Later text
Acts 15:14BSB
Simon has told us how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people to be His own.
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 15:14 → Exodus 19:5
Allusion
Earlier text
Exodus 19:5BSB
Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine.
+ 3 more earlier texts
Earlier text
for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
Earlier text
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.
Earlier text
But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land. And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people. But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation; I will uproot it and destroy it, declares the LORD.”
Significance
James summarizes Peter's report: God has "first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people to be His own" (Acts 15:14), language drawn straight from the Sinai covenant, where God claims Israel as "My treasured possession out of all the nations" (Exodus 19:5). What was Israel's distinctive election — a people belonging to God out of all the peoples — is now extended to the nations without the boundary of circumcision. This is not the abolition of Israel's Sinai vocation but its enlargement: the "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6) grows to embrace Gentiles, whom Peter can call "a people for God's own possession" (1 Peter 2:9-10). The covenant's purpose — a people who bear God's name and dwell in his presence — reaches its intended breadth in Christ, who takes for himself a people from every nation.
- Found via
- G.K. Beale & D.A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007)
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Longitudinal Theme
Related Anchor-Text Networks
Linked Mentions 2