Acts xi. 17. “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as _he did_ unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is incorrect, and suggests a false contrast between “us” and “them,” as if the latter were not believers. Faith in Christ is the ground upon which, in the case of both parties, the gifts referred to were received. The verse is thus given by Tyndale: “For as moche then as God gave them lyke gyftes, as he dyd unto vs when we beleved on the Lorde Iesus Christ.” Acts xxvi. 23. “That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.” This both needlessly suggests a difficulty to many readers, and altogether conceals one main point of the passage; namely, that the resurrection of Christ was the great source from which illumination would come both to Jews and to Gentiles, “and that He first by _His_ resurrection from the dead should proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles.” Rom. ix. 3. “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Such a wish it is impossible that the Apostle could have entertained. His words are the expression of his strong affection for his fellow-countrymen. “I could have wished,” &c.; _i.e._ if such a wish had been right or possible. Rom. xiii. 11. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” This is ambiguous English, and though a very careful reader might gather the true sense from this rendering, it is very liable to be taken as if meaning that our salvation is nearer than we anticipated; nor is the ambiguity removed by the Genevan, which reads, “nearer than when we believed it.” The reference is to the time of their first exercise of faith in Christ, “nearer than when we _first_ believed.” 1 Cor. i. 21. “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This rendering has been a fertile source of error, as if preaching was in itself, or as viewed by the Corinthians, an inappropriate means for the diffusion of the Gospel, a thought altogether at variance with the tone of the context, and with the facts of history. The Greeks were, of all the peoples of antiquity, the least disposed to think lightly of oratory, and the whole tenor of the passage shows that their tendency was to overrate, not underrate, the power of speech. What was foolishness to them was not the act of preaching, but the doctrine preached--salvation through a crucified Christ. The Rheims here clearly enough gives the true sense, “it pleased God by the folishnes of the preaching to saue them that beleeue.”