They said, "Cornelius, a captain, a good man who reverences God and enjoys a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation, was instructed by a holy angel to send for you to his house and to listen to what you had to say."

but Peter raised him, saying, "Get up, I am only a man myself."

To them Peter said, "You know yourselves it is illegal for a Jew to join or accost anyone belonging to another nation; but God has shown me that I must not call any man common or unclean,

saying, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, your alms are remembered by God.

So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Well now, here we are all present before God to listen to what the Lord has commanded you to say."

Then Peter opened his lips and said, "I see quite plainly that God has no favourites,

but that he who reverences Him and lives a good life in any nation is welcomed by Him.

you know how it spread over the whole of Judaea, starting from Galilee after the baptism preached by John ??38 how God consecrated Jesus of Nazaret with the holy Spirit and power, and how he went about doing good and curing all who were harassed by the devil; for God was with him.

but God raised him on the third day, and allowed him to be seen

not by all the People but by witnesses whom God had previously selected, by us who ate and drank with him after his resurrection from the dead,

when he enjoined us to preach to the People, testifying that this was he whom God has appointed to be judge of the living and of the dead.

Now the Jewish believers who had accompanied Peter were amazed that the gift of the holy Spirit had actually been poured out on the Gentiles ??46 for they heard them speak with 'tongues' and magnify God. At this Peter asked,

Now the apostles and the brothers in Judaea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

But a voice answered me for the second time out of heaven, 'What God has cleansed, you must not regard as common.'

Well then, if God has given them exactly the same gift as he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I ??how could I try to thwart God?"

On hearing this they desisted and glorified God, saying, "So God has actually allowed the Gentiles to repent and live!"

When he came and saw the grace of God he rejoiced, and encouraged them all to hold by the Lord with heartfelt purpose

(for he was a good man, full of the holy Spirit and faith). Considerable numbers of people were brought in for the Lord.

So Peter was closely guarded in prison, while earnest prayer for him was offered to God by the church.

But an angel of the Lord flashed on him, and a light shone in the cell; striking Peter on the side he woke him, saying, "Quick, get up!" The fetters dropped from his hands,

and the angel said to him, "Gird yourself and put on your sandals." He did so. Then said the angel, "Put on your coat and follow me."

When they had passed the first guard and the second they came to the iron gate leading into the city, which opened to them of its own accord; they passed out, and after they had gone through one street, the angel immediately left him.

He beckoned to them to keep quiet and then described to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Report this to James," he said, "and to the brothers." And off he went to another place.

The populace shouted, "It is a god's voice, not a man's!"

and in a moment an angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not given due glory to God; he was eaten up by worms and so expired.

The word of God spread and multiplied.

On reaching Salamis they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues, with John as their assistant.

he belonged to the suite of the proconsul Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man who called for Barnabas and Saul and demanded to hear the word of God.

and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all good, full of all craft and all cunning, will you never stop diverting the straight paths of the Lord?

So Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, "Listen, men of Israel and you who reverence God.

The God of this People Israel chose our fathers; he multiplied the people as they sojourned in the land of Egypt and with arm uplifted led them out of it.

Then it was that they begged for a king, and God gave them forty years of Saul, the son of Kish, who belonged to the tribe of Benjamin.

From his offspring God brought to Israel, as he had promised, a saviour in Jesus,

Brothers, sons of Abraham's race and all among you who reverence God, the message of this salvation has been sent to us.

But God raised him from the dead.

has been fulfilled by God for us their children, when he raised Jesus. As it is written in the second psalm, thou art my son, to-day have I become thy father.

Of course David, after serving God's purpose in his own generation, died and was laid beside his fathers; he suffered decay,

but He whom God raised did not suffer decay.

After the synagogue broke up, a number of the Jews and the devout proselytes followed them; Paul and Barnabas talked to them and encouraged them to hold by the grace of God.

So Paul and Barnabas spoke out fearlessly. "The word of God," they said, "had to be spoken to you in the first instance; but as you push it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, well, here we turn to the Gentiles!

shouting, "Men, what is this you are doing? We are but human, with natures like your own! The gospel we are preaching to you is to turn from such futile ways to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is.

However, as the disciples gathered round him, he got up and went into the town. Next day he went off with Barnabas to Derbe,

strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to hold by the faith, and telling them that "we have to get into the Realm of God through many a trouble."

thence they sailed for Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.

On their arrival they gathered the church together and reported how God had been with them, what he had done, and how he had opened a door into faith for the Gentiles.

But certain individuals came down from Jerusalem and taught the brothers that "unless you get circumcised after the custom of Moses you cannot be saved."

The church sped them on their journey, and they passed through both Phoenicia and Syria informing the brothers, to the great joy of all, that the Gentiles were turning to God.

On arriving at Jerusalem they were received by the church, the apostles and the presbyters, and they reported how God had been with them and what he had done.

But some of the believers who belonged to the Pharisaic party got up and said, "Gentiles must be circumcised and told to observe the law of Moses."

and a keen controversy sprang up; but Peter rose and said to them, "Brothers, you are well aware that from the earliest days God chose that of you all I should be the one by whom the Gentiles were to hear the word of the gospel and believe it.

