Acts 23:12-35

12 The next morning some Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. 13 More than forty men were involved in this plot. 14 They went to the chief priests and the elders and said, “We have taken a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul. 15 Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him before you on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about his case. We are ready to kill him before he gets here.”
16 But when the son of Paul’s sister heard of this plot, he went into the barracks and told Paul.
17 Then Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander; he has something to tell him.” 18 So he took him to the commander.
The centurion said, “Paul, the prisoner, sent for me and asked me to bring this young man to you because he has something to tell you.”
19 The commander took the young man by the hand, drew him aside and asked, “What is it you want to tell me?”
20 He said: “Some Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin tomorrow on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about him. 21 Don’t give in to them, because more than forty of them are waiting in ambush for him. They have taken an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are ready now, waiting for your consent to their request.”
22 The commander dismissed the young man with this warning: “Don’t tell anyone that you have reported this to me.”
23 Then he called two of his centurions and ordered them, “Get ready a detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen[b] to go to Caesarea at nine tonight. 24 Provide horses for Paul so that he may be taken safely to Governor Felix.”
25 He wrote a letter as follows:

26 Claudius Lysias,
To His Excellency, Governor Felix:
Greetings.
27 This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen. 28 I wanted to know why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their Sanhedrin. 29 I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment. 30 When I was informed of a plot to be carried out against the man, I sent him to you at once. I also ordered his accusers to present to you their case against him.

31 So the soldiers, carrying out their orders, took Paul with them during the night and brought him as far as Antipatris. 32 The next day they let the cavalry go on with him, while they returned to the barracks. 33 When the cavalry arrived in Caesarea, they delivered the letter to the governor and handed Paul over to him. 34 The governor read the letter and asked what province he was from. Learning that he was from Cilicia, 35 he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers get here.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s palace.


Dig Deeper
As a relatively new disciple of Jesus, I knew that it was important to pray regularly and so I did. Admittedly, though, I didn’t understand a whole lot about prayer beyond that. I prayed about the things that I had been taught to pray about but I don’t think that I really prayed with a whole lot of faith. I don’t mean that I didn’t have faith in God or the Bible or anything of that nature. What I mean is that my prayers were pretty straightforward and contained a lot of praise of God, confession, and so on. But they weren’t full of faith in that I didn’t step out and ask God for very much. At the time, of course, I didn’t understand that I lacked faith but that was the reality of the situation. I didn’t have radical faith in God and his ability and willingness to answer prayers that were in keeping with his will, and so the things that I prayed for were very simple and conservative. But I recall sitting in a class one day when an older Christian recounted how they had learned to pray faithfully by praying boldly for some very specific things concerning them helping another person that they hadn’t even met yet become a disciple. They were blown away by the fact that God answered those prayers in stunning detail. It hit me right then that I needed to have more faith in my prayers so that God could actually have something to answer and show himself to me as the one who answers prayer.

As I have learned more about God and his desire to work powerfully through his people I have learned to step out in faith in my prayers and pray for specific things concerning God’s will in my life. God doesn’t always answer those prayers exactly as might like or expect but he does answer and I can attest that there are few things in life as encouraging or faith building as seeing prayers answered.

Before he even arrived in Jerusalem Paul knew that he would face difficult circumstances there that would endanger his life and result in his being handed over to the Romans as a prisoner. Paul was so committed to his Spirit-led commission to preach the gospel all the way to Rome that he seemed far more concerned with dying in Judea and not being able to proclaim the gospel in Rome than he was with actually dying. This is why just weeks before he arrived in Jerusalem he wrote the brothers and sisters in Rome, declaring to them: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord’s people there, so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen” (Rom. 15:30-33).

Paul’s prayer here had three primary points. The third of those points was that he come to the Roman brothers and sisters with joy. The incredible, albeit completely unpredictable, answer to that part of the prayer will encompass much of the remainder of the book of Acts. But the stunning answer to the first part of that prayer happens right here in this section (Luke doesn’t spend much time on the middle part of the prayer, the reception of the contribution, but it was received with a great deal of gratitude). Paul had prayed that he be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea. He didn’t pray that he be freed or spared from persecution but just that he be kept safe so that he could make it to Rome.

