Acts 11:23
23. when he . . . had seen the grace of God—in the new converts.
was glad—owned and rejoiced in it at once as divine, though they were uncircumcised. exhorted them all that with purpose of heart—as opposed to a hasty and fickle discipleship. they would cleave unto the Lord—the Lord Jesus. Acts 14:22
21, 22. they returned . . . to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls, &c.—At Derbe, Paul was not far from the well-known pass which leads down from the central tableland to Cilicia and Tarsus. But his thoughts did not center in an earthly home. He revisited the places where he had been reviled and persecuted, but where he had left as sheep in the desert the disciples whom his Master had enabled him to gather. They needed building up and strengthening in the faith, comforting in the midst of their inevitable suffering, and fencing round by permanent institutions. Undaunted therefore by the dangers that awaited them, our missionaries return to them, using words of encouragement which none but the founders of a true religion would have ventured to address to their earliest converts, that "we can only enter into the kingdom of God by passing through much tribulation" [HOWSON].
Acts 15:32
32. Judas and Silas, being prophets themselves—that is, inspired teachers.
exhorted the brethren with many words—"much discourse." and confirmed them—opening up, no doubt, the great principle involved in the controversy now settled, of gratuitous salvation, or the purification of the heart by faith alone (as expressed by Peter, Ac 15:9, 11), and dwelling on the necessity of harmony in principle and affection between the Gentile disciples and their Jewish brethren.