(1) Restoration

(2) Reconciliation

(3) Rejection

(1) Sent

(2) Sent

(3) Sent

A brief word only can be given to elucidate this analysis.

The geographical movement needs no proof. It is patent to all readers. The ethnological movement deals with

the nation, and the nations. At the first, the message is to and concerned with `Jews only'. Those who attended the

Levitical feast of Pentecost were `Jews ... out of every nation under heaven' (Acts 2:5) and Peter addresses his

hearers on that day as `Ye men of Israel'. Even after the stoning of Stephen and the dispersal that followed, those

who travelled as far as Cyprus and Antioch preached `the word to none but unto the Jews only' (Acts 11:19). At

Antioch under the ministry of Paul, the Gentile is included:

`Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God' (Acts 13:26).

That these were Gentiles, who are denominated `whosoever among you feareth God' is made plain by the

context (Acts 13:42,46-48), and the report given at the close of this Antiochian ministry, concludes with the words:

`How He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles' (Acts 14:27).

After the all-day conference with the chief of the Jews at Rome, and after the quotation of that passage in Isaiah

6 of such dreadful import, the Apostle declared:

`The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles' (Acts 28:28).

This passage is unique, for nowhere, since the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 unto this moment in Acts 28:28,

has any Gentile ever been called or saved independently of Israel. As our Saviour said to the woman of Samaria

`salvation is of the Jews'.

The word `sent' occurs in each of these divisions of the Acts, for no change can take place apart from the Divine

(1) First to Israel.

`Ye are the children of the prophets ... Unto

you first God having raised up His Son

Jesus, sent Him to bless you' (Acts

`It was necessary that the Word of God

should first have been spoken to you: but

seeing ye put it from you, and judge

yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo,

we turn to the Gentiles' (Acts 13:46).

(2) Then to both

`To you is the word of this salvation sent'

Israel and the

(Acts 13:26).

(3) Finally

to

`The salvation of God is sent unto the

Gentiles only.

Gentiles, and that they will hear it' (Acts

It is a fundamental mistake, and one of far reaching effects, to believe and teach that `The church began at

Pentecost'. A church, perhaps, but not the church which is the Body of Christ, as revealed in the epistles to the

Ephesians and the Colossians. The hope of Israel persists throughout the book (Acts 1:6; 3:19-21; 26:6,7; 28:20).

The miraculous signs of Mark 16:17,18 are seen not only at Pentecost, but in Acts 28:1-10. Such spiritual gifts

belong to the period covered by the Acts, but have no place in the present dispensation of the Mystery.