13:43Acts 13:43

The setting is Antioch in Pisidia on the Sabbath, where Paul had preached in the synagogue that God had dealt with Israel from deliverance from Egyptian bondage and had raised up Jesus, of the seed of David, as the promised Messiah and Saviour of prophecy.8RED 11.4–13.2+2 When the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes and converts who had accepted the good news and believed followed Paul and Barnabas.AA 173.1–4+4 Speaking to them, Paul and Barnabas persuaded and urged them to continue in the grace of God, which is to stand fast and remain firm in faith and to persevere and remain in the favor and saving message they had received.AA 173.1–4+4 The exhortation came amid great interest among both Jews and Gentiles, for after the Jews left the synagogue the Gentiles lingered and entreated that the same words be spoken to them the next Sabbath, and the interest grew until the whole city came together the next Sabbath.8RED 11.4–13.2+2

When the Jewish priests and rulers saw the multitudes, with great numbers of Gentiles mingling with Jews and sharing religious privileges equally on the same footing, they were moved by envy and jealousy and by old bigotry and prejudice, clinging to the idea that God's blessing was for Jews alone and reserved exclusively for them, and they contradicted the apostles with blasphemy.8RED 11.4–13.2+2 The Gentiles rejoiced that Christ recognized them as children of God, which led the apostles to turn to the Gentiles.8RED 11.4–13.2 The Jewish leaders raged when they learned that the Messiah preached was to be a light to the Gentiles as well as the glory of Israel.3SP 354.2–355.1 Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was preaching to both Jews and Gentiles on the Sabbath day after the ascension of Christ, so the Sabbath continued as the day for worship and religious instruction among Christ's followers, with no change to another day.ST Nov 12, 1894