give neither gift nor authority, but is a simple commendation to the grace of God — and it seems this could be done again (Acts 15:40).
Only one of the two departing parties goes out with the brothers behind them:
Paul, on the other hand, received once more — and Silas with him — that mark of united recommendation to the grace of the Lord. He and Barnabas had the same mark when they were first sent out from Antioch to the Gentiles.
The absence of any such words over Barnabas is felt as loud:
The record says nothing of the kind about Barnabas now; an ominous silence prevails.
Commentators read the silence in different ways. One suggests Barnabas just left too fast: "It looks as if Barnabas left in a hurry, before the brothers had time to pray for him" (F. B. Hole).
Paul chooses his own fellow worker, and there is a pattern behind that choice:
Another point worth noticing is this. Ministry rests on the faith of the individual. Yet that does not stop a man of greater discernment from choosing someone else as his companion in the work. The Lord Himself sent His servants out two by two ahead of Him — both the twelve apostles and the seventy. Such a choice is scriptural. An assembly electing a minister of the word is something Scripture knows nothing about.
The same principle applies when a partner is pressed on us:
Barnabas may have been as wrong in taking Mark as Paul was right in choosing Silas. But the principle is clear. Choosing a fellow worker calls for spiritual judgment. Being forced to work with someone we do not think able or suitable is not according to the Lord's mind.
Barnabas wanted to take his relative along, which sounds like the kinder course. One writer weighs it differently:
Sadly, in this matter Barnabas thought more of his relative than of his Master. He mistook mere kindness for grace. He brushed aside Paul's wise and holy warning. From then on, he and his work drop out of sight in the divine record that tells the story.
Yet being right did not make the sharpness right. One writer is careful here:
It is possible that the flesh showed itself in Paul as well. In any case he could not boast of being in the right… The separation was necessary, and God had worked that out in him. Still, the sharpness was not needed. At bottom Paul was right, and the hand of God was with him. Even when the purpose of the heart is right, the flesh can show itself very quickly.
The story does not end with Mark shut out:
It is a comfort to think that in the end grace blessed Paul's faithfulness, not the weak compromise of Barnabas. Years later the Spirit led Paul to write warmly in Mark's favour (Col. 4:10-11, Philemon 24, 2 Tim. 4:11): a joy at the end greater than the sorrow of the earlier days.
- Grace, not office. The brothers gave Paul "a simple commendation to the grace of God" — no gift and no authority came from the hands laid on him.
- Grace repeated. The brothers had done the same before, so this cannot be an ordination; they can commend a man to that grace again.
- Grace unspoken. The brothers commend Paul and Silas; over Barnabas "an ominous silence prevails."
- Grace discerned. Choosing a companion in the work calls for spiritual judgment; forced partnership "is not according to the Lord's mind."
- Grace vindicated. Paul was right, though the sharpness was not needed. Years later grace brought Mark back into his letters with honour.
And he passed through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the assemblies.
Acts 15 ends with two servants going separate ways. Paul sets out through Syria and Cilicia, and one short line records what he did there.
The verse follows a sharp disagreement over John Mark. Luke records that the believers at Antioch commended Paul to God's grace, and says nothing of the kind about Barnabas — a silence commentators take as meaningful.
I have little doubt that the believers in general judged this, and judged it spiritually. Paul was in the right, and Barnabas therefore wrong. The apostle chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of God. The record says nothing of the kind about Barnabas and John. Not that one would doubt for a moment that Barnabas went on being blessed by God. And as for John Mark, we are plainly told of his ability in the ministry at a later day. Paul later shows his respect and love for Barnabas in an inspired letter (1 Corinthians 9), and he gives Mark the most honourable mention in more than one of his later letters (Colossians 4 and 2 Timothy 4). How good of the Lord to let us see the triumph of His grace in the end!
This was not the first time believers sent Paul off with such a commendation. That repetition rules out reading it as ordination.
Paul chooses Silas, and the believers commend him to the grace of God. That would be a second ordination, if ordination were the question here — but it is quite another thing. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. Notice here that churches had formed in many places where the apostle had never been, as he found the first time he passed through the island of Cyprus.
