Friday, March 30, 2012

Acts 27:33-44

33 Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. 34 Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” 35 After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. 36 They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. 37 Altogether there were 276 of us on board. 38 When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.

39 When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. 40 Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. 41 But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.

42 The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. 43 But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. 44 The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.




Dig Deeper
Near the end of his book known as the gospel of Luke, our author Luke describes a scene that has come to be called “the road to Emmaus.” He recounts an encounter between Cleopas and another disciple, possibly his wife Mary, and the resurrected Jesus Christ. They fail to recognize Jesus immediately and as they walk down the road talking together, the mysterious stranger, at least in their minds to that point, begins to explain to them how all of the Scriptures that we now call the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. As the scene progresses the two disciples urge Jesus to stay with them and continue teaching them. They eventually sit down for a meal and they break bread together. It is only at that moment, Luke tells us, that Cleopas and the other disciple recognize that they have been in the presence of Jesus all along. Their eyes were opened, Luke declares, using a statement that is full of the imagery of Genesis 3 at the moment when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit and their eyes were also opened. Adam and Eve took part in a meal and it opened their eyes to a world of sin, a world of doing their own will instead of God’s. But the death and resurrection of Christ had changed all of that. Jesus had opened up the world to a new way, to the life of Christ where humans could enter through faith and actually keep God’s will by living the life of Christ. When they broke bread together, their eyes were opened, so to speak, to this new creation. And Luke uses the facts of the encounter with Jesus and masterfully weaves them with the imagery of the Fall of man to make his point crystal clear.

Luke Chapter 24 is one of the most incredibly well-written and crafted pieces in all of literature and is especially masterful in the way that Luke ties together literary imagery and the facts as they happened. It is a powerful tool in Luke’s arsenal. A tool that is on display not only in Luke 24 but also throughout Acts 27 as Luke describes the events surrounding Paul’s trip to Rome and the shipwreck that he suffered through on the way.

On a straightforward surface level, Luke is telling us about the harrowing journey of Paul as he makes his way towards Rome and his audience before the Caesar. But Luke’s underlying theological agenda is to explain the spread of the gospel as it made its way through Jerusalem and on to the ends of the world. As readers of Luke we always have to stay on the alert because there is often even more to Luke’s writing than just those two levels of the story. Just as there were echoes of Genesis and the reversal of mankind’s fall that Luke was weaving in under the surface, helping us to understand the larger purpose and meaning of what he was writing, so there are echoes lying under the surface of this chapter and throughout the shipwreck. But before we get to that, first we’ll look at the situation of the shipwreck itself.

After two weeks of tirelessly fighting against the storm to save their lives, the crew was exhausted. It is likely that the seas were so rough that it was nearly impossible to prepare food. Paul’s statement that they hadn’t eaten anything in two weeks is probably a bit of hyperbole, but the point was clear that they were exhausted and had barely eaten. Paul is again depicted in a role of surprising leadership as a prisoner, but in desperate times, men will follow true leaders, and that certainly describes Paul. He knew that the road ahead of them was going to be tough and he wanted the men to be prepared physically for the challenge. Not only did he urge them to eat but he lifted their spirits, reminding them that they would all be spared by God’s mercy.

After eating, the crew jettisoned the remainder of the grain cargo. They had previously thrown much of it overboard but had evidently kept some on board. Now, though, they knew that the only chance they had was to find land and beach themselves as close as they could, so they wanted the boat to be as light as possible. When the sun rose and daylight came they did not recognize the beach on the Island of Malta but they knew that it was their best opportunity, so they cut the anchors and attempted to get to the beach. The plan didn’t quite work, however, as they run aground on a sandbar still a ways off from the beach.