Paul needed those prayers because he was certainly in more danger than perhaps even he could have realized. He was up against men who were as zealous to protect the Law and their way of life as he once was. In fact, more than forty men had taken a a vow not to eat any food until they had killed Paul. As violent and ungodly as that might sound to us, they were, in their minds, defending God’s word and doing his work by following the Law and putting a blasphemer to death. So they hatched a plan to have Paul brought back to the Sanhedrin just so that they could kill him in transit.

That’s when one of those amazing “coincidences” took place. It is, of course, rather difficult to distinguish between mere coincidence or happenstance and an answer to prayer, and usually instances of answered prayer will wholly leave an unbeliever unconvinced that it was anything more than coincidence. I do know, however, that I seem to have a lot more “coincidences” of the amazing kind happen when I pray faithfully and, I guess, that’s all I need to know.

Luke doesn’t gives us many details but somehow Paul’s young nephew got wind of this plot as it was whispered from shadow to dark corner. Not only do we not know how he came into this information, this is all we know of Paul’s nephew, his sister, or any of his relatives. We know virtually nothing of Paul’s relatives or what happened in his relationships with them when he became a Christian. It is extremely likely that his own physical family was part of what Paul had to sacrifice in following Christ, as his father and the rest of his relatives likely cut him off. Somehow, though, he had kept up some semblance of a relationship with his nephew and possibly his sister. All that aside, however, this young lad (probably a teenager) came to Paul with the information of his impending assassination and Paul immediately sent him to the commander, Lysias, to tell him of the plot.

Upon hearing of the plot, Lysias was greatly disturbed. To have a Roman citizen murdered in his care would have looked very badly for him and been a major blot on his reputation. He would not have that and be embarrassed by such a plot so he ordered a company of nearly 500 hundred soldiers to guard and protect Paul as he was transferred safely to Governor Felix. Lysias sent along letter of explanation to Governor Felix along with the soldiers. At each stage of Paul’s trial and being passed on towards Rome, Luke is careful to point out that the Roman officials repeatedly found Paul innocent of any charges that would deserve death or imprisonment. The new Christian movement was not a threat to Rome, Luke wanted to make clear, in the classic sense. They were not revolutionaries engaged in some dangerous militaristic rebellion. The persecution that the Christians like Paul received was a result of their peacefully following Christ, loving others, and simply preaching the gospel.

The reality and irony of the gospel is that it is peaceful and never engages in violence or outright revolution (despite a long, sad history of some doing just that while falsely claiming the name of Christ), but when the gospel is embraced, it changes societies quietly and peacefully from within. That is precisely why we see no ranting speeches against social injustices like slavery in the New Testament. Christianity is not a social justice religion. It is the life of God’s age to come breaking into the life of believing communities here in the present age. But as that life is lived out and embodied, social injustices like slavery melt away in this new world and new way of living. This is seen clearly in a book like Philemon where Paul never chides Philemon for owning a slave but simply encourages him to treat Onesimus as a brother. It is also why Paul could write that “For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave” (1 Cor. 7:22). Luke wanted his skeptical Roman readers to understand that Christianity was not a movement that would engage in violent revolution but would challenge societies by changing them from within, one person at a time as they entered into the life of the new creation.

As Paul made his way to Governor Felix, though, imagine the overwhelming gratitude and encouragement that he felt. Sure he was still a prisoner and there were forty men who had vowed to take his life. But God had answered the prayer of Paul and his fellow brothers and sisters in a dramatic and grand fashion. He wasn’t just kept safe, he was surrounded by 470 Roman soldiers. Now that’s an answer to prayer, one that must confirmed Paul’s deeply held conviction that God was going to send him to Rome.

What we can only imagine is what these men did with their vow once their immediate plans were foiled. No doubt, they left themselves some little loophole to wiggle out of their vow without feeling that they had failed to live up to it. What we can be certain of is that none of them starved to death while waiting for a time to get at Paul so that they could kill him.

The first two elements of Paul’s prayer that he wrote to the church in Rome had been answered in fantastic fashion but we cannot ever start to expect that God will always do things that way. Paul is about to find out that his prayer to come to the believers in Rome will be answered in a way that he could have never imagined; still spectacular in its own right but not nearly as grand.


Devotional Thought
Do your prayers tend to be bold and faithful, expecting God to answer them or do you lack faith in your prayers? How might your prayers differ from the norm if you stepped out in great faith?