The gospel at Iconium.
There was a series of acts and events such as seem typical of the progress of the gospel elsewhere.
I. FAITHFUL AND SUCCESSFUL PREACHING OF THE WORD. Many, Jews and Greeks, believed. This is the one test of true preaching. Is the truth "commended to the conscience"? Are great moral laws brought out distinctly, so that the heart of the people leaps up, in truth set free? He who preaches out of his heart alone reaches to the heart. The arguments that have convinced ourselves are the arguments that can alone be expected to convince others.
II. OPPOSITION AROUSED. Jewish prejudice still stands in the path of the gospel. But the gospel acquires force as it goes, and actually roots itself the more firmly in men's minds from the very fact that it is able to surmount opposition.
III. CONCURRENT DIVINE TESTIMONY. God gives his servants power to work and to effect good. Deeds of good done to the suffering body or mind are silent words; just as true words are spiritual deeds. We do not look for miracles, but we ought to look for "signs" that God is with us in the word we speak and the work we do for others.
IV. DIVIDED RESULTS. A split fakes place in the multitude: some siding with the Jews, some with the apostles. It is by opposition of opinions and feelings that the world is carried on. It does not follow, because division takes place, on the entrance of a new light, that it will be permanent. God's method seems to be to lead men through divisions to deeper unity; by experience of the futility of partial opinions to the deeper insight which reconciles and satisfies. These divisions were prophetic of what has ever to be in the history of the Church. Ever has there been division marked at every era of new light and progress. He is in the right who follows the light within; all who seek to follow the living Savior, and such alone, enjoy under every name that is supposed to divide, "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."—J.