Realizing that they were stuck on the sandbar and would have to swim to the shore, the soldiers reverted to their soldier training. They might have gotten close to these prisoners and even respected the leadership of Paul, but a Roman soldier was a Roman soldier and they knew quite well that allowing prisoners to escape would mean their own execution. So they planned to go by the book and kill the prisoners rather than risking their escape. But the cooler head of the centurion prevailed. Perhaps he knew Paul and these prisoners well enough at this point to know that they would not try an escape, or maybe he just valued Paul and was intrigued enough by him that he didn’t want to have Paul killed with the others. Whatever the reason, the strange intersection of God’s sovereign will and man’s free choice superimposed once again, and the centurion acted to save Paul’s life. God had a mission for Paul in Rome and had acted once again, this time through the centurio, to save him for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel.

And it is in that important detail of Paul being saved that we begin to bring into focus the shadows of what Luke has been masterfully showing us throughout this shipwreck scene. In translating the language into functional, English many translations, including the NIV, somewhat obscure Luke’s obvious clues throughout this passage. It becomes clearer if we go back through this passage and translate identical terms consistently. The folks on the boat gave up hope of being “saved” and began to give in to bitter despair (v. 20). If the men didn’t stay with Paul they could not be “saved” (v. 31). Paul urged them to take some food for it would “save” them (v. 34). The centurion wouldn’t allow the people to be killed because he wanted to “save” Paul (v. 43) and as a result everyone on the ship made it to the land and was “saved” (v. 44). The constant theme was that they needed to follow Paul through the waters that caused death and be saved.

To make the imagery complete, Luke described the meal that Paul gave those on the boat. In so describing a normal scene of Paul taking the bread, giving a standard Jewish prayer of thanks to God, and then distributing the food, Luke has drenched the scene in the biblical language of his gospel that is reminiscent of Jesus before miraculously feeding the multitudes (Luke 9:16); the last supper (Luke 22:19); and Jesus sitting down at the table with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:30). It is probable that the rest of the men on the ship saw this as simply a much-needed meal but Paul and the other Christians, including probably Luke himself, saw it as a participation in the Lord’s Supper for them. And in describing the meal, Luke used the language of the Lord’s Supper to signal what he was portraying under the surface here.

Luke’s underlying point throughout this section was that if you want to be saved, if you want to embrace Paul’s message of the gospel, then it was as simple as going through the water to be saved and somewhere in the midst of that to embrace the meal of God’s people. The pattern of going through the water to be saved was something that God had been showing in pictures to his people over and over again. Noah had to go through the deadly waters to be saved. Israel had to go through the deadly waters of the Exodus to be saved. Jesus declared that if people wanted to be saved they would need to go through the waters and enter into the life of Christ. That was true for Paul, it’s true for us, it’s true for anyone who wants to be saved.

Life and salvation lay just on the other side of those deadly waters. That was the way for anyone who wished to enter into table fellowship with God’s people and be accepted into his family. Or as Paul so eloquently put in Galatians 3:26-29: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”


Devotional Thought
Both Paul and Luke lived in a world that was full of other ideas of how to live but they never wavered in their knowledge that one must go through the waters of baptism, die to themselves, and enter into the life of Christ to be saved. Are you prepared to boldly declare that truth to others today? Have you yourself died to self and entered into His life so that you can declare that truth to others?

Monday, March 26, 2012

Acts 27:13-32

The Storm
13 When a gentle south wind began to blow, they saw their opportunity; so they weighed anchor and sailed along the shore of Crete. 14 Before very long, a wind of hurricane force, called the Northeaster, swept down from the island. 15 The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along. 16 As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure, 17 so the men hoisted it aboard. Then they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Because they were afraid they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor[b] and let the ship be driven along. 18 We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. 19 On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. 20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.

21 After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said: “Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. 22 But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. 23 Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me 24 and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ 25 So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. 26 Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.”

The Shipwreck
27 On the fourteenth night we were still being driven across the Adriatic[c] Sea, when about midnight the sailors sensed they were approaching land. 28 They took soundings and found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet[d] deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found it was ninety feet[e] deep. 29 Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. 30 In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea, pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow. 31 Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away.



