As I’ve said, I don’t think that there were many Jews in Rome when Paul was there.
Only 12 or 15 years had passed since Claudius had commanded that all Jews leave the city.
We don’t know when that law was rescinded, but it was probably after the beginning of the reign of Nero who came along 5 years later.
And even when the prohibition law was lifted some time after that, if I was a Jew, I would be reluctant to return to a place so filled with hatred toward me.
There were probably not a great many sons of Israel in Rome when Paul first arrived.
But on the other hand, how many people would it take to fill the average living room?
In a city of 1 to 2 million people, 50 Jews would be a minuscule number,
And a supplementary question would be: how many of the local Christians were invited?
Did Paul ask the saints of God to stay at home and pray for the meeting, or were they present as well?
Did they even know about the meeting?
The reason that I ask these questions is because Jamieson, Fausset and Brown raise another point.
They say that the word “lodging” in verse 23 suggests that this was NOT Paul’s own hired house.
They point to the only other use of the Greek word “xenia” ( xen-ee-a ) and say that it means “the place where one stays as a guest.”
They use this word and this logic to suggest that Paul had been able to arrange a meeting in some other place, such as a hall or conference room.
Verse 23 seems to say that the Jews met with Paul at his house, which in a sense WAS a temporary lodging anyway.
But this still leaves the question of how many people he was able to pack into his own hired house.
And can you imagine how nervous the Roman guards were about this whole idea.
Probably no more than one guard was on duty on any ordinary day, but if this small army of visitors wanted to turn on that guard and stage a jail break, what could one soldier do to stop them?
Paul probably had to obtain Roman permission to host this little Bible conference.
And there were probably another half dozen or dozen heathen guards on duty that day.
What a great opportunity for more evangelism among the soldiery.
This afternoon we look at the smaller half of the message that we started this morning:
“The First Annual Bible Conference of the Calvary Baptist Church of Rome.”
We’ve looked at the theme, and the method Paul used to present that theme.
For example we had a series of lessons on Baptist history and doctrine, which roughly came out of one of the books of J. R. Graves
Some time before that we had a series of lessons on the Christian life from a book by Jim Berg.
The outline to our studies for the last six months came out of another book, which I won’t mention.
And we have just started a new series of lessons on the nature of God with ideas gleaned from some of A.W. Pink’s gleanings along with John Gill.
It’s not that I’ve just been publicly reading the books of these men to you;
I’ve been digesting and verbally regurgitating their material.
And it’s not that our lessons haven’t been Biblical, because I think that it would have been a waste of time, if they weren’t.
But even though we have had lessons ABOUT the inspired Word of God, we have not been directly studying the inspired Word of God.
In contrast to those lessons, we have these messages from the Book of Acts.
As I said this morning, this has been an expository study of this part of the Word of God.
There is nothing necessarily WRONG with topical studies such as we have had in Sunday School.
And there is nothing necessarily WRONG with examining what other people say about the Word of God.
But there is nothing BETTER than what we are doing in these messages, and what Paul did before his Jewish guests.
“And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.”
Most people who spend much time reading – have their favorite authors.
I have some in the secular world that I like to read, and I have others whom I will never read again.
And the same is true when it comes to my reading in the religious world.
Perhaps you like Spurgeon, or Gill, or Pink, or Roy Mason, or J. R. Graves.
As good as those authors may be, as doctrinally accurate,
they did not write with the same kind of inspiration under which David wrote the Psalms or Moses wrote Genesis.
And you know when I disagreed with them, I did so with the opinion that I was right and they were wrong.
But as I just pointed out, those men sometimes make statements which I think are wrong.
And for this reason, we are spending our time better reading Jehovah than Keener, Spurgeon or Fuller.
I think that if every Christian made it a personal rule to read the Bible as much or more than they do any human author, no matter how good, then those Christians and Christianity in general would be better for it.
When Paul met with these visitors, his only text was the Old Testament scripture.
