Acts 28:23-24 Paul got his
opportunity to present the gospel to at least the Jews in Rome, using
apologetics that showed Jesus was the fulfillment of the promises in both the
Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets. As in all the other venues where
Paul preached, some received the message and some did not.
Acts 28:25-28 Paul's parting words
seem oddly judgmental. He closed with a challenge to them that their hearts and
minds were closed to what God was saying, quoting Isaiah 6:9-10 in Acts
28:26-27. This passage occurs immediately after Isaiah's vision of the glory of
God, and his initial response, Isaiah 6:5,
“Woe
is me, for I am ruined!
Because
I am a man of unclean lips,
And
I live among a people of unclean lips;
For
my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
and the cleansing of his lips by a
lump of glowing coal transported by one of the Seraphim. This suggests that
Paul was attempting to communicate to the Jews the immediacy and directness of
his commission from God, comparable to that of Isaiah, in terms they could
relate to.
Paul
follows this quote with the same statement that got the Jews in Jerusalem
agitated, that he was going to take the gospel to the gentiles since the Jews
had rejected Jesus.
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