Dig Deeper
About ten years ago a mini-series came out on American Television called “Band of Brothers.” This deeply fascinating show chronicled one particular division throughout their time during World War II, from their enlistment and training camp all the way through the war and right up to the end. The movie was based on a book which was an account of the real lives and experiences of a group of men that served as American soldiers in Europe during the war. The movie has been heralded as quite accurate to real life and is an intriguing study in the loyalty, bravery, honor, and leadership of different types of men during the harrowing realities of war, where life and death matters are constantly hanging over the heads of the soldiers.

It’s quite interesting as one watches the series to see how the enlisted men, those most in danger of dying, would respond to different types of leaders. Some leaders were of quite high rank and the men obeyed dutifully, but they did not relish following these men and saw it as something that they shouldn’t have to do because of the ineptitude of these so-called leaders. Others, however, might not have been as high of a rank, but the men respected and followed them wherever they led because they were clearly calm, cool, and in control despite the circumstances swirling about them constantly. At the end of one of the episodes, they showed an interview with one of the real soldiers from the unit depicted in the series, a man who was nearing eighty years old at the time of filming. He said something quite memorable when he recalled, regarding the previous commander of their unit, that he wouldn’t want to follow that guy anywhere. But, when it came to a particular officer who started out the war as a rather low rank, he said that he would follow that man into hell because he was a real leader. It just goes to show that in crisis situations especially, people will follow true leadership.

Paul had warned the centurion and the crew of his ship that things were going to go badly but they decided to not listen to Paul’s warning. As the trip progressed and the storm got worse, they may not have had time to think clearly about too many things in the effort to simply stay alive, but one thing that keeps rising to the forefront of this scene is the fact that Paul was exactly the type of leader that men will follow. He may have been a prisoner with no power and no rank, but he didn’t rely on those things anyway. Paul found his strength and wisdom by leaning on the Spirit and that enabled him to be in control of himself during even the most dire situations, and other men noticed and were willing to follow this man. Great leaders rise to the top and that was certainly true of Paul, the follower of Christ.

Despite Paul’s warnings, the sailors thought that they had a favorable southern breeze and a good window of weather through which they could sneak. The trip to Italy should have taken less than a day but no sooner did they take off than the weather unpredictably shifted violently and unfavorably for the folks on board the ship with Paul. A notorious wind known at the time as the “Euraquilo” blew up seemingly out of nowhere. Ancient ships did not have the ability to fight against such heavy winds and so they were left with no choice except to let the boat go with the wind and be blown dramatically off course. They tried everything that they could to slow down their unwanted journey by dropping anchors into the water and letting them drag against the progress as much as possible. The fear was that the ship would be blown into an area know as the “Syrtis.” The Syrtis was an area of quicksand and shallow water that caused great fear amongst the people of the first century, especially sailors, in much the same way that people fear the Bermuda Triangle today. It was a ship’s graveyard and they desperately wanted to avoid that area.

Things got so bleak that they began to throw the cargo (a desperate move that would have cost them their profit source) and spare gear overboard to lighten the ship. The skies were so dark and stormy that they were unable to see the sun, moon, or stars for days making navigation nearly impossible. As they were blown further and further out to sea, they began to give up hope, not helped by the fact that things were so intense that they had not been able to sleep for days, nor had they eaten much, if at all, a fact that will become central in the next section.

When things seemed darkest, Paul stepped forward into the gap and began to demonstrate steady leadership. He reminded the men that he had warned them that something like this was going to happen if they left Crete but not to rub their noses in it. He wanted them to understand that his words were reliable because God was guiding him. They failed to listen to him once and should not make that same mistake again. But Paul didn’t want to chide them, he wanted to encourage them. None of them would die but they would lose the ship. Paul was clear that he wasn’t just offering up platitudes either, his God had sent a messenger that had assured him of all of this. He would complete his mission to stand before Nero Caesar, so because of that and as a result of God’s grace and mercy, they would be shipwrecked on an island and their lives spared. This must have been particularly comforting at a time when most of the men on the ship must have felt like their own gods had abandoned them, no longer cared, were incapable of saving them, or perhaps really didn’t exist after all. This man and his God were different. And it is no accident that Paul, all the while showing incredible leadership, never tried to exalt himself but was showing them just how powerful and caring the one true God was.

