How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

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Intertextuality Pair

Acts 11:23 → Psalms 9:38

Echo

Later text

Acts 11:23BSB

When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.

Earlier text

Psalms 10:17BSB

You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will incline Your ear,

Significance

Barnabas "encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts" (Acts 11:23) — literally, with purpose of heart, a fixed resolve whose nearest Old Testament kin speaks of the God who steadies the humble: "You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts" (Psalms 10:17, numbered 9:38 in the Greek). Steadfast devotion of heart is the constant call of Scripture, and the phrase marks the settled, whole-hearted cleaving to the Lord that Barnabas urges on the new Antioch believers. The connection is a shared idiom of heart-fixed faithfulness rather than a doctrinal trajectory. Its point is pastoral: grace, once seen, is to be met with a fixed heart that abides — a perseverance that is itself God's gift, for it is He who strengthens the heart He has drawn.

Found via: G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): None