The Jerusalem Decree
The apostles, the elders, and the brethren,
To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:
Greetings.
| << Acts 15:23 | Acts 15:25 >> |
Acts 15:24
Forasmuch - Since we have heard.
That certain - That some, Acts 15:1.
Have troubled you with words - With doctrines. They have disturbed your minds, and produced contentions.
Subverting your souls - The word used here occurs nowhere else in the New Testament ̓́ anaskeuazontes . It properly means "to collect together the vessels used in a house the household furniture - for the purpose of removing it." It is applied to marauders, robbers, and enemies who remove and bear off property, thus producing distress, confusion, and disorder. It is thus used in the sense of disturbing or destroying, and here denotes that they "unsettled their minds" - that they produced anxiety, disturbance, and distress by these doctrines about Moses.
To whom we gave no such commandment - They went, therefore, without authority. Self-constituted and self-sent teachers not infrequently produce disturbance and distress. Had the apostles been consulted on this subject, the difficulty would have been avoided. By thus saying that they had not given them a command to teach these things, they practically assured the Gentile converts that they did not approve of the course which those who went from Judea had taken.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Acts 15:24:
Matthew 18:19
Acts 16:4
Romans 16:17
1 Peter 5:12
| << Acts 15:23 | Acts 15:25 >> |
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