What is the meaning of Acts 13:41? Look, you scoffers Paul, speaking in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, lifts this opening line straight from Habakkuk 1:5. In that Old Testament setting, God addressed Judah’s spiritual rebels who treated His warnings lightly. Paul applies it to anyone who rolls their eyes at the gospel. • Acts 13:40 shows Paul’s pastoral heart: he urges his hearers not to “let what is said in the prophets happen to you.” • Proverbs 1:22 pictures scoffers loving their scoffing until calamity strikes. • Isaiah 29:13-14 reminds us that when people honor God only with lips, He surprises them with marvelous acts that expose their unbelief. Scripture is clear and literal: scoffing is no harmless pastime—it positions a heart against God’s revealed truth. Wonder and perish The divine work will stun onlookers; yet amazement alone cannot save. Those who merely gape without repentance “perish,” just as Habakkuk’s generation met judgment through Babylon. • 2 Peter 3:3-7 warns that scoffers willfully forget God’s past judgments and face a coming one. • John 3:18 underscores the same sober reality: whoever rejects the Son “stands condemned already.” God’s wonders—Christ’s resurrection, Pentecost, the spread of the gospel—demand a faith-filled response, not passive fascination. A work in your days The Lord promises present-tense action. For Paul’s audience, that “work” included: • the incarnation, sinless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (Acts 13:23-33); • forgiveness proclaimed to them that very Sabbath (Acts 13:38-39); • the opening of salvation to Gentiles in their generation (Acts 13:46-48). Just as Habakkuk’s contemporaries lived to see an unexpected Babylonian invasion, these first-century hearers were witnessing the long-prophesied Messianic age. Luke 24:46-47 affirms that the Christ would suffer and rise “and repentance for forgiveness of sins would be preached… beginning at Jerusalem.” You would never believe Unbelief is not a mere intellectual hurdle; it is a heart choice. Even with eyewitness testimony—“if someone told you”—many still refuse. • Isaiah 53:1 laments, “Who has believed our message?” a verse John 12:37-40 says was fulfilled when people saw Jesus’ signs yet remained hardened. • Romans 10:16-17 connects belief to receiving the preached word; faith comes, but only to those willing to hear. Paul’s quotation warns that persistent disbelief will leave people outside God’s gracious “work,” no matter how clearly it is announced. summary Acts 13:41 is both invitation and warning. God is actively accomplishing His redemptive plan in real history, centered on the risen Jesus. Those who scoff risk perishing, while those who respond in faith experience the wonder as eternal life. Scripture speaks literally, faithfully, and urgently: behold the work, believe the gospel, and live. |
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