“Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”
King James Version (KJV)
13:46 Then Paul and Barnabas speaking boldly, said - Those who hinder others must be publicly reproved. It was necessary - Though ye are not worthy: he shows that he had not preached to them, from any confidence of their believing, but seeing ye judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life - They indeed judged none but themselves worthy of it. Yet their rejecting of the Gospel was the same as saying, We are unworthy of eternal life. Behold! - A thing now present! An astonishing revolution! We turn to the Gentiles - Not that they left off preaching to the Jews in other places. But they now determined to lose no more time at Antioch on their ungrateful countrymen, but to employ themselves wholly in doing what they could for the conversion of the Gentiles there.
Ac 13:46 It was necessary. The preachers met this attitude of the Jews by boldly stating their purpose to turn from them to the Gentiles. It was God's will that the Gospel should first be offered to the chosen people. See Ac 1:8 3:26 Ro 1:16. While the chosen people were to have the first opportunity, yet "God had put no difference" (Ac 15:9) between Jew and Greek. As soon as the Jewish audiences manifested a self-willed, contradictory spirit, instead of engaging in idle disputation, the apostles were wont to turn to the Gentiles.