Acts

It is good God intervenes like this. Sometimes you and I act wrongly. We are prepared to do wrong things—perhaps with good motives, but quite often with bad motives—and God simply slams the door to the action for us. He will not let us do it, because what we do matters to God, even if at the moment it does not seem to matter a great deal to us.

Paul was arrested as a result of an attempt by a Jerusalem mob to have him killed. Verse 27 says that this began because some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. Asia refers to the Roman province of Asia, what we call Turkey. Its capital city was Ephesus. Paul had spent two years in Ephesus and was well-known there.

Paul gave a magnificent defense. He actually used the word “defense” (Acts 22:1). In Greek it is the word apologia, from which we get our word “apology.” It refers to a formal defense of one’s past life or actions.

The second thing Paul talks about is his conversion, when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul had been consumed by zeal for his religion. It had blinded him to what he was actually doing. But when Jesus appeared to him, he suddenly understood. God had stopped him short. Before this he had thought he was doing God’s work. But when Jesus suddenly appeared to him, he learned that in persecuting Christians he had been persecuting the very Son of God, opposing what He was doing in the world.

But as soon as he uttered the word “Gentiles,” the mob reacted violently and would have killed him if it could have done it. Why did they object to that word? They were objecting to Paul’s persuasion that Gentiles could be saved without adhering to the law of Moses—without circumcision, without the temple worship, without the sacrifices—without, to put it very simply, first becoming Jews.

Paul had been a free ambassador of Jesus Christ for nearly twenty years, but in Acts 22 he passes from being a free man to being a prisoner of the Roman state. We would think that being in Roman hands would be worse than being in Jewish hands. But we soon discover that Paul was better off in the hands of the secular authorities than he would have been in the hands of his own people. They were trying to kill him, after all.

When we see the Roman government functioning wisely and according to the law, as it did in these circumstances, we see the state functioning as it should function. What is the role of the state? In the Western world, we have fanciful ideas of what we think the state should do for us today. But the role of the state, as the Bible speaks about it, is just twofold. The state exists: 1) to establish, maintain and assure justice; and 2) to provide for the defense of its citizens. Justice and defense.

We move to the second stage of the story, and here we find Paul with his own people, represented by the Sanhedrin. This was because the Roman commander, who recognized that he still did not have the full story and could not understand why the Jews were so incensed against Paul, commanded the Sanhedrin to make a case. The text says, “The commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews” (Acts 22:30). He must have thought that once he had a concrete accusation he would be able to decide what to do.

We concluded yesterday’s study with the question “Why didn’t Paul recognize the high priest?” Several answers have been given.

When Paul stood before the representatives of Rome, he appealed to his Roman citizenship. When he stood before the Sanhedrin he appealed to his conscience. But over and above that and at all times, Paul appealed to and relied upon the Lord. If we rely on the Lord, He will be with us also, give us the words we need to speak and bless that witness, however uncertain and stammering, to the conversion of other needy individuals.

The twenty-fourth chapter of Acts contains the account of the apostle Paul’s appearance before Governor Felix. Paul had finally come to where he was to testify before the rulers of this world. When God sent Ananias to Paul shortly after Paul had seen Jesus on the road to Damascus, He told Ananias, “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). There are three parts to that, and Paul had already fulfilled two of them.

It soon became clear what the Jews wanted from Governor Felix. They wanted the governor to kill Paul. They had several charges against him, which Tertullus, their lawyer, skillfully developed.

After a brief introduction, Paul began to answer the charges Tertullus had made. He dealt with each one in order.

The third charge against Paul was that he had tried to desecrate the temple. In response to the first charge, that he was a troublemaker, Paul pleaded that he was innocent. He was no troublemaker. In response to the second charge, that he was a ringleader of the Nazarene sect, Paul admitted the accusation but rephrased it. In the case of this third accusation, Paul emphatically denied it.

Felix was a judge, but he died. And when he died, he appeared before that one who will not postpone His judgments and who does not accept bribes. So far as we know from Scripture, Felix is in hell at this moment. One day you will stand before that great Judge too. You will have to give an accounting for what you have done and for what your life has been. How will you stand in that day? Make sure that you are not like Felix. Come to Jesus while there is still time.

The account of Paul’s appearance before King Herod Agrippa II begins at Acts 25:13 and continues to the end of Acts 26. It is a large section of the book, so large that it would be desirable to divide it, were it not so clearly a single story. These verses recount the third of three formal defenses of the apostle Paul before the secular authorities subsequent to his arrest in Jerusalem.

When we see the impressive things of this world—positions, power, and pageantry—they usually seem to be what is lasting or stable. Indeed, what could be more stable, more impressive, more weighty than the Roman Empire in the person of those who represented it? Yet Luke is suggesting that all that was seen were fantasies, things that even then were in the process of passing away.

The apostle Paul had been called by God, and he knew it. He had been given a commission, and he understood his commission. He was not about to be overpowered by the display of the Roman court. Paul’s story has generally been told in three parts, and that is what is done here.

The third part of Paul’s defense before King Agrippa had to do with his service for Christ following his conversion. Paul stresses a number of things. The first thing he stresses is his obedience, though he couches it in negative form: “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven” (v. 19). One of the first marks of our conversion is that we obey Jesus Christ. We might even call it the first mark, except that faith itself is the first evidence.

The Gospel stirred up opposition on this occasion. Paul did not even get to finish, though he seems to have been near the end of his address. Festus, who had been listening all this time, interrupted, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane” (v. 24). He had never heard anything as crazy as the Christian Gospel in his life.