THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES - Chapter 15 - Verse 24

Verse 24. Forasmuch. Since we have heard.

That certain. That some, Ac 15:1.

Have troubled you with words. With doctrines. They have disturbed your minds, and produced contentions.

Subverting your souls. The word here used occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, (anaskeuazontev.) It properly means to collect together the vessels used in a house—the household furniture—for the purpose of removing it. It is applied to marauders, robbers, and enemies, who remove and bear off property; thus producing distress, confusion, and disorder. It is thus used in the sense of disturbing, or destroying; and here denotes that they unsettled their minds—that they produced anxiety, disturbance, and distress—by these doctrines about Moses.

To whom we gave no such commandment. They went, therefore, without authority. Self-constituted and self-sent teachers not unfrequently produce disturbance and distress. Had the apostles been consulted on this subject, the difficulty would have been avoided. By thus saying that they had not given them a command to teach these things, they practically assured the Gentile converts that they did not approve of the course which those who went from Judea had taken.

{+} "certain" "Some" {c} "which went out" Ac 15:1 {d} "troubled you" Ga 5:12 {e} "subverting your souls" Ga 5:4 {++} "saying" Unsettling your minds" {f} "To whom we gave" Ga 2:4