If all of the business about rough seas, frightened sailors, throwing things overboard, God one of his servants sounds a bit familiar, it seems that Luke intended for it to be so. If you said that this account sounds a little bit like that of Jonah from the book named after him you would be correct. But Paul’s account is more of an opposite negative-type-image rather than a mirror image of Jonah. He was expressly following God’s will and not running from it and as a result things turned out dramatically differently. It is a powerful reminder, however, that just because we are obeying God’s will does not mean that we won’t go through the storms. Because Paul was acting obediently, the solution wasn’t to cast him away from the ship like Jonah but to stay with him. Rather than Paul’s presence causing their trouble like the sailors that were with Jonah, it and the grace of God were the only things keeping them alive.

In fact some of the sailors seemed to forget Paul’s promises and doubt his word once again, but Paul swiftly dealt with the situation and prevented the men from escaping in the lifeboat, and in the process, saved their lives. At every turn Paul was a leader, leading men towards the truth of God and righteousness, even when it meant saving people from themselves.

In reality, Paul’s actions here are captured quite well in his exhortation to the Corinthians: “As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:1-10).


Devotional Thought
Paul says that he had nothing but possessed everything. What do you think he meant by that? How did he demonstrate that during the storm at sea. Could you honestly say that you share that attitude with Paul? If not, what keeps you from doing so?

Friday, March 23, 2012

Acts 27:1-12

Paul Sails for Rome
1 When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. 2 We boarded a ship from Adramyttium about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.
3 The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs. 4 From there we put out to sea again and passed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. 5 When we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia. 6 There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and put us on board. 7 We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. 8 We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.

9 Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Day of Atonement. [a] So Paul warned them, 10 “Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also.” 11 But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. 12 Since the harbor was unsuitable to winter in, the majority decided that we should sail on, hoping to reach Phoenix and winter there. This was a harbor in Crete, facing both southwest and northwest.




Dig Deeper
As I write this, my country is coming up on a time that we affectionately refer to as “March Madness.” That might sound like some sort of horrible disease that plagues farm animals and is the bane of farmers everywhere but it actually is nothing of the sort. It refers to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s men’s basketball tournament that begins every year in March. The tournament begins with 68 teams vying for the title of “National Champion” and fills the weekends in the month of March with nationally televised college basketball games from wall-to-wall. The tournament is always full of nail-biting games that go down to the finish and exhilarating upsets that spark the imagination. It has truly become one of the most well-known and most-loved sporting events in the United States. As you watch the games each year, a pattern almost always develops, one that the announcers love to point out time and again. As a game gets into those important last few moments referred to as “crunch-time,” an announcer will invariably point out that a team is scrappy or hard-working, just like their coach. They will go to great lengths to demonstrate their belief that a team takes on the personality of its coach after a time. I really can’t argue with that hypothesis; there does seem to be a fair amount of truth to it. Teams will begin to approach situations and respond to adversity in the same manner that their coach approaches life. After awhile, the teams really do seem to become a larger extension of their fearless leader out on the court.

The biblical writers seemed to exhort the Christian community to engage in a similar phenomenon as we go through this life as Jesus’ disciple. Nowhere is that idea captured more succinctly than in 1 John 2:6 where John urges Christians that if they claim to be in Christ then they will walk as Jesus walked, meaning they will live their lives with the same character and attitude that Jesus had. We are, in short, to take on the personality of our leader and become an extension of him.

