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ACTS.--"After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed
through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been
there, I must also see Rome" (Acts 19: 21).
EPISTLE.--"For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not
wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through
mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from
Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of
Christ" (Rom. 15: 18, 19).
ACTS.--"And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had
wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry" (Acts 21: 19).
"And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul" (Acts 19: 11).
"He departed for to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone over these
parts" (note the map. Illyricum was contiguous with Macedonia), "and had
given them much exhortation, he came into Greece" (Acts 20: 1, 2).
EPISTLE.--"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the
love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;
that I may delivered from them that do not believe in Judæa; and that my
service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints" (Rom. 15: 30,
31).
ACTS.--"And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly . . . . .
they said unto him . . . . . they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the
Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses . . . . . This is the man that
teacheth all men everywhere against the people . . . . . they took Paul, and drew
him out of the temple" (Acts 21: 17-30).
EPISTLE.--"Greet Priscilla and Aquila" (Rom. 16: 3).
"Timotheus my work-fellow and Lucius, and Jason and Sosipater, my
kinsmen, salute you" (Rom. 16: 21).
"Erastus the chamberlain of the city, saluteth you" (Rom. 16: 23).
ACTS.--"After these things Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth; and found
a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his
wife Priscilla" (Acts 18: 1, 2).
"He sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus
and Erastus" (Acts 19: 22).
"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and
teachers: as . . . . . Lucius of Cyrene" (Acts 13: 1).
"The Jews . . . . . set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of
Jason" (Acts 17: 5).
It is evident that the apostle had no intention of keeping the epistle to the Romans
distinct from his other acts, but sought rather to interest them in the movement that was
everywhere around them, and of which they and he formed an integral part. The epistle
to the Romans therefore must be studied together with the Acts. Any attempt to divorce
them should be looked upon with suspicion, especially when an attempt is made to teach
one aspect of hope from the Acts, and another from the epistles of the very same period.
I Corinthians and the Acts.
EPISTLE.--"Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and
Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth" (I Cor. 1: 1,
2).