Acts chapter 13

vs 31

Seen by his disciples is what Paul is saying. This is a criticism of the resurrection account, that Jesus only appeared to his disciples. The term 'collective hallucination' gets bandied about.

Paul, however, sees these eye witnesses as key to the body of evidence that makes his teaching reliable - to 'our people', the Jews.

vs 32-33

I wonder if this is the first instance of the term 'good news'? It's not new news, it's very old news apparently. But the news is that God has fulfilled his promises of old completely in Jesus Christ, because Jesus comes as the Son of God. So Jesus' sonship, you can see here, is very important.

vs 34

This is a pretty full on sermon here. The OT is coming out left, right and centre. This first verse from Isaiah is to ensure that the concept of blessings from the Davidic covenant are supposed to flow on past David to the messiah.

vs 35

And this verse is to back up Paul's idea that the messiah is resurrected so as not to see decay, but to be alive forever.

vs 36-37

Paul is seeking to show that even David died, and so the messiah must be greater than David. Jesus did this too, while he was alive. It's hard to convince a bunch of jews that there is someone who is better than Moses, David and Elijah. It's not everyday that someone would say something like that.

But Jesus' greatness and superiority to David in particular, because we're talking about the covenant made to him, is assured in his resurrection.

vs 38

Ok, now that is a bit of a leap. I think there might be some padding of understanding of the Davidic covenantal promise between vs 37 and 38 that Paul is assuming.

vs 39

Stick it to the law! It's not that the Law itself did not provide justification. But it did not provide this justification which allows you to be set free from sin. The idea that a regular sacrifice need not be made is a revolutionary one in the history of religion. It is still a revolutionary idea for many tribal people groups.

vs 40-41

Wow, that piece of Scripture was written purely for the occasion, wasn't it? I don't think we can always expect God to be doing incredible things we won't believe, but we have to be prepared for the fact that he might. That is none more obvious than in the coming of Christ - a supremely incredible feat, and not something you would have seen coming really.