The God who reads the hearts of all attested this by giving them the holy Spirit just as he gave it to us;

So the whole meeting was quieted and listened to Barnabas and Paul recounting the signs and wonders God had performed by them among the Gentiles.

Symeon has explained how it was God's original concern to secure a People from among the Gentiles to bear his Name.

Hence, in my opinion, we ought not to put fresh difficulties in the way of those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles,

He had a good reputation among the brothers at Lystra and Iconium;

when they got as far as Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them,

As soon as he saw the vision, we made efforts to start for Macedonia, inferring that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

On the sabbath we went outside the gate to the bank of the river, where as usual there was a place of prayer; we sat down and talked to the women who had gathered.

Among the listeners there was a woman called Lydia, a dealer in purple who belonged to the town of Thyatira. She reverenced God, and the Lord opened her heart to attend to what Paul said.

She followed Paul and the rest of us, shrieking, "These men are servants of the Most High God, they proclaim to you the way of salvation!"

But about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing to God, while the prisoners listened,

Then he took them at that very hour of the night and washed their wounds and got baptized instantly, he and all his family.

He took them up to his house and put food before them, overjoyed like all his household at having believed in God.

But Paul replied, "They flogged us in public and without a trial, flogged Roman citizens! They put us in prison, and now they are going to get rid of us secretly! No indeed! Let them come here themselves and take us out!"

But the Jews were aroused to jealousy; they got hold of some idle rascals to form a mob and set the town in an uproar; they attacked Jason's house in the endeavour to bring them out before the populace,

But when the Jews of Thessalonica heard that Paul was proclaiming the word of God at Beroea as well, they came to create a disturbance and a riot among the crowds at Beroea too.

Why, as I passed along and scanned your objects of worship, I actually came upon an altar with the inscription TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well, I proclaim to you what you worship in your ignorance.

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, as Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in shrines that are made by human hands;

meaning them to seek for God on the chance of finding him in their groping for him. Though indeed he is close to each one of us,

Well, as the race of God, we ought not to imagine that the divine nature resembles gold or silver or stone, the product of human art and invention.

Such ages of ignorance God overlooked, but he now charges men that they are all everywhere to repent,

So he settled there for a year and six months, teaching them the word of God.

crying, "This fellow incites men to worship God contrary to the Law."

he said goodbye to them, telling them, "I will come back to you, if it is the will of God." Then, sailing from Ephesus,

In the synagogue he was very outspoken at first; but when Aquila and Priscilla listened to him, they took him home and explained more accurately to him what the Way of God really meant.

As he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers wrote and urged the disciples there to give him a welcome. And on his arrival he proved of great service to those who by God's grace had believed,

Then Paul entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out fearlessly, arguing and persuading people about the Reign of God.

God also worked no ordinary miracles by means of Paul;

After these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to travel through Macedonia and Achaia on his way to Jerusalem. "After I get there," he said, "I must also visit Rome."

So he got them together, along with the workmen who belonged to similar trades, and said to them: "My men, you know this trade is the source of our wealth.

The secretary of state then got the mob calmed down, and said to them, "Men of Ephesus, who on earth does not know that the city of Ephesus is Warden of the temple of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?

In the window sat a young man called Eutychus, and as Paul's address went on and on, he got overcome with drowsiness, went fast asleep, and fell from the third storey. He was picked up a corpse,

So when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and got to Mitylene.

how I never shrank from letting you know anything for your good, or from teaching you alike in public and from house to house,

bearing my testimony, both to Jews and Greeks, of repentance before God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

But then, I set no value on my own life as compared with the joy of finishing my course and fulfilling the commission I received from the Lord Jesus to attest the gospel of the grace of God.

I never shrank from letting you know the entire purpose of God.

I know that when I am gone, fierce wolves will get in among you, and they will not spare the flock; yes.

And now I entrust you to God and the word of his grace; he is able to upbuild you and give you your inheritance among all the consecrated.

I showed you how this was the way to work hard and succour the needy, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, who said, 'To give is happier than to get.'"

but, when our time was up, we started on our journey, escorted by them, women and children and all, till we got outside the town. Then, kneeling on the beach, we prayed

and after saluting them Paul described in detail what God had done by means of his ministry among the Gentiles.

They glorified God when they heard it. Then they said to him, "Brother, you see how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, all of them ardent upholders of the Law.

When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew they were all the more quiet. So he went on.

"I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel in all the strictness of our ancestral Law, ardent for God as you all are to-day.

as the high priest and all the council of elders can testify. It was from them that I got letters to the brotherhood at Damascus, and then journeyed thither to bind those who had gathered there and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.

I said, 'What am I to do?' And the Lord said to me, 'Get up and make your way into Damascus; there?you shall be told about all you are destined to do.'

Then a certain Ananias, a devout man in the Law, who had a good reputation among all the Jewish inhabitants,

Then he said, 'The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will, to see the Just One, and to hear him speak with his own lips.

And now, why do you wait? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, invoking his name.'