The Acts of the Apostles (1911) — PDF Scan 411

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PAUL A PRISONER 405 work. Should the believers in Christ be condemned before the Sanhedrim as breakers of the law, they would suffer swift and severe punishment as apostates from the Jewish faith. Many of the Jews who had accepted the gospel still cherished a regard for the ceremonial law, and were only too willing to make unwise concessions, hoping thus to gain the confidence of their countrymen, 'to remove their prejudice, and to win them to faith in Christ as 'the world's Redeemer. Paul realized that so long as many of the leading members of the church at Jerusalem should continue to cherish prejudice against him, they would work constantly to counteract his influence. He felt that if by any reasonable concession he could win them to the truth, he would remove a great obstacle to the success of the gospel in other places. But he was not authorized of God to concede as much as they asked. , When we think of Paul's great desire to be in harmony with his brethren, his tenderness toward the weak in the faith, his reverence for the apostles who had been with Christ, and for James, the brother of the Lord, and his purpose to become all things to all men so far as he could without sacrificing principle, — -when we think of all this, it is less surprising that he was constrained to deviate from the firm, decided course that he had hitherto followed. But instead of accomplishing the desired object, his efforts for conciliation only precipitated the crisis, hastened his predicted sufferings, and resulted in separating him from his brethren, depriving the church of one of its strong-