Paul picked Silas himself. No assembly voted, and the choice followed a pattern the Lord had set.
Here is another point worth noting. Ministry comes from individual faith. Even so, that does not stop someone with better discernment from choosing another as a companion in work. The Lord Himself had sent out His servants two by two ahead of Him — both the twelve apostles and the seventy. Such a choice is scriptural. The word knows nothing of an assembly electing a minister of the word.
Paul's route ran through two provinces. The word "churches" is plural, and that says something about the work already done there.
"Through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches" shows how the work in those provinces must have spread. Churches there were. Disciples were not limited to Antioch in the first province and to Tarsus in the second.
The word translated "strengthening" here is a specific one, used in only a handful of places, and it carries no hint of a religious rite.
Paul and Barnabas went to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples and urging them to continue in the faith. Judas and Silas were messengers from Jerusalem to Antioch. Being prophets, they encouraged the believers with many words and confirmed them. Again Paul and Silas went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. Acts 14:22; Acts 15:32, 41. Those passages, with Acts 18:23, where the word appears as "strengthen," are the only places where the Greek word episterizo occurs. (There is no idea of any ceremony, like what is now called "Confirmation.")
Teaching did the strengthening, and it happened inside the ordinary life of a church.
The "rite" of confirmation has no real source in God's word; but His servants were diligent in strengthening the faith of the saints. They were right to feel that truth is best learnt inside the church, where practice shows and develops principle. Church action, when it is living and true, is the ready comment on Scripture. Continual teaching draws attention to the details, and to the truth as a whole in the person of Christ. That is God's way of confirming churches.
Paul was going back to people he had already reached. One writer draws from that a rule for two kinds of work.
The evangelist must preach the gospel in the regions beyond, so long as there are regions still to reach. In the same way, the pastor must "go again and visit his brothers," so long as there are brothers to visit. The evangelist forms the interesting connection; the pastor maintains and strengthens that connection... The evangelist's work is to call out the believers; the pastor's work is to look after them.
- Grace sends. Paul left Antioch commended to the grace of God. He had that same commendation before, so it was no ordination ceremony.
- Grace chooses. Paul chose Silas himself, following the Lord's pattern of sending servants out two by two. No assembly voted.
- Grace has gone ahead. Churches already existed across Syria and Cilicia, some in places Paul had never visited.
- Grace strengthens. "Confirming" means building up faith by steady teaching among a living church. It is not a rite.
- Grace restores. The journey started with a sharp parting over Mark. Paul's later letters honour him, and grace wins in the end.
And he came to Derbe and Lystra and behold, a certain disciple was there, by name Timotheus, son of a Jewish believing woman, but [the] father a Greek,
Paul comes back to Derbe and Lystra, where an earlier visit had ended in a stoning. There he finds a young disciple with a divided home, and the verse raises two questions: where did this disciple come from, and why does Luke name his parents?
Paul had been stoned in these streets. Commentators point to what he found when he came back.
This chapter opens with Paul back at Derbe and Lystra — back, that is, to the scenes where he had suffered the stoning. In those very places he now finds Timothy, who was to become in his later years such a comfort to him. A happy illustration of how God's government acts in favour of the godly. We tend to think of it only as acting against the ungodly. Out of the place of Paul's sufferings sprang one of his greatest comforts.
Timothy is already a disciple when Paul arrives. That points back to earlier work.
Luke says little about the other results of the apostle's visit to Derbe and Lystra. Our attention centres on a "young disciple" there. So Timothy was not converted at this time. No doubt he was converted during the apostle's earlier visit, for Paul speaks of him as his "true child in the faith". Paul had become his father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
That earlier visit was violent, and the boy may well have watched it happen.
Timothy fully knew what persecutions Paul endured at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. Most of these persecutions happened on Paul's first missionary journey, when Timothy was perhaps only a boy. But he knew all about them, and he may have seen some of them himself. At Lystra the crowd stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. Very probably the boy Timothy stood among the disciples who gathered around him when he rose up and entered the city.
Two generations of faith stood behind Timothy. Commentators tie his mother's faith to the Scriptures he learned as a child.
