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203 illustrations
In Palestine, the Passover coincided with harvest's first fruits—*aparche*—ready for Temple presentation.
He does not stand above his audience as one who possesses the message of salvation and dispenses it downward.
An able minister requires two foundational elements: natural endowments and spiritual qualities.
First, its nature: deliverance FROM the guilt of sin, the power of sin, and the punishment of sin; deliverance TO acceptance with God, conquest of evil, and Heaven itself.
The Victorian expositor understood this command as operating on five essential dimensions.
Christ was the reputed son of a village carpenter, a poor despised Nazarene—yet His fame spread abroad.
The commission 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature' was not spoken to the eleven apostles alone, but to all generations of Christ's Church.
True Christians manifest Christ's personal *presence* among men.
These unnamed men, bearing no vision, no command from Jerusalem, no precedent to guide them—only truth in their minds and the impulses of Christ's love in their hearts—solved the question that had vexed the apostles: whether salvation belonged to Gentiles.
They possessed nothing—no influence, no numbers, no world support.
God's purpose is explicit: "God hath sent His Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved." Yet formidable obstacles obscure this gracious design.
For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done ...
The authority of their testimony rested on four unmistakable foundations.
This ancient custom illuminates Psalm 24:8—"Who is this King of glory?
Paul renounced the "wisdom of words" because human eloquence veils the gospel's truth.
His words, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!' are prophecy's swan-song, its final *Eureka!* uttered as it dies.
Among those who reverently buried the martyr were devout men—not disciples, but Hellenistic Jews, perhaps from the very synagogue whose members had disputed with Stephen and dragged him before the council.
Thirty years later, when Jesus began His ministry, the wonder seemed utterly forgotten.
As Maclaren observes, this Roman official embodied the practical man's contempt for mere ideas, the statesman's faith in visible force and authority alone.
Because all members share identical stakes in eternity.
His counsel to leave the apostles unmolested was not born from sympathy with Christian truth, but from a shrewd political calculus: the Pharisees and Sadducees were locked in bitter theological combat over the resurrection, and these Galileans preaching *anastasis* (resurrection)...
They streamed into the wilderness seeking baptism as a *talisman*, a magical protection against coming judgment.
The Pharisees came, bound by scrupulous external observance and self-satisfied pride.
You cannot bring forth the best in someone if you do not believe the best exists within him.