Acts 26
The story of the church’s testimony before civil authorities is a varied and inspiring one. There are times when the Christian faith is forthrightly presented before a king, and he ends up bowing the knee before the Lord. On other occasions, kings seek out gospel leaders with no intention of hearing their words in any way, desiring only to kill God’s messengers. Certainly most of the history of this kind of proclamation to power is somewhere in between those two extremes. In the middle are the vast majority of leaders who would rather not have anything to do with religious squabbles, and who more or less demonstrate their great inability to address spiritual questions. Pilate, in his dealings with Jesus, would probably fit into that category. He sought to wash his hands of any involvement in the death of Jesus Christ. Yet he did not achieve that difficult goal, winning for himself a dishonorable mention within the ancient creeds of the church in these words, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
Herod Agrippa II, the Agrippa mentioned in this chapter, is somewhat hard to read according to this brief account, but the man who speaks his peace before Agrippa is not at all difficult to understand. He gives here a very forthright presentation of his experiences, and of the central facts of the Christian faith, and even calls the king to believe in Jesus Christ.
Paul begins his address with an admission of his former way of thinking as a Pharisee and a persecutor of Christians, but immediately he speaks of the Messiah and the life of resurrection as the hope of the twelve tribes of
Paul goes on to account for the change in his life from being a zealous persecutor of Christians to being imprisoned because of his fruitful defense of the gospel. It is important for us to see that every time Paul tells this story, he reinforces the fact that his orders came from heaven, and not from men. Paul was not a seeker who chose Jesus; he was a persecutor who was claimed by a powerful Savior. Once captured by the Son of God, he was soon sent forth to turn others from darkness to light, from Satan to God, from denial to belief, and from guilt to forgiveness.
Paul followed the divine instruction, and began immediately preaching the message of Christ in
Of the three key officials exposed to Paul’s proclamation, Festus was the most ignorant of the faith. He spoke up at this point, convinced that everyone must be thinking that Paul was a lunatic who had been studying a little too much religion. Festus was wrong about Paul. The faith that he presented here and everywhere was true and reasonable, but Festus did not have the spiritual eyesight to understand it, so he made an effort to stop Paul’s defense.
Paul would not back down, insisting that Agrippa was acquainted with these matters, for these were things of public knowledge to those who had been paying attention to the religious events within Galilee and
Paul’s first interest in this interchange appears to be the King’s own situation before God. This was not some act on Paul’s part, or something that he only did for important people. He wanted everyone to hear and believe the truth about Christ, the cross, and the resurrection. The people that day heard that message from a man who had been imprisoned a long time, though they acknowledged that he had done noting deserving serious civil censure. Paul would soon be off to
posted by Pastor Magee @ 12:00 AM
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