ACTS

`Nothing against the people' (Acts 28:17).

`Go unto this people' (Acts 28:26).

`For the heart of this people' (Acts 28:27).

What of `the customs'?- Ethos, `customs', occurs in the Acts seven times. In Acts 16:21 and 25:16 it is the

`custom' or `manner' of the Romans that is intended, but in the remaining passages it is used of the peculiar customs

of Israel. It is of great interest to realize that the first occurrence of ethos in the Acts is found in the charge which

brought about the stoning of Stephen, to which Paul had consented.

`That this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us'

(Acts 6:14).

In more passages than one, the apostle makes it clear that those dreadful, persecuting, days of his earlier life

never left his memory, and it would be with humbled heart that he now defended himself against the very charge

that had been laid against the man to whose death he had consented years before. That the ethos of the fathers was

not to be confined to superficial customs is made clear from its use in Acts 15:1, where `circumcision after the

manner of Moses' is in view. Paul's present imprisonment had been brought about because he had sought to rebut

the charge made against him that he taught:

`... all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their

children, neither to walk after the customs' (Acts 21:21),

and Paul acted as he did so that all might know that, as the elders said to him, `those things, whereof they were

informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law' (Acts 21:24).

These most explicit statements reduce the issue to two heads. Either Paul did walk orderly and kept the law, or

he did not. If he did, then the truth of the Mystery could not have been made known during the period of the Acts.

If he did not, then his statements are false and `we are of all men most miserable'.

`The fathers'. To whom do these words refer? - Again, and for the third time, we return to the synagogue at

Antioch and hear the apostle speak:

`We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled'

(Acts 13:32,33).

His own written testimony in the epistle to the Romans is conclusive, `My brethren, my kinsmen according to

the flesh: who are Israelites ... whose are the fathers' (Rom. 9:3-5). In Acts 28, immediately before he said `this

people', the apostle exclaims, `Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers' (Acts 28:25).

Further on in his statement to the chief of the Jews the apostle used another expression, `My nation' (Acts 28:19).

The word translated `nation' is ethnos, and is frequently rendered `Gentiles', when found in the plural, as it is in

Acts 28:28. Paul mostly uses the word to designate the Gentiles, but when he said:

`I came to bring alms to my nation' (Acts 24:17).

`Mine own nation at Jerusalem' (Acts 26:4),

it is evident that he speaks of Israel, `the nation', as distinct from the rest of the `nations'. At Acts 28:19, Israel was

still Paul's nation.

Up to this point, however, what has been brought forward is negative in character, e.g., Paul had committed

nothing against `this people' or its customs. But lest his testimony should be misconstrued, he recapitulates,

introducing a positive note:

`For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of

Israel I am bound with this chain' (Acts 28:20).

In his defence before Agrippa, who was expert in all `customs' of the Jews, and therefore able to appreciate the

apostle's definite avowal, he said: