Acts 13:3-12 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.… There is always a gain in touching others at the point of sympathy, rather than at the point of divergence. A lawyer who would win over a jury, addresses himself first to the one man who is clearly on his side of the case, rather than to the eleven men who are against him, to begin with. The wife who proposes to carry her own way quietly, starts out by agreeing with her husband at some point; and with that beginning she will have him agreeing with her at the main point, before she is through with him. There is sound philosophy in this way of working, and God's plan is always the perfection of philosophy. The Holy Ghost led the first foreign missionaries to begin their work abroad in the synagogues of their Jewish brethren. The Holy Ghost would now lead every Christian worker anywhere to look first for points of sympathy or agreement with those whom he would win over or influence, rather than to start out by recognising, and battling, differences and prejudices, which will thus be made to stand as permanent barriers to an agreement, when they might have been quietly passed, and left behind permanently. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.WEB: Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. |
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