Acts 11:17

11:17 Therefore if God ¹  gave them the same gift ²  as he also gave us after believing ³  in the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴  who was I to hinder ⁵  God?”

Acts 20:18

20:18 When they arrived, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I lived ⁶  the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot ⁷  in the province of Asia, ⁸ 

Acts 20:35

20:35 By all these things, ⁹  I have shown you that by working in this way we must help ¹⁰  the weak, ¹¹  and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” ¹² 

Acts 21:13

21:13 Then Paul replied, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking ¹³  my heart? For I am ready not only to be tied up, ¹⁴  but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Acts 23:3

23:3 Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! ¹⁵  Do ¹⁶  you sit there judging me according to the law, ¹⁷  and in violation of the law ¹⁸  you order me to be struck?”

[11:17]  ¹ tc Codex Bezae (D) and {a few other Western witnesses} here lack ὁ θεός (Jo qeo", “God”), perhaps because these scribes considered the Holy Spirit to be the gift of Christ rather than the gift of God; thus leaving the subject implicit would naturally draw the reader back to v. 16 to see the Lord Jesus as the bestower of the Spirit.

[11:17]  ² sn That is, the same gift of the Holy Spirit.

[11:17]  ³ tn Or “gave us when we believed”; or “gave us after we believed”; or “gave us who believed”; or “gave them when they believed the same gift as he also gave us.” The aorist dative plural participle πιστεύσασιν (pisteusasin) can be understood in several different ways: (1) It could modify ἡμῖν (Jhmin, “us”) or αὐτοῖς (autois, “them”). Proximity (it immediately follows ἡμῖν) would suggest that it belongs with ἡμῖν, so the last option (“gave them when they believed the same gift he also gave us”) is less likely. (2) The participle could be either adverbial or adjectival, modifying ἡμῖν. This decision is primarily a contextual one. The point Peter made is not whether or not the Gentiles believed, since both groups (“us” and “they”) had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The point was whether or not the Gentiles received the Spirit when they believed, just as Jewish Christians had received the Spirit on the day of Pentecost when they believed. Translated as an adjectival participle, πιστεύσασιν only affirms the fact of belief, however, and raises somewhat of a theological problem if one realizes, “Would God have given the Gentiles the Spirit if they had not believed?” (In other words, belief in itself is a theological prerequisite for receiving the Spirit. As such, in the case of the Gentiles, it is assumed.) Thus in context it makes more sense to understand the participle πιστεύσασιν as adverbial, related to the time of belief in connection with the giving of the Spirit. (3) The participle πιστεύσασιν as a temporal participle can refer to action antecedent to the action of the main verb ἔδωκεν (edwken) or contemporaneous with it. Logically, at least, the gift of the Spirit followed belief in the case of the original Christians, who had believed before the day of Pentecost. In the case of Cornelius and his household, belief and the reception of the Spirit were virtually simultaneous. One can argue that Peter is “summarizing” the experience of Jewish Christians, and therefore the actions of belief and reception of the Spirit, while historically separate, have been “telescoped” into one (“gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed”), but to be technically accurate the participle πιστεύσασιν should be translated “gave them the same gift as he also gave us after we believed.” A number of these problems can be avoided, however, by using a translation in English that maintains some of the ambiguity of the Greek original. Thus “if God gave them the same gift as he also gave us after believing” is used, where the phrase “after believing” can refer either to “them” or to “us,” or both.

[11:17]  ⁴ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[11:17]  ⁵ tn Or “prevent,” “forbid” (BDAG 580 s.v. κωλύω 1.a). Peter’s point is that he will not stand in the way of God.

[20:18]  ⁶ tn Grk “You yourselves know, from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time.” This could be understood to mean “how I stayed with you the whole time,” but the following verses make it clear that Paul’s lifestyle while with the Ephesians is in view here. Thus the translation “how I lived the whole time I was with you” makes this clear.

[20:18]  ⁷ tn Or “I arrived.” BDAG 367 s.v. ἐπιβαίνω 2, “set foot in…εἰς τ. ᾿Ασίαν set foot in Asia Ac 20:18.” However, L&N 15.83 removes the idiom: “you know that since the first day that I came to Asia.”

[20:18]  ⁸ tn Grk “Asia”; see the note on this word in v. 16.

[20:35]  ¹¹ sn The expression By all these things means “In everything I did.”

[20:35]  ¹² tn Or “must assist.”

[20:35]  ¹³ tn Or “the sick.” See Eph 4:28.

[20:35]  ¹⁴ sn The saying is similar to Matt 10:8. Service and generosity should be abundant. Interestingly, these exact words are not found in the gospels. Paul must have known of this saying from some other source.

[21:13]  ¹⁶ tn The term translated “breaking” as used by Josephus (Ant. 10.10.4 [10.207]) means to break something into pieces, but in its only NT use (it is a hapax legomenon) it is used figuratively (BDAG 972 s.v. συνθρύπτω).

[21:13]  ¹⁷ tn L&N 18.13 has “to tie objects together – ‘to tie, to tie together, to tie up.’” The verb δέω (dew) is sometimes figurative for imprisonment (L&N 37.114), but it is preferable to translate it literally here in light of v. 11 where Agabus tied himself up with Paul’s belt.

[23:3]  ²¹ sn You whitewashed wall. This was an idiom for hypocrisy – just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (L&N 88.234; see also BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). Paul was claiming that the man’s response was two-faced (Ezek 13:10-16; Matt 23:27-28). See also Deut 28:22.

[23:3]  ²² tn Grk “And do.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[23:3]  ²³ tn The law refers to the law of Moses.

[23:3]  ²⁴ tn BDAG 769 s.v. παρανομέω has “παρανομῶν κελεύεις in violation of the law you order Ac 23:3.”