and do not imagine that you can say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our forefather,' for I tell you that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones.
»I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I was carefully trained at the feet of Gamaliel in the Law of our forefathers, and, like all of you to-day, was zealous for God.«
About this time, as the number of disciples was increasing, complaints were made by the Greek-speaking Jews against the Hebrews because their widows were habitually overlooked in the daily ministration.
To them belongs recognition as God's sons, and they have His glorious Presence and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the Temple service, and the ancient Promises.
(Now the promises were given to Abraham and to his seed. God did not say »and to seeds,« as if speaking of many, but »and to your seed,« since He spoke of only one–and this is Christ.)
circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee;