Act 12:25, 13:7, 14:14 | JFB | STEP | 25. Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem —where, it thus appears, they had remained during all this persecution. when they had fulfilled their ministry —or service; that mentioned on . took with them John . . . Mark —(See on ), not to be confounded with the second Evangelist, as is often done. As his uncle was Barnabas, so his spiritual father was Peter ( ).

Acts 12:25

25. Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem—where, it thus appears, they had remained during all this persecution.

when they had fulfilled their ministry—or service; that mentioned on Ac 11:29, 30.

took with them John . . . Mark—(See on Ac 12:12), not to be confounded with the second Evangelist, as is often done. As his uncle was Barnabas, so his spiritual father was Peter (1Pe 5:13).

Acts 13:7

7. Which was with the deputy—properly, "the proconsul." This name was reserved for the governors of settled provinces, which were placed under the Roman Senate, and is never given in the New Testament to Pilate, Felix, or Festus, who were but procurators, or subordinate administrators of unsettled, imperial, military provinces. Now as Augustus reserved Cyprus for himself, its governor would in that case have been not a proconsul, but simply a procurator, had not the emperor afterwards restored it to the Senate, as a Roman historian [DIO CASSIUS] expressly states. In most striking confirmation of this minute accuracy of the sacred historian, coins have actually been found in the island, stamped with the names of proconsuls, both in Greek and Latin [AKERMAN, Numismatic Illustrations of the New Testament]. (GROTIUS and BENGEL, not aware of this, have missed the mark here).

Sergius Paulus, a prudent man—an intelligent man, who thirsting for truth, sent for Barnabas and Saul, desiring ("earnestly desiring") to hear the Word of God.

Acts 14:14

14-18. when . . . Barnabas and Paul heard—Barnabas is put first here, apparently as having been styled the "Jupiter" of the company.

they rent their clothes and ran in—rather (according to the true reading), "ran forth."

among the people, crying out . . . Sirs, why do ye these things?—This was something more than that abhorrence of idolatry which took possession of the Jews as a nation from the time of the Babylonish captivity: it was that delicate sensibility to everything which affects the honor of God which Christianity, giving us in God a reconciled Father, alone can produce; making the Christian instinctively feel himself to be wounded in all dishonor done to God, and filling him with mingled horror and grief when such gross insults as this are offered to him.