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"But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy (airesis, "sect")
so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and
the prophets" (Acts 24: 14).
The Sadducees worshipped the God of their fathers after the way that men called
"a sect", but they did not believe all that was written in the law and the prophets, for they
particularly denied the hope of resurrection. The Pharisees, too, worshipped the God of
their fathers after the way that men called "a sect", believing, at least professedly, all that
was written, and definitely including the hope of resurrection in their creed, yet they
overloaded the written word with an accumulation of tradition so great that it was made
of none effect.
The Christian Church began, as a movement of the Spirit of God, within the ranks of
the Jews: it grew up as a minority that still worshipped in synagogue: it was augmented
by believing Gentiles, who were blessed under the New Covenant, and were accounted
children of Abraham and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3: 29), but the Church was
never divorced from Israel, its hope, its promises or its covenants, until Israel itself
became "lo-ammi" at Acts 28: 25.
It is because of the extreme importance of this chapter dispensationally, that it has
figured so prominently in our ministry throughout the thirty years in which we have
sought to fulfil the sacred trust committed to us.
To return to the momentous meeting at Rome, the chief of the Jews concluded the first
interview by saying: "We desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest", and accordingly a
day was appointed.
What the Apostle "thought", the way he presented his argument, the crisis that was
reached in that "lodging" in Rome, must be the subject of our next paper.