What is true for all disciples was certainly true for Paul. That seems to be the point that Luke is subtly making throughout the book of Acts. Not that he is saying that Paul’s life, or the life of every Christian for that matter, will mirror the life of Christ and that we must go through the same sorts of trials that he did which, if we’re doing it right, will ultimately result in the death of the Christian due to persecution. That’s not what Luke is saying or showing us in the life of Paul. He’s not saying that the life of every Christian will repeat a pattern over and over again like events in history that seem to repeat themselves (at least for those who do not learn from the past, as the saying goes). I think what Luke does want us to see is that the life of the Christian wont’ repeat the pattern of Christ but it very well may rhyme in certain areas. If we are taking on the nature of Christ, then when certain events do swirl our way, we will stand up and meet those obstacles in the way that Christ did.

In other words, through Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection, the life of God’s age to come came cascading through his life into the present age. The time of the new creation, the restored Eden, when God will live and through his very people, dwelling with them in his full presence, became available, at least in part, through the life of Christ. And that life of the new creation will bubble and burst forth in the life of a Christian like Paul in strikingly similar ways to what one might see when they look at the gospels and see the accounts of Christ.

So, yes, Jesus had a vocation to announce the kingdom of God and he sent out on a journey, despite many obstacles, to fulfill that mission. When he arrived in Jerusalem he faced down the opposition of the Jewish people and was handed over to the Romans without blinking an eye because of his trust in the Father. He was questioned by a Herod, the questionable ruler of the Jews as well as a Roman governor. Finally he would face the stiff test of death as a result of following God’s will for him to lay down his life for the benefit of others and the spread of the gospel.

Paul’s life, Luke is careful to point out, hit similar notes but not because Paul was called to play the same tune but because he was trained by the Master. He learned to play the notes just like Jesus did and that produced a certain tell-tall similarity. Paul, too had a vocation to spread the gospel, albeit quite different from Jesus’ specific commission. But he would carry it out in the same way that Jesus did and so he overcame many obstacles in fulfilling that mission and when he arrived in Jerusalem, he too was opposed by the Jews and handed over to the Romans. But he had learned to take on the personality of his Lord and so he didn’t bat an eye either; he just continued to trust in the Father. So it should be of no surprise that Paul also found himself standing before a Herod and being questioned by Roman governors just as Jesus had. Paul would resolutely march towards Rome, and maybe his own death as Luke has already told us (Luke 9:51) that Jesus set off towards Jerusalem and his own death.

And just like the one that he sought imitate, when faced with the stiff test of laying down his life for others or laying down his vocation due to the violent opposition, Paul’s response would look eerily similar to Christ’s even if the circumstances were very different. The Father’s will for Jesus was that he pick up his Cross and march to Golgotha where he would walk boldly into the jaws of death for the benefit of others and the spread of God’s kingdom. The Father’s will for Paul was that he pick up his own cross and march on towards Rome but he would face the sea on the way, which in the Jewish mind was a constant symbol of the place of death, destruction, and evil. Paul would go boldly into the sharp teeth of the sea and continue to carry on the Father’s will in his life for the benefit of others and the spread of the kingdom, regardless of the personal loss that it might mean for him.

So as they begin the arduous journey towards Rome, Paul may not have known precisely what was going to happen along the way, but it does seem that the Spirit had made it clear that he would continue to suffer for the name of Christ, just as he had been told from the beginning (Acts 9:16). Paul knew what lay ahead both for him and for the ship and he tried to warn them, perhaps knowing that his advice wouldn’t be followed, but that just maybe after everything had happened, people would remember that he had warned them and praise God.

One thing is clear, however. This was not Paul’s first rodeo, so to speak, at sea. In writing 2 Corinthians 11:26 some time before this incident, Paul had already chronicled that he had been shipwrecked no less than three times at sea for the sake of the gospel and one time found himself bobbing up and down in the water, probably clinging to a piece of broken ship or some such thing, for a night and a day. During each trial he had learned more and more of what it meant to allow the peace and trust in the Father that comes with a life aligned within the new creation to break forth into his life and the lives of those around us.

