LET US PRAY:
Thank you for your written Word. May the truth of your Word inspires us again, to know you and trust you, to give us hope and strength, and make us faithful followers of Christ.
May the life and ministry of Paul be an encouragement for all of us who are serving you today. Bless us with your Word. In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
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Last week we saw how Paul was beaten by an angry mob. If not for the intervention of the commander of the Roman garrison in the nick of time, he might be killed.
• Unable to ascertain what’s the cause of it, the commander decided to take Paul captive and bring him back to the barracks.
• Which is the Antonia Fortress situated NW of the Temple Mount, garrisoned with 600 Roman soldiers, tasked to watch over the Temple courts in order to preserve order.
• When they reached the steps, Paul had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob (21:35).
Let’s read what happens next - Acts 21:37-40.
37 As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, "May I say something to you?"
"Do you speak Greek?" he replied. 38 "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"
39 Paul answered, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people."
40 Having received the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic:
PAUL COULD HAVE GOTTEN OFF IMMEDIATELY
Imagine this situation, you are being beaten by an angry mob, almost to death, and now being taken away by the soldiers.
• I would be very happy to be ‘carried away’ to safety, away from this crazy mob.
• Paul could have gotten off quickly but he made an odd request to stay and talk to the people.
The commander was surprised he spoke Greek. He had mistaken him for someone else.
• 21:38 "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"
• Some years ago there was this Egyptian terrorist who led thousands to the Mount of Olives wanting to take over the Temple Mount.
• The Roman soldiers scattered them but the leader got away. The commander thought he was this man and had him bound in chains.
Paul spoke to the crowd in Aramaic, the Hebrew language of native Jews.
Acts 22:1-21
1 "Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense."
2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.
Then Paul said: 3 "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
6 "About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, `Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'
8 "`Who are you, Lord?' I asked.
"`I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
10 "`What shall I do, Lord?' I asked.
"`Get up,' the Lord said, `and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.' 11 My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
12 "A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13 He stood beside me and said, `Brother Saul, receive your sight!' And at that very moment I was able to see him.
14 "Then he said: `The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15 You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.'
17 "When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the Lord speaking. `Quick!' he said to me. `Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.'
19 "`Lord,' I replied, `these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. 20 And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.'
21 "Then the Lord said to me, `Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'"
PAUL COULD HAVE DEFENDED HIMSELF
We would expect Paul to defend himself and explain that he was innocent of their charges. It was a rumour.
• He did not defile the holy place by bringing Trophimus into the Temple area. It was a misunderstanding. We did not see Paul pleading innocence.
Instead, what we have was a defence of the Gospel. He was telling them of his conversion story, his encounter and salvation in Jesus Christ.
• He was preaching the Gospel out of a deep love for his own people.
• In the words of Rom 9:2-4a “2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4the people of Israel.”
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PAUL SOUGHT TO BRIDGE THE GAP WITH HIS PEOPLE
Paul went to great lengths to relate to his Jewish comrades.
• He spoke their native language, in Aramaic.
• He addressed them respectfully: brothers, fathers. To a mob who wanted to kill him.
• He identified himself as a Jew born in Tarsus, raised in Jerusalem, trained in “the Law of our fathers” (22:3) by Gamaliel (the well-known teacher of the Law).
Paul said, I was“just as zealous for God as any of you are today” (22:3b).
• ‘You tried to kill me; I killed many followers of the Way.’
• Paul sought permission from the Jewish Council to persecute the Christians to Damascus and had them arrested and imprisoned, both men and women.
• In saying all this, some in the crowd might have known (which happened over 20 years ago).
Paul met the risen Messiah on the road and was led into Damascus blinded.
• A pious Jew Ananias helped him. He was “a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there” (22:12).
• Ananias was a man with the credentials of being a devout and Law-abiding Jew.
• It was like saying, you can check with him if he is still alive.
And this devout Jew said to Paul, “The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.” (22:14-15)
• ‘God of our fathers’, ‘Righteous One’ are words the Jewish audience understands.
After his conversion, Paul came to Jerusalem and was praying in the Temple like any good and the Lord spoke to him and asked him to leave Jerusalem immediately.
