The concept of boldly is variously expressed in different languages, “they spoke everything,” “they spoke without thinking about who they were speaking to,” or “they spoke without caring who heard.”
The passive expression should be spoken first to you may be rendered as an active, “that someone should first speak to you”; but it also may be shifted from speaking to hearing, “that you should be the first to hear the word from God.”
The concept of reject may be expressed as “insist it is not true” or “refuse to believe it.” In a sense both processes are involved since those who rejected the word denied its truth and also refused to believe that it was relevant to them.
It is difficult to translate adequately the word worthy. If this is understood in a sense of “good enough to receive eternal life,” then there is a very serious theological problem involved since the receiving of eternal life is by the grace of God and is in no way related to man’s own personal worthiness. The emphasis of the Greek term at this point would seem to be equivalent to “appropriateness” or “the right one,” for example, “do not consider yourselves the appropriate ones to receive eternal life.” On the other hand, one may shift the negative aspect of this expression and render the phrase as “condemn yourselves as being unworthy to have eternal life.” That is to say, the rejection of the Good News serves as the basis for the people condemning themselves. In some languages this is expressed as “you have condemned yourselves and are thus not good enough to receive eternal life.”
The phrase eternal life is used only here and in verse 48 in Acts. Literally the term means “life in the age,” that is, the age in which God would rule as opposed to the present evil age. Basically then the term has a qualitative rather than a quantitative significance, and so places the emphasis on the kind of life that one has when God rules in his life.
This phrase eternal life is probably one of the most difficult expressions of the Bible to render satisfactorily. Literally the meaning of “eternal” or “everlasting” refers to length of time, for example, “life that never ends.” But this can be very seriously misunderstood if people are to conclude that by becoming Christians they will never die. On the other hand, to use an expression such as “life which comes from God” or “true life” is to miss some of the significance of this quality of life which does continue not only throughout one’s earthly lifetime, but even after death. In some languages an attempt has been made to represent both the qualitative and the quantitative factors involved by translating “real life which never ends.” This may ultimately be the best solution.
Luke evidently intends this rejection of the Christians message by the Jews to be the factor which initiated the actual mission to the Gentiles. Up to this point Paul’s preaching has been directed to only one other Gentile, Sergius Paulus. The apostles now not only go to the Gentiles, but in so doing they leave the Jews; for this reason the Good News Translation has translated leave you and go to the Gentiles (Greek “we will go to the Gentiles”). This statement does not mean that Paul and Barnabas would refuse to preach the Good News to the Jews, for Paul’s policy continued to be that of preaching the Good News first in the Jewish synagogues wherever he went. However, in this city the Jews had refused the Christian message, and Paul and Barnabas would henceforth turn to the Gentiles.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .