30 And Philip, running up to him, saw that he was reading Isaiah the prophet, and said to him, Is the sense of what you are reading clear to you?
I will go quickly in the way of your teaching, because you have given me a free heart.
Whatever comes to your hand to do with all your power, do it because there is no work, or thought, or knowledge, or wisdom in the place of the dead to which you are going.
And the seed which was put in good earth, this is he who gives ear to the word, and gets the sense of it; who gives fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times as much.
Are all these things now clear to you? They say to him, Yes.
When, then, you see in the holy place the unclean thing which makes destruction, of which word was given by Daniel the prophet (let this be clear to the reader),
But when you see the unclean thing which makes destruction, in the place where it has no right to be (let this be clear to the reader), then let those who are in Judaea go quickly to the mountains:
And he said to them, These are the words which I said to you when I was still with you, how it was necessary for all the things which are in the writings of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms about me, to be put into effect. Then he made the holy Writings clear to their minds.
Jesus said, My food is to do the pleasure of him who sent me and to make his work complete.
You make search in the holy Writings, in the belief that through them you get eternal life; and it is those Writings which give witness about me.
For this reason, then, do not be foolish, but be conscious of the Lord's pleasure.
Here is wisdom. He who has knowledge let him get the number of the beast; because it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred and sixty-six.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Acts 8
Commentary on Acts 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
In this chapter we have an account of the persecutions of the Christians, and the propagating of Christianity thereby. It was strange, but very true, that the disciples of Christ the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied.
Act 8:1-3
In these verses we have,
Act 8:4-13
Samson's riddle is here again unriddled: Out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness. The persecution that was designed to extirpate the church was by the overruling providence of God made an occasion of the enlargement of it. Christ had said, I am come to send fire on the earth; and they thought, by scattering those who were kindled with that fire, to have put it out, but instead of this they did but help to spread it.
Act 8:14-25
God had wonderfully owned Philip in his work as an evangelist at Samaria, but he could do no more than an evangelist; there were some peculiar powers reserved to the apostles, for the keeping up of the dignity of their office, and here we have an account of what was done by two of them there-Peter and John. The twelve kept together at Jerusalem (v. 1), and thither these good tidings were brought them that Samaria had received the word of God (v. 14), that a great harvest of souls was gathered, and was likely to be gathered in to Christ there. The word of God was not only preached to them, but received by them; they bade it welcome, admitted the light of it, and submitted to the power of it: When they heard it, they sent unto them Peter and John. If Peter had been, as some say he was, the prince of the apostles, he would have sent some of them, or, if he had seen cause, would have gone himself of his own accord; but he was so far from this that he submitted to an order of the house, and, as a servant to the body, went whither they sent him. Two apostles were sent, the two most eminent, to Samaria,
Act 8:26-40
We have here the story of the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch to the faith of Christ, by whom, we have reason to think, the knowledge of Christ was sent into that country where he lived, and that scripture fulfilled, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands (one of the first of the nations) unto God, Ps. 68:31.