Even in desperate situations, Paul had learned to let the life of Christ burst forth through his own. He was a constant living example of his own words in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. “ It was because of that that Paul could find himself on a prison ship headed for Rome and yet demonstrate enough controlled power and influence that the Roman centurion allowed him to have considerable influence and an active voice in the decisions of the ship. It was because of the life of the new creation breaking into his life that Paul could calmly declare that they were staring down the barrel of a terrible shipwreck and yet not fear, fret, or worry because he knew that God was in control.

Jesus had faced the Cross and not a shipwreck at sea, and yet, because he was becoming like his King, an incident and a life that was very different in the details starts to look eerily similar. Paul would march towards his date with the symbol of evil with the same resolve to do God’s will that Jesus had demonstrated as he marched towards Jerusalem and the Cross. That’s what happens when the new creation comes into our lives and transforms us. It’s not that we will go through the same things that Jesus did in his life, but that in whatever circumstances we face, we will become more like him and our lives will begin to echo his own more and more each day.


Devotional Thought
What does the challenge from 1 John 2:6 to walk as Jesus walked mean for you? Spend some time today thinking about what that particular concept is challenging you to do today.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Acts 26:24-32

24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”

25 “I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. 26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”

28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

29 Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

30 The king rose, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them. 31 After they left the room, they began saying to one another, “This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.”

32 Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”





Dig Deeper
I have met with, talked with, and studied the Bible with many people over the years. Many have responded to God’s word in faith and acceptance while others have not. Different people reject the gospel for different reasons but every now and then I have encountered people who seem to know that it is reasonable and even acknowledge the truth of the gospel to varying degrees but they still walk away and refuse to follow Jesus. I think of one young man in particular with whom I studied the Bible. We looked at Jesus’ call to discipleship in light of the fact that the resurrection life had broken into the present age and was now available to those who would enter into the life of Christ through faith. After studying the Scriptures thoroughly and answering many of his questions, the young man told me that he believed that this was all true and that Jesus wanted people to follow him in faith as his disciples. But then he looked at me with a bit of sadness, it seemed, in his eyes and told me that he couldn’t be a disciple. His candidness was surprising, but he went on to tell me that he was too invested into his current life and he just couldn’t give it up. In short, he said “I’m just too selfish to follow Jesus.” He went on to say that perhaps if circumstances in his life had gone differently but he had too many possessions and was having too much fun and just wasn’t willing to give it up even though he knew deep down that he was walking away from the truth and towards his own destruction.

It certainly seemed like I had been witness to a modern day version of the account of the rich young ruler from Luke 18. That is the account of a wealthy young man who sought Jesus out. He was interested in what it took to be numbered among God’s people in the age to come, somehow sensing that all of his wealth was not quite enough and that he needed more. Jesus told him the good news that the resurrection life was available to those who would follow him, but then gave the challenging news that the cost of following him would be a willingness to give up everything he had and share his vast wealth with the poor. The young man knew that Jesus was telling him the truth but he just could not give up what he valued so dearly. We are told that he walked away sad, knowing at some level, that he was so addicted to his life that he was forfeiting a chance at eternal life.

As Paul neared the crescendo of his speech, Festus had heard enough. Had Paul considered Festus his primary audience he would have crafted his speech differently so that Festus could follow what he was saying, but Paul was speaking to Agrippa, a Jew. Agrippa was no friend of the Jewish people as he had jumped into bed with the Roman Empire long ago. But he seemingly continued to keep one foot in the Roman world, where he was successful and had become rich and powerful, and one foot in the Jewish world into which he was born. He knew of the beliefs and hopes of his people and had apparently not completely rejected them. So Paul was aiming his words directly at Agrippa, a knowledgeable Jew who could follow some of his more specifically Jewish points and that’s what lost Festus and caused him to scream out that Paul had lost his mind. Clearly Paul was a learned man but talk of visions, suffering Messiahs, national hopes, prophets predicting all of this, and people resurrecting from the dead. . . this was more than Festus could comprehend and he probably assumed that Agrippa felt the same way. This was just foolishness for this Roman (1 Cor. 1:23) or maybe Paul had read and studied so much that he had gone insane.