Paul traces Timothy's faith back only to where the Christian faith began in his family, with his grandmother: "a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice" (2 Timothy 1:5). We learn from this same letter that Timothy had known the Holy Scriptures from childhood — and who can doubt that he learned them through the teaching of these godly women, or at least his mother? The grandmother and the mother had embraced the Christian faith, and so had Timothy. The apostle seems to treat this as proof that "the faith" was all the more real in Timothy's soul. It also laid on him a still more solemn duty of faithfulness to the Lord in this loose and corrupt period of the church. Every reader must conclude that it is a priceless blessing to have godly parents — parents who seek to bring up their children in the nurture and instruction of the Lord.
The other half of the verse carried a stigma. Under the older law, a marriage like this one was a breach of order, and the children of it had no standing.
Confusion had entered into the practical life of the Jews, as it had among Christians. The mother of Timothy was a Jewess, his father a Greek — a thing unlawful among the Jews. His mother was godly, and his grandmother too. Now such a marriage was completely contrary to the custom of the Jews. See Nehemiah 13:23-31; Ezra 9, 10. According to these books the sons and daughters counted as heathen. They had to be rejected and sent away, along with the wife. It was a disorder.
By the law's reckoning, then, Timothy's parentage was a disorder. Luke's first note about him is his mother's faith.
Luke introduces Timothy by what believers around him said of him, not by his gifts.
They must above all look for the evidence that it is God who has called him. This involves the principle mentioned when Timothy first went out with Paul: he "was well spoken of by the brothers" (Acts 16:2). There were those who knew him well.
Paul had just parted from Barnabas.
They did not have to go far before they found a new companion, Timothy of Lystra. He was to fill the gap caused by the disagreement with Barnabas. Paul lost the fellowship of Barnabas as a friend and brother. But in Timothy, his own son in the faith, he found a sympathy and a fellowship that ended only with the apostle's life.
- Ground. The town that stoned Paul is the town where God had Timothy waiting. Suffering ground became seed ground.
- Fruit. Luke calls Timothy a disciple before Paul arrives. The earlier preaching had taken root and lasted.
- Home. A believing mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures from childhood. Commentators call godly parents a priceless blessing.
- Stigma. By the law's reckoning a Greek father left Timothy outside. The verse still opens his story with his mother's faith.
- Sending. Before Timothy goes out, believers who know him vouch for him. That test still applies to anyone claiming a call from God.
who had a [good] testimony of the brethren in Lystra and Iconium.
Paul returns to Derbe and Lystra and finds a young disciple named Timothy. The only thing Luke records about him here is what other believers said of him — so what qualifies a person for the Lord's service?
Luke gives almost no detail about Timothy's work. Instead he records the verdict of believers in two towns.
Scripture says little about the other results of the apostle's visit to Derbe and Lystra. It concentrates our attention on a "young disciple" there. So he was not converted on this visit, but no doubt during the apostle's earlier one. Paul speaks of him as his "true child in faith." Paul had brought him to new birth in Christ Jesus through the gospel. His circumstances were unusual. He was the son of a believing Jewish woman, Eunice, but his father was Greek. The believers in those parts gave him an exceptionally good testimony.
So Timothy was no new convert. He had believed since Paul's earlier visit, long enough for those living near him to form a settled view.
Lystra was not neutral ground for Paul. It was the town where a crowd had stoned him.
This chapter opens with Paul back at Derbe and Lystra — back, that is, to the scenes where he had suffered the stoning. In those very places he now finds Timothy, who was to become in his later years such a comfort to him. A happy illustration of how God's government acts in favour of the godly. We are apt to think of it only as acting against the ungodly. Out of the place of Paul's sufferings sprang one of his greatest comforts.
Timothy learned the Scriptures from childhood. He had probably also seen for himself what following Paul cost.
His home was in either Derbe or Lystra, probably Lystra. His mother was a believing Jewish woman named Eunice. Genuine faith lived not only in her but first in his grandmother Lois. His father was a Greek, and since he had never been circumcised, he may have been raised as a Greek. Even so, he knew the Holy Scriptures from earliest childhood. The brothers who lived in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him… It was at Lystra that a crowd stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. Very probably the boy Timothy was among the disciples who "stood around him" when he "rose up and entered the city." He must also have known how John Mark had turned back from the very path of service to which he was now called. Yet he did not hesitate to follow Paul, though he must have known it would mean sharing the same kind of persecution. I wonder how many of us would have done the same.
