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testimony in Acts 14: 27 may not.
Acts 13: 42, 46 and 47 are associated with
Isa. 49: 6 which can only mean Gentiles as such.
While we must encourage every believer to exercise the Berean spirit (Acts 17: 11)
we must not close our eyes to the disposition equally mentioned in Acts 17:, namely
of the Athenian spirit of ever telling or hearing "something newer" (kainoteron)
(Acts 17: 21). Let us ever observe the Berean attitude, let us ever be on our guard
against the Athenian attitude. The one is a key, the other a snare.
If we survey the Acts of the Apostles, with Acts 13: as a possible dispensational
boundary in mind, we should find that if the Church of the Mystery really came into
existence when Acts 13: is reached, a change would be introduced into the record
which would include a change of the Lord's dealing with Israel. Quite naturally, Peter
immediately after Pentecost could say to his hearers:
"The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath
glorified His Son Jesus" (Acts 3: 13).
It is most obvious that Israel had not become lo-ammi at Pentecost, God had not
ceased to be called their God at that point of time, and Peter gives Him His full title. No
change can have taken place at Acts 5: 30, 31 for God is still the God of "our fathers",
and "repentance to Israel" is still believed to be within the realm of possibility.
Passing from Peter, we find Stephen adopting the same attitude:
"Men, brethren and fathers"; "Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the
wilderness"; "As your fathers did so do ye" (Acts 7: 2, 44, 51).
Paul, in Acts 13:, said:
"Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience. The God of this people of Israel
chose our fathers" (Acts 13: 16, 17),
words which do not conform to the condition foreseen by Hosea. Even after his
apprehension by the Romans, Paul still spoke of Israel as existing as a nation before God,
saying:
"And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our
fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to
come" (Acts 26: 7).
Here the persistence of Israel is insisted on by the Apostle, otherwise he would not
have used the word translated "instantly", for such a term cannot be used to describe the
service and expectations of a non-existent people. Right to the last chapter of the Acts,
the people of Israel, or their hope, are in evidence. Had Israel become lo-ammi earlier
than Acts 28:, Paul would not have said "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this
chain" (Acts 28: 20). That "chain" is still in evidence in the "Prison Epistles"
(Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and II Timothy), but would anyone have
the temerity to teach that in those epistles, where the Mystery is revealed, Paul was still