Acts 5:13

And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. Acts 5:13. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them. Thus, while the apostles were busied in their work of healing and teaching, using for the purpose of spreading the knowledge of their Master's kingdom the extraordinary powers their Master had for a time entrusted them with, the great mass of believers would meet together at different hours in the great cloistered court of the Temple, called Solomon's Porch. There great companies of these believers in Jesus would thus meet, no one hindering them, no one crowding them or listening with jealous ears to their words. Those who made up the crowds who usually thronged those courts, left them alone, reverently keeping away from the groups of the followers of Jesus, the people generally regarding them with a kind of fear mingled with admiration.

Without hesitation we have thus adopted that explanation which gives to the word ‘ all' (Acts 5:12) the meaning of all the believers, and to the words ‘ of the rest ' (Acts 5:13) the meaning of all who were not believers that is, the people generally.

Many great expositors have, however, preferred to understand by ‘ all ' (Acts 5:12), the apostles only not all the Christians, as the apostles are the subject of the paragraph, and have regarded the words of Acts 5:13 as added, to show with what reverence the Twelve were generally looked upon by the people.

The words ‘of the rest,' some scholars understand to mean ‘ all else, whether believers or unbelievers;' some, believers only; and they go on to explain the passage (Acts 5:13) thus: ‘None of the rest, whether believers or unbelievers, ventured to equal themselves to the apostles. They kept at a distance from them, regarding them as an isolated group, as superhuman, as beings distinct from them.'

Others, again, restrict the expression ‘of the rest' to the rich and noble, terrified by the death of Ananias, who belonged to their order. Gloag believes the meaning of Acts 5:13 to be, ‘that none of the rest of the people ventured on false pretences to unite themselves to the Church: by the death of Ananias an effectual stop was put to hypocrisy for the time;' but the exposition we have adopted above is the easiest and most obvious. It is adopted in the main by Ewald and Meyer. It is, too, the view most in accordance with the simplicity of early Christian tradition, which resolutely sets itself against all unnatural separation of ranks and orders. What could be more contrary to the ordinary loving intercourse between the apostles and their disciples, between Paul, for instance, and his loved converts of Philippi, than a statement which represents the apostles as an isolated group, fenced off from the mass of believers in the Lord Jesus, who kept themselves at a distance from them, looking on them as superhuman?