But Paul was not insane and said as much, but he never lost sight of the fact that he wasn’t really addressing Festus. He quickly brushed aside Festus’ interruption and went right back to focusing on Agrippa. He wasn’t spouting fantasies. His words were true and reasonable and Paul had good reason to believe that Agrippa knew that, at least at some level. The things he was talking about, well the king could follow him. The king wasn’t completely ignorant of the hopes of his people even if he had turned his back on them in many respects over the years, landing himself in a rather exalted position in the process.

Agrippa, like most Jews of his day, knew well that the prophets had promised that one day the God of Israel would return to be with his people. He knew of the Scriptures that recounted God’s presence leaving his people for their repeated unfaithfulness to their Covenant with God and the resulting exile that began in 586 BC. He knew that the people of Israel had returned to the land and rebuilt the Temple, although it was still just a mere shadow of the former Temple. He also knew that many in Israel believed that they were still in the only exile that mattered even though they were back in the promised land, because the presence of their God had not yet returned. Perhaps in the back of his heart, buried somewhere that Agrippa didn’t like to think about often, he hoped too and wondered what would happen if the prophets had been correct.

Paul either assumed or sensed that something he had said struck a nerve in Agrippa and he put him on the spot. In fact, in asserting that Agrippa surely believed the prophets, he put him in something of a bind. If Agrippa refuted his belief in the prophets he would have forfeited whatever small thread of connection and good will he still had with the Jewish people. But if he admitted that he had believed the promises of the prophets when it came to God’s return and even resurrection, then he was smart enough to see that Paul could easily say “then surely you must believe that Jesus could be the fulfillment of all of that.” Neither position would have put him in a very good political spot with the Jews.

Agrippa was sharp, though, and knew exactly what Paul was up to. His retort about not becoming a Christian so quickly seems whimsical and somewhat witty. Yet, I can’t help but speculate that there was a bit more there. Agrippa could easily have asserted that he did believe in the prophets but that such nonsense about a pathetic would-be Messiah who been put down by the Romans was nothing of what the prophets had in mind. He could have, but didn’t. Something that Paul said seems to have connected with Agrippa. I contend that somewhere deep down, Agrippa knew that what Paul said made sense. He knew it and Paul knew it. His response to Paul was witty but also a bit wistful as though, becoming a Christian was something that had at least passed through his mind. But no, his cooler side had prevailed. Perhaps if things had turned out a bit differently for him. Perhaps if he wasn’t so heavily invested in this life. He just couldn’t. . . could he?

I think if we look closely, we see something of that rich young man in Agrippa. Paul’s words had resonated with him but he just could not give it all up to embrace the truth. For Paul it all seemed so simple and logical if one would but follow the trail that the prophets had opened up but for too many like Agrippa the price to go down that road was just too expensive. Maybe in another life. . .

But Paul’s response to Agrippa’s retort was just as witty and yet compassionate and poignant. Did he want Agrippa to become a Christian? Of course he did. Paul’s whole life was rooted in the desire to see all people come into God’s kingdom through his son. That’s what he wanted for Agrippa and every person. With one exception, of course, said Paul, showing a bit of his wry humor. His hope was that people would be able to follow Christ without the chains that he was currently lugging around. This was not only true, it also gave Agrippa one more look at the unfairness of the situation. Paul had connected with him and he knew in looking at those chains that it was unjust. Paul was not attacking the hopes of the Jewish people, he was boldly declaring the true fulfillment of them.

If Paul hadn’t appealed to Caesar, an act that was apparently not something that could be revoked, he could have been set free. Agrippa knew it and Festus knew it. Both men had been given an opportunity to hear the truth. Paul had declared it earlier to Festus in a way that he could understand and he had now declared it to a Jewish king who well understood the national hope of resurrection. They had stared truth directly in the face and had turned away saddened to walk down the broad road because they found that Paul’s path was just too narrow for them.


