Acts 9:15
15. Go thy way—Do as thou art bidden, without gainsaying.
he is a chosen vessel—a word often used by Paul in illustrating God's sovereignty in election (Ro 9:21-23; 2Co 4:7; 2Ti 2:20, 21 [ALFORD]. Compare Zec 3:2).1 Corinthians 7:25
25. no commandment of the Lord: yet . . . my judgment—I have no express revelation from the Lord commanding it, but I give my judgment (opinion); namely, under the ordinary inspiration which accompanied the apostles in all their canonical writings (compare 1Co 7:40; 1Co 14:37; 1Th 4:15). The Lord inspires me in this case to give you only a recommendation, which you are free to adopt or reject—not a positive command. In the second case (1Co 7:10, 11) it was a positive command; for the Lord had already made known His will (Mal 2:14, 15; Mt 5:31, 32). In the third case (1Co 7:12), the Old Testament commandment of God to put away strange wives (Ezr 10:3), Paul by the Spirit revokes.
mercy of the Lord— (1Ti 1:13). He attributes his apostleship and the gifts accompanying it (including inspiration) to God's grace alone. faithful—in dispensing to you the inspired directions received by me from the Lord.2 Corinthians 3:5
5. The Greek is, "Not that we are (even yet after so long experience as ministers) sufficient to think anything OF ourselves as (coming) FROM ourselves; but our sufficiency is (derived) FROM God." "From" more definitely refers to the source out of which a thing comes; "of" is more general.
to think—Greek, to "reason out" or "devise"; to attain to sound preaching by our reasonings [THEODORET]. The "we" refers here to ministers (2Pe 1:21). anything—even the least. We cannot expect too little from man, or too much from God.1 Timothy 1:11-12
11. According to the glorious gospel—The Christian's freedom from the law as a sanctifier, as well as a justifier, implied in the previous, 1Ti 1:9, 10, is what this 1Ti 1:11 is connected with. This exemption of the righteous from the law, and assignment of it to the lawless as its true object, is "according to the Gospel of the glory (so the Greek, compare Note, see on 2Co 4:4) of the blessed God." The Gospel manifests God's glory (Eph 1:17; 3:16) in accounting "righteous" the believer, through the righteousness of Christ, without "the law" (1Ti 1:9); and in imparting that righteousness whereby he loathes all those sins against which (1Ti 1:9, 10) the law is directed. The term, "blessed," indicates at once immortality and supreme happiness. The supremely blessed One is He from whom all blessedness flows. This term, as applied to GOD, occurs only here and in 1Ti 6:15: appropriate in speaking here of the Gospel blessedness, in contrast to the curse on those under the law (1Ti 1:9; Ga 3:10).
committed to my trust—Translate as in the Greek order, which brings into prominent emphasis Paul, "committed in trust to me"; in contrast to the kind of law-teaching which they (who had no Gospel commission), the false teachers, assumed to themselves (1Ti 1:8; Tit 1:3).12. The honor done him in having the Gospel ministry committed to him suggests the digression to what he once was, no better (1Ti 1:13) than those lawless ones described above (1Ti 1:9, 10), when the grace of our Lord (1Ti 1:14) visited him.
And—omitted in most (not all) of the oldest manuscripts. I thank—Greek, "I have (that is, feel) gratitude." enabled me—the same Greek verb as in Ac 9:22, "Saul increased the more in strength." An undesigned coincidence between Paul and Luke, his companion. Enabled me, namely, for the ministry. "It is not in my own strength that I bring this doctrine to men, but as strengthened and nerved by Him who saved me" [THEODORET]. Man is by nature "without strength" (Ro 5:6). True conversion and calling confer power [BENGEL]. for that—the main ground of his "thanking Christ." he counted me faithful—He foreordered and foresaw that I would be faithful to the trust committed to me. Paul's thanking God for this shows that the merit of his faithfulness was due solely to God's grace, not to his own natural strength (1Co 7:25). Faithfulness is the quality required in a steward (1Co 4:2). putting me into—rather as in 1Th 5:9, "appointing me (in His sovereign purposes of grace) unto the ministry" (Ac 20:24).