Answer: The church throughout Judea, Galilee and
Samaria enjoyed a time of peace, (verse 31).
MORE INFORMATION AND/OR OTHER SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:
The word "church" here does not refer to the
various congregations but to the church as whole, the whole
Christian body, including Christians in the districts of Judea
Galilee and Samaria.
So, the church in Palestine (the church in Judea, Galilee and
Samaria) enjoyed a time of peace. "Peace" here is
"freedom from molestation," and, thus,
prosperity. The Lord's Word could be spread even more
than during the times of persecution, more disciples could be won,
the church could grow stronger, gain encouragement, etc. The
Greek tense and words are literally, "kept on having
peace."
What caused this peace? Many people believe that this
peace was brought about solely because Saul of Tarsus was converted
to Christ. It is true that Saul was a main driving force used
by the Jews to persecute the Lord's church. So his
conversion to Christ took away from the Jews a main source of
"breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's
disciples" (Acts 9:1). But when Saul was
converted, he himself was severely persecuted by the Jews, and his
persecution in particular and the persecution of the church overall
was continuing more than three years after he had been converted
(See Acts 9:20-30 and Galatians
1:13-24.) But about this time, the Jews became very
preoccupied with problems from Rome. The Jewish persecutors
of the Lord's church had themselves become the
persecuted. Read the following from Adam Clarke's
Commentary on the New Testament:
But what was the cause of this rest or success? Some say, the
conversion of Saul, who before made havoc of the Church; but this
is not likely, as he could not be a universal cause of persecution
and distress, however active and virulent [violent] he might have
been during the time of his enmity [hostility, as an enemy] to the
Christian Church. Besides, his own persecution [after his
conversion], related above, shows that the opposition to the Gospel
continued with considerable virulence [violence] three years after
his conversion; therefore it was not Saul's ceasing to be a
persecutor that gave this rest to the Churches. Dr. Lardner, with a
greater show of probability, maintains that this rest was owing to
the following circumstance: Soon after Caligula's accession
to the imperial dignity [becoming Caesar of Rome], the Jews at
Alexandria suffered very much from the Egyptians in that city; and
at length their oratories [meeting places] were all
destroyed. In the third year of Caligula, a.d. 39, Petronius, who
was made president of Syria in the place of Vitellius, was sent by
the emperor [Caligula] to set up his [Caligula's] statue in
the temple at Jerusalem. This was a thunder-stroke to the Jews, and
so occupied them that they had no time to think of any thing else;
apprehending [understanding] that their temple must be defiled, and
the national religion destroyed, or themselves run the risk of
being exterminated if they rebelled against the imperial decree [to
have Caligula's statue set up in the temple in
Jerusalem].
The account given by Josephus [a Jewish historian] will set
this in a clear point of view. "Caligula sent Petronius to go
with an army to Jerusalem, to set up his statues in the temple,
enjoining [commanding] him if the Jews opposed it, to put to death
all that made resistance, and to make all the rest of the nation
slaves. Petronius therefore marched from Antioch into Judea, with
three legions [a Roman legion was 6,000 men], and a large body of
auxiliaries raised in Syria [these would be men hired in addition
to the Roman legions, and were taken from Syria because Petronius
was president of Syria]. All were hereupon filled with
consternation, the army being come as far as Ptolemais [a port city
on the Mediterranean Sea in the area of Galilee, approximately 80
miles northwest of Jerusalem]. The Jews, then, gathering together,
went to the plain near Ptolemais, and entreated Petronius in the
first place for their laws, in the next place for themselves.
Petronius was moved with their solicitations, and, leaving his army
and the statues, went into Galilee, and called an assembly of the
heads of the Jews at Tiberias [a city on the western shore of the
Sea of Galilee]; and, having exhorted them without effect to submit
to the emperor's orders, said, "Will ye then fight
against Caesar?' They answered that they offered up
sacrifices twice every day for the emperor and the Roman people;
but that if he would set up the images, he ought first of all to
sacrifice the whole Jewish nation; and that they were ready to
submit themselves, their wives and children, to the
slaughter."
It appears, therefore, that, as these transactions took
place about the time mentioned in the text, their [the Jews']
persecution from the Romans diverted them from persecuting the
Christians; and Then had the Churches rest throughout all Judea and
Galilee, and Samaria; the terror occasioned by the imperial decree
having spread itself through all those places.