Devotional Thought
Paul did not just have a vague hope or wish that all people would come to accept the rule of God’s kingdom in their life, he actively did everything he could to make that happen. What about you? What can you do today to help your friends, neighbors, classmates, or co-workers know about the kingdom of God in their own life?

Monday, March 19, 2012

Acts 26:12-23

“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

19 “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. 21 That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. 22 But God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— 23 that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”





Dig Deeper
A few years back I had a friend who worked for a major corporation within the United States. He had a relatively important and difficult job working for that corporation. He was typically a very good employee and was well thought of within the company by both his co-workers and bosses. But after a time it came to his attention that the company would, from time to time, engage in practices that were, shall we say, less than ethical. This put my friend, who was a devout disciple of Jesus Christ, into quite a bind. He wanted to be a good employee and obey his bosses as best he could, but he also had a higher authority to whom he answered. He quickly decided that he would be the best employee that he could possibly be at all times but that he would never do anything that would force him to compromise his obedience to God. That quickly came to a head when his boss asked him to go along with one of those unethical practices, and in fact to take part in being deceitful in a way that would benefit the company. My friend took no time in refusing to do so even though he was eventually threatened with being fired. He really had no choice in his mind. How could he obey man and disobey God? He simply couldn’t and so he stuck to his guns and took a great deal of persecution for it. It would be nice to say that such stands always work out in the end, and I suppose they do from the grander perspective of God, but in the moment, he paid for his obedience to God with his job.

That is an uncomfortable truth in following the gospel and obeying God. Doing so will often lead us straight into conflict with the systems of worldly authority around us and leave us with the difficult choice of obeying God or man. Peter and John found themselves in that very conundrum in Acts 4, and they boldly stated to the Jewish leadership that they felt they had no choice in the matter. Their obedience to God would always trump their desire to be as peaceful with and obedient to the power of man whenever possible. Of course they were only following the example that Jesus had set for them during their time with him as he ministered to the people of Israel. Jesus had set a clear example of putting God’s will and obedience to the Father above cowering before the authority or power of man.

Paul would be no different. His life was a constant reminder of the truth that the gospel is a life of peace but that life of peace will always come into conflict with those that are committed to fighting against God’s purposes. So when faced with the decision of obeying God or staying in the good graces of his fellow Jews, Paul felt he had no choice at all. It might cost him his life but his preaching of the gospel was not an act of rebellion against the Jews and it was not an abandoning of their ancient faith in God. He didn’t convert to a new religion at all. He was called by God to be part of the new thing that God was doing in the world through his Messiah. It was as simple as that. What could Paul do but obey God?

This scene before Agrippa offered Luke the opportunity to present Paul’s story of being called by God to a new commission for the third time. And like watching the replays of a sports play over and over again from different angles begins to bring what really happened into better view, Luke shows us a slightly different angle each time. In the end, we begin to get a fuller sense of what happened that day on the road to Damascus.

Paul stressed for Agrippa that he was on this mission with full consent of the chief priests. He was not some rogue or rebel. He was obeying what he thought was the highest authority accessible at the time, because in his mind, the chief priests were the most direct representative of God. On the way he and his companions were knocked back by a light that outshone the sun in the middle of the day, truly an amazing feat. The whole scene was obviously miraculous and unique as the light was seen by the entire party but only Paul saw Jesus and only Paul was blinded. Similarly, the whole party heard some sort of noise but only Paul was allowed to distinguish the voice of Jesus speaking. The point was that Paul was not having some delusion or private vision. Everyone with him heard and saw something miraculous, yet only he was chosen to receive the direct revelation of Jesus.

The primary new piece of information that we receive in this third telling of Paul’s encounter with Jesus is that after asking Paul why he was persecuting Jesus by his continual persecution of his church, is that Jesus also told Paul that it is hard to kick against the goads. A goad was a sharpened stick that was used to prick and drive cattle in a certain direction. The image being given was that God was now clearly driving Paul in a new direction and to fight against that would be as painful and fruitless as a cow trying to fight and kick against the goads. As one who