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(1) The leaders of Israel were grieved because the apostles preached, through Jesus, the resurrection of the
dead (Acts 4).
(2) The leaders of Israel were cut to the heart by Stephen's speech. They stoned him, and another persecution
was begun (Acts 7 and 8:1).
(3) Saul of Tarsus, being troubled in his conscience (he was kicking against the goad at his conversion, 9:5)
organised a great persecution of the Church (Acts 8 and 9).
(4) The Jews, being incensed at Saul's conversion and subsequent witness, took counsel to kill him (Acts
9:23,29).
(5) Herod stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church. James was killed. Peter was imprisoned. He
saw that it pleased the Jews (Acts 12).
(6) The Jews at Antioch, filled with envy at the evangelizing of the Gentiles, stirred up opposition - and expelled
the apostles (Acts 13).
(7) The Jews from Antioch and Iconium (apparently from envy and hatred) followed Paul to Lystra and stoned
him, leaving him for dead (Acts 14).
At Acts 16 we meet with the first Gentile persecution and another factor enters into the situation: `They saw that
the hope of their gain was gone'. In a world composed as it is of religious zeal and sordid greed, it is practically
impossible to witness for the truth without touching the interests and arousing the antagonism of one or other of
these representative opponents. When one reads a funeral eulogy which declares that the man who has died `had not
an enemy in the world' one is inclined to think: He did nothing, therefore, in the cause of truth.
Returning to Acts 16, we find that Paul and Silas are caught and taken before the rulers, the charge against them
being:
`These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not lawful for us to
receive, neither to observe, being Romans' (Acts 16:20,21).
Wordsworth remarks here:
`Christianity was hated as Judaism, by the heathen, and as worse than heathenism by the Jews. It had to contend
against Judaism and Heathenism, and it triumphed over both'.
We feel sometimes, in our small degree, that those responsible for The Berean Expositor are in much the same
condition. The orthodox are against our teaching because it traverses the `traditions of the elders' and the
Modernists are against us because we are out of date and old-fashioned. It is good at such times to think of the
apostles and take courage from their experience and example.
The Jews were not liked by the Romans, and a Roman colony particularly would endeavour to keep them out.
About this time the Jews had caused such disturbances at Rome, that Claudius had expelled them by edict (Acts
18:2).
`He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one
Chrestus' (Suet. Claud. xxv).
Judaism was a religio licita (a lawful religion) within the Roman Empire, but those in authority were free to
punish any unauthorized introduction of any new object of worship.
Luke's historical veracity is again evident here. He says that the apostle was taken to the `rulers' and brought
before the `magistrates'. As a colony, Philippi was rather like a miniature Rome, and justice would therefore be
administered in it by two officers called duumviri. This title was rendered in Greek strategos, the word translated by
the A.V. `magistrate'. Inscriptions have been found in Philippi, bearing the names and titles of duumviri, and one
of them, whose name was found at Neapolis, was actually duumviri when Paul was taken at Philippi.