He didn’t begin with the statements of Rabbi Gamaliel or Hillel; he began with Isaiah and Moses.
And furthermore, he didn’t begin by re-preaching the sermons of the Apostle Peter or Deacon Philip.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me at this point.
If Paul had the writings of the Apostle John, he might have preached them as we do today.
And besides, those Jews would probably have considered whatever Peter and John to say as heretical anyway.
Paul turned to the scriptures which those people knew and respected.
Paul turned to Moses, Isaiah, David and Ezekiel, holy men of God whom the Jews considered to be lead of the Spirit to write what they wrote.
Both the preacher and the auditors, the hearers, mutually agreed that those were the Holy Scriptures.
So Paul did exactly what His Saviour often did.
Turn to Luke 24:13-27: – “And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? AND BEGINNING AT MOSES AND ALL THE PROPHETS, HE EXPOUNDED UNTO THEM IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES THE THINGS CONCERNING HIMSELF.”
Now skip down to verse 44 – “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written IN THE LAW OF MOSES, AND IN THE PROPHETS, AND IN THE PSALMS, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.”
I probably don’t attend 25% of the number of conferences and fellowships that most Baptist preachers attend.
The reasons are obvious – miles and miles and miles, and the time that it takes to cross those miles.
But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t attended a few.
In my 35 years in the ministry I’ve probably attended a couple dozen meetings with Baptist pastors.
Some of them have been called “Bible Conferences,” some “Missions Conferences,” some “Fellowship meetings.”
But I have to confess that not even all the Bible Conferences have centered & concentrated on the Bible.
I have been in meetings where the preacher announced his text, read his text and never returned to his text before the final “amen.”
Some of those messages were entertaining, but they were not very often what I needed.
Paul could have talked all day about the day of his conversion.
He could have accurately and without embellishment described every detail, but it would have been a complete waste of time with these people.
Or he might have spent days talking about the ministry that he had since his conversion, but that too would have meant nothing.
What those people needed was the Word of God.
It’s the word of the Lord which is the Sword of the Lord
The word of God is “quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit.”
These Jews needed to be spiritually chopped to pieces; their theology needed to be pulverized;
“Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”
And if he can be instant in season and out of season, then all the better.
Paul expounded, testified and persuaded those people out of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Then the last thing that we see as the men were filing out the door, some were warmly shaking the preacher’s hand while some simply looked the other way and stomped out.
Friday, I got a long distance call from a friend of mine who lives down in the state of Georgia.
He mentioned that a man had recently visited his church and preached there.
In the course of his message he made a statement, which both my friend and I think is slightly off the mark; not terribly serious, but serious enough that neither of us want to say the same sort of thing.
When my friend talked to the visiting preacher about it, the man made an interesting comment:
There is what the preacher said; there is what the preacher meant; and there is what the listener thought that the preacher meant.
On that day so many years ago, Paul preached Christ Jesus from morning to night.
If we say that there were 50 Jewish visitors in Paul’s house, Paul said exactly the same thing to everyone of them.
But that doesn’t mean that everyone of them heard the same thing.
Hearing is not like using a tape recording, where some mechanical device exactly captures the vibrations that we call “sound.”
Hearing involves the ear and the mind which interprets what the ear captures out of the air.
And although some in modern science might deny it, attached to that mind is the heart of the hearer as well.
And as Paul quoted the Lord’s words, “the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”
Paul expounded, testified and persuaded precisely the same message to every ear present.
But that message was not received in the same way by every pair of ears.
This should remind us of the importance of the spiritual aspect of the ministry.
Prayer is essential, because the ministry of the Holy Spirit is essential.
The hearing of the word of God is an operation of the heart, and the heart by nature is opposed to the things of God.
So one of the key ingredients to the success of the ministry is the Lord’s blessing on the hearts of the auditors.
And in this case some of those Roman Jews left Paul’s house, children of God, but some remained children of Satan.
In what condition will you leave the House of God this Lord’s Day?