• Paul was arguing to stay, relating how his conversion from persecuting the Christians and even causing Stephen’s death would be a good testimony.
• But the Lord said, “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.” (22:21)
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Paul was very much Jewish in heart and practice.
• He wrote later on to the Philippians - Phil 3:4-6 “4… If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”
• But the difference is this - he writes on… Phil 3:7-9 “7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”
PAUL WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL
Paul hopes his Jewish comrades would see the risen Christ, their Messiah.
• He was saying, “I was just like you UNTIL I encountered Jesus Christ!”
• He made it clear that it wasn’t his idea to preach to the Gentiles; it was God’s plan, not his. He was obeying the Lord and and His call to him.
Acts 22:22-29
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!"
23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. 25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty?"
26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "This man is a Roman citizen."
27 The commander went to Paul and asked, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?"
"Yes, I am," he answered.
28 Then the commander said, "I had to pay a big price for my citizenship."
"But I was born a citizen," Paul replied.
29 Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
The crowd went into a rage the moment they heard the word, “Gentiles”.
• They could not accept the Gentiles as a part of the deal, that God would want to save the Gentiles too. That would place them on equal standing.
It’s like the parable of the workers in the vineyard that Jesus shared about in Matthew 20. Those who came later received the same reward as the first.
• That’s the radical nature of God’s grace. Our salvation in Christ is not earned by the works we put in.
• We can please Him by our actions but we cannot earn God’s favour.
The Roman commander, who did not understand Aramaic, must have been taken aback by the sudden change.
• He ordered Paul to be taken away quickly, be flogged and questioned.
• The flogging would be very severe, as most believe it is carried out using the Roman flagellum [fur gel lum] or flagrum [short leather whips with sharp pieces of bone or metal]. People can die from such scourging [skur jing].
At this point, Paul announced his Roman citizenship.
• He was born a citizen, meaning his parents (or grandparents) must have been awarded the rights of citizenship for some good done on behalf of Rome.
• The reaction was immediate. It was a serious violation of Roman law to even bind a Roman citizen without a trial, not to talk about flogging him.
• With that, everything came to a halt. Paul was spared, by the grace of God.
LET ME CONCLUDE:
How do you like this as an outcome to the sharing of the Gospel and your testimony?
Paul started off as a pious and devout Jew, persecuting the followers of the Way; met the living Christ unexpectedly and was transformed by His grace, and then called by the Lord to preach the Gospel, particularly to the Gentiles.
• He was misunderstood, persecuted, accused falsely and assaulted.
• Yet Paul did not stop doing what he could for the sake of Christ and the Gospel.
He was prepared for this, as he said to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:24.
• After saying he was led by the Holy Spirit and warned of imprisonment and hardship:
• 24However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
Paul seized this opportunity to speak to his own people. It was a BIG thing to him.
• We see the heart of a man who loves his own people so much that he cannot be silenced from sharing his faith with them, even when his life was threatened.
• We see in Paul the heart of a faithful witness for Christ.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HIM?
1. Don’t take ourselves too seriously.
• People can misunderstand us and come against us for what we believe. We stand firm on the truth (what God has revealed) and do the work that He has called us.
• We don’t need to feel sorry for ourselves. Paul wrote from Ephesus, the most difficult place, to the Corinthians: “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor 15:58)
2. Do your best to present Christ well.
• Tell what the Lord has done in your life. Relate to them in ways that they can understand.
3. Leave the result to God. That’s beyond us.
• In all circumstances, we submit to God’s sovereignty and trust in His sustaining grace. The outcomes are not in our hands.
Paul will not die a pre-matured death because God has planned for him to testify in Rome.
• And He will “sponsor” his trip there, as a prisoner, on board a ship, escorted by Roman soldiers. How good is that. This is the plan of God. We can trust Him today.
PRAYER:
Like Paul, may we be led by your Spirit to do you will, Lord. In all circumstances, whether good or bad, help us stay focus on you and be faithful to you.
Grant us the wisdom we need when we are lost and confused. Give us the strength to do what is good and right, and pleasing in your sight.
Give us peace, knowing that you are with us. You will help us in our times of need and provide us a way. Enable us to be your faithful witnesses today.
We thank you, Lord; in Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