Timothy was shy by nature, and Paul took him anyway.
Timothy was timid by nature (2 Tim. 1:6-8), yet Paul clearly saw him as a dependable worker with a good report from the believers. This always matters if you are concerned about doing the work of the Lord.
A servant answers to the Lord, not to men. Yet the believers who live alongside him still have a part to play.
The servant's viewpoint and the assembly's must stay quite distinct in this matter. The servant is to be God's servant only, and not man's. Even so, the assembly has to judge whether it can share fellowship with him in his work… Above all, they must look for evidence that God has called him. This involves the principle mentioned when Timothy first went out with Paul: he "was well spoken of by the brothers" (Acts 16:2). There were people who knew him well.
The same kind of witness followed Timothy later on.
The presbytery were the company of elders who doubtless knew Timothy, and so testified to it. (Compare Acts 16:2.)
- Home first. Faith in Lois and Eunice, plus the Scriptures from childhood, shaped Timothy before anyone spoke well of him.
- Then witness. He had been a disciple since Paul's earlier visit, and those who lived beside him gave him an exceptionally good testimony.
- Reaching further. The good word reached beyond his own town to Iconium.
- Then the call. Paul took Timothy as a dependable worker with a good report. That still matters for anyone who wants to do the Lord's work.
- Then fellowship. The servant belongs to God, not to men. The believers' part is to recognise God's call and stand with him, as the elders later did for Timothy.
Him would Paul have go forth with him, and took [him and] circumcised him on account of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew his father that he was a Greek.
The battle over circumcising Gentile believers had just been fought and won. Then Paul takes his new young helper and circumcises him. Why did the son of a Greek father need this at all? And why did Paul refuse the same thing for Titus?
Everything in this verse starts with Timothy's parents.
Confusion had crept into the everyday life of the Jews, as it had among the Christians. Timothy's mother was Jewish, his father Greek — a thing unlawful among the Jews. Such a marriage went completely against Jewish custom. See Nehemiah 13:23-31; Ezra 9 and 10. Those books count the sons and daughters as heathen, to be rejected and sent away with the wife. It was a disorder. The Jews all knew his father was a Greek. With a Jewish mother, Timothy's position was a scandal to them, and the apostle removes the scandal. In their eyes the Greek father had made the mother impure. They would have had plenty to say if her son brought them the gospel.
So where did the law stand on a child like Timothy?
To circumcise Timothy was precisely what the law would not have done. Everyone knows that when a Jew and a Gentile married, the law would have nothing to say to their children. In law, a Jewish father could not own his own children by a Gentile mother, and the same the other way round. (See Ezra 10.) Timothy was the child of such a marriage. So no one had any claim to circumcise him, even if it was allowed. And just because there was no such claim, Paul stoops in grace to those on lower ground, and stops their mouths completely. Grace knows how and when to bend, no less than to be as unflinching as a rock.
Paul wanted this young man with him, and there was a practical problem to solve.
Timothy's father was a Greek, so Timothy was not circumcised. Jewish circles would not have accepted him. Paul knew this and circumcised him... In Timothy's case it was simply a matter of removing something that would have got in the way of his service for the Lord. Paul was not concerned to keep up an appearance of consistency that would have been only skin-deep. Here was a God-given helper in the work, and it was best to remove all that would hinder his labours.
With Titus, Paul refused. Why the difference?
The two cases look alike, yet the apostle treats the men very differently. This difference of action involves a principle, and breaking it has been the fruitful source of division in the Church of God. "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing." In itself it makes no difference. But the moment anyone tries to impose it, we must resist firmly. Otherwise the liberty of the gospel is damaged, or conscience toward God is wounded. In this case it was "false brothers," not unbelieving Jews, who tried to impose circumcision and so bring the gospel under Jewish law.
Another writer states the rule in one sentence.
Paul could circumcise Timothy (Acts 16:1-3), because no one could demand it. But with Titus, where they did demand it, the apostle firmly refuses. Grace knows what is consistent with the truth of the gospel.
