Beraea.
The different state of mind among the Jews. The unbelief and opposition of men overruled by God to the fulfillment of his purposes. The footsteps of the apostolic messengers quickened. The sudden stride of the message from Beraea to Athens—scarcely likely to have been taken by Paul without an impulse in the circumstances driving him forward. Yet, as so much depended on the one man's work, as no one else so fitted to lay the foundations of Christianity in Greece, he must be lifted above the level of his own thoughts and plans. The whole passage illustrates the union of providence and grace.—R.