Acts 26:20

Shewed. Literally, “declared,” or “announced.” Paul was God’s evangelist, His herald of good news.

Them of Damascus. Paul set to work immediately, where he was at the time of his conversion, the very place where he had intended to inflict grave injury upon the church (see on Acts 9:19-22).

At Jerusalem. Paul returned to Jerusalem some three years later (Gal. 1:18). There, at the risk of his life, he witnessed with such boldness that the Jews, particularly the Hellenistic Jews (see on Acts 6:1; 14:1), were infuriated (Acts 9:29).

All the coasts. That is, all the region. Just when Paul carried on this evangelization in Judea is not clear, though it was done perhaps at the time of one or more of his several trips to Jerusalem (see Acts 11:29,30; 12:25; 15:3,4; 18:22; 21:8-15; cf. Gal. 1:22).

The Gentiles. Paul’s mission to the Gentiles began some nine or ten years later at Antioch in Syria (Acts 11:25, 26; 13:1-4).

Repent. Gr. metanoeō, “to change [one’s] mind” (see on Matt. 3:2; Acts 3:19-21).

Do works. See on Matt. 3:8. Paul is not here advocating righteousness by works, but the kind of “works” that characterize a life that has attained to righteousness by faith in Christ. He does not mean that it is possible to earn righteousness by the performance of certain deeds, but rather that true righteousness automatically produces deeds commensurate with, and that attest to, the presence of the grace of God in the life. No evangelist has ever emphasized more than Paul the glorious fact of righteousness by faith through God’s saving grace (Rom. 3:21, 22, 27; Eph. 2:5-8). But whenever Paul mentions the free gift of salvation, he also dwells, as here, upon the good works that follow (see Rom. 8:1-4). The man of faith establishes the law (Rom. 3:31), for he is “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10). Whenever there is true righteousness by faith, that righteousness is evident in good works. “Faith without works is dead” (see James 2:14-24).