Picture the believers watching this. Many of them would have judged Paul for it.
Here we find a principle of real importance for our guidance. It matters all the more because Paul did something that many, one can imagine, would judge him for. It is remarkable how ready people are to judge those who know far better than they do. People who know very little are the readiest of all. Nothing is easier than forming a judgment. Whether the grounds are adequate and the conclusion sound are other questions... What alarm this must have caused among the believers, especially the Gentiles! The battle for Gentile freedom from circumcision had just been fought and won.
- Free of claim. Timothy was the child of a mixed marriage, so the law had no claim on him. This was never obedience to Moses.
- Free to give. No one could demand it, so Paul was free to give it. Grace bends where law cannot command.
- Free for reach. Everyone knew Timothy's father was Greek. Uncircumcised, he would have found Jewish doors closed.
- Free to refuse. When others demanded circumcision, as with Titus, Paul refused outright. The same liberty that yields also resists.
- Free from opinion. Paul would not protect a surface consistency. The verse warns us against quick judgments of servants we do not understand.
And as they passed through the cities they instructed them to observe the decrees determined on by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.
Paul, Silas and Timothy travel from town to town on a new journey. They carry a written decision from Jerusalem about circumcision and the law for Gentile believers. Two questions come back again and again: what were these "decrees," and how could one gathering hand rulings to another?
The dispute was over whether Gentile believers had to take on circumcision and the law. The answer lifted a weight instead of adding one.
No one should ask them to be circumcised or tell them to keep the law. The letter only reminded them to "abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality" (Acts 15:29). This left the grace of God in all its pure reality and blessing. When the Gentile believers heard it, they were glad of the encouragement.
The ruling did not stay in Jerusalem.
Paul and his companions left the decrees with the churches. So the Jews there had Jerusalem's own decision: the law did not bind the Gentiles.
The verse names who framed the ruling. It was not one church sending orders to other churches.
When the Holy Spirit speaks of the decrees, He says in Acts 16:4 that they were the decisions "reached by the apostles and elders." It was the apostles and elders who had come together to consider the matter. ... Could any gathering today, sure that the word teaches a doctrine, send a decree to other gatherings? No! There was an authority and a capacity then which no longer exist.
The same writer adds that apostolic authority is not what settled the matter. What mattered was where the ruling came from.
God had not allowed Paul and Barnabas to settle the question at Antioch. Such a decision would not have ended the argument. It would have left two separate assemblies. But the moment the Jewish Christians and the assembly at Jerusalem granted liberty to the Gentiles, no one could stand against their freedom from the law. The apostles did not settle this point by their apostolic authority, though that authority did confirm the decree.
Paul hands out a letter that frees Gentiles from the law. Just before this, he had circumcised his new helper. Some readers call that a contradiction.
At Jerusalem the circumcision of the Gentiles met the strongest resistance. On his new journey into Asia Minor Paul carried the decrees to the assemblies and delivered them. Those decrees had clearly freed the Gentiles from any laying of the yoke of the law on them. Yet at Lystra he himself circumcises Timothy, the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father. For some this is inconsistency enough to discredit the whole story. ... He clearly uses the rite in the fullest Christian liberty. That liberty is always the freedom to give up your own privileges whenever it better serves the love that moves us to seek souls for Christ.
There is a striking silence later. The same disputes come up in Paul's letters, and he never points back to this document.
Scripture records this of the apostle and his companions. It is all the more worth noticing because the letters never mention these decrees, even when the questions discussed at the council come up there for an answer. Here again we have to see the wisdom of God. The decrees went where Jewish influence was strong. They had the highest value in settling the doubts of people who looked up to Jerusalem, and above all to the apostles and elders there.
The two approaches do not clash. They belong to different moments.
The decrees suited the time and the place of the people who received them. Paul was notably eager to hand these decrees to churches already formed where there were many Jews. But when he wrote his letters, later in the exercise of his apostolic power, he settles the question quite apart from the decision at Jerusalem. He settles it by the truth of Christ and His work, now fully revealed.
The result was not friction but strength and growth.
The group of travellers, now larger, carry with them the decrees decided on by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. These have a happy effect. They confirm the assemblies in the faith and add to their number. It is grace that establishes the soul and wins the heart to God.
- Settled — the letter refused to lay circumcision or the law on Gentile believers. It asked only that they keep away from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.
- Sourced — the apostles and elders framed it. Commentators hold that no gathering today has that authority to send rulings to others.
- Strategic — a ruling from Paul and Barnabas at Antioch would have left two rival assemblies. Coming from Jerusalem, it silenced every objection.
- Free — the man who carried this charter of Gentile freedom had just circumcised Timothy. Liberty includes the freedom to give up your own rights to win people.
- Grace — the decrees strengthened the churches and added to their number. It is grace, not rules, that settles the soul and wins the heart to God.
The assemblies therefore were confirmed in the faith, and increased in number every day.
Paul and his companions carried the letter from Jerusalem from city to city. Luke sums up the result in one line: strength on the inside, growth on the outside. So what made these churches strong, and can anything else do it?
The letter came from the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. One writer explains why it was such good news to the Gentile believers who received it:
As they passed through the cities, "they delivered the decrees of the apostles and the elders for them to keep." This was a lasting testimony. Suppose the Christian Jews wished to put their brothers from among the Gentiles under the law of Moses. Then they were acting against the mind and authority of the apostles and elders — the men whom the Lord had established for Christ by the Holy Spirit, and who were an authority in the Jewish church itself. That the Judaisers had no authorisation at all from the leading men gave the Gentile brothers a source of joy, and so they were established in the faith.
So what makes an assembly stable? One writer rules out one answer first:
Here we get the first thought of establishment in relation to the Church, and what is it? Support from the world? Far from it! It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit through this beloved apostle and his fellow workers. It is the ministry of the truth that sets people free — takes them out from under law, puts them into liberty, and into the sense of "the true grace of God in which you stand." The Greek word for "establish" means "to make stable, or strong." That is real establishment. It is God's support and God's ministry, though it comes through human lips.
The same writer adds the other side. Wherever the world touches the church, God's people learn to lean on human help instead of on the Lord, and the result is dry and fruitless.
One writer traces both halves of the verse to grace, and names what argument does instead:
"The assemblies then were being strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily." So the Lord used the action of grace to help forward His testimony. Agitation is very destructive. It harms the settling of the soul, and it harms the progress of the work among new converts. Faith is fed by grace, not by questions that breed strife. Nor is it fed "by foods" — the apostle's somewhat scornful name for Jewish controversies, "which did not benefit those who followed them." And grace cannot be separated from Christ, who is "the same yesterday and today and forever." Questions apart from Him are met by varied and strange teachings that only unsettle the mind. It is good for the heart to be established by grace.
Luke writes "the churches" in the plural. Kelly reads the growth as fresh assemblies springing up, or at least as their numbers rising daily. Many assemblies did not mean many rival bodies:
In the first few years of the church's history the spread of the gospel was remarkable. The companies of believers multiplied fast, and the numbers of individual believers rose quickly. Yet they were still all together in the same purpose, though not in the same place. There was a unity between them; they were one in the things of the Lord. They walked together in the truth, and acted together in faith and love. Across large districts, though there were many assemblies, there was but one church.
One writer turns the verse into a question he asks of himself:
Where the word of God has its way in each believer and in the company together, increase is bound to follow. So that verse is often a challenge to me — why is there no increase? Why should it be decrease? The fault cannot be on God's side (that would be blasphemy)... So the difficulty must be on our side... This need not be numerical, although we would like to see that. Numbers alone are not always a sign of increase according to the mind of the Lord.
- Cause. The letter from Jerusalem removed a burden. The apostles and elders refused to put Gentile believers under the law of Moses, so the churches had something to stand firm in.
- Gift. The Spirit's ministry through Paul and his fellow workers made them strong. The truth sets people free; no support from the world can do that.
- Grace. Grace feeds faith; disputes never do. Agitation harms the settled believer and the work among new converts alike.
- Reach. The churches were many companies across many cities, yet one church. They walked together in the truth and acted together in faith and love.
- Result. Strength and daily increase arrive together. Where the word of God has its way, increase follows. So when increase is missing, the question is for us, not for God.