delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you
Christ arms Paul against fear by promising deliverance, yet the world repays its physicians with hatred. Paul must know that wherever he goes, many whom he labors to save will hate him and seek his destruction, because the Jews especially despised that he made the Gospel common to both Jew and Gentile alike. Yet all faithful teachers are encouraged by his example not to be hindered by men's malice from offering God's grace to the miserable, however unworthy they be.
AI summary
Paul was stopped dead in his tracks by a power from heaven that no earthly authority could match, even one armed with the full weight of the chief priests behind it. A vision and a voice together seized him, not by force of men, but by divine energy, and turned the persecutor into a preacher. What resistance can stand against God?
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 26:12-23
The Lord knew the moment Saul professed Christ and preached the Gospel, the Jewish people would become his implacable enemies and seek to destroy him. He promises Paul beforehand deliverance and security from them. So too from the Gentiles, to whom Christ sends him; Paul followed this pattern, turning to the Gentiles as his chief charge once the Jews rejected the Gospel, and was saved from many dangers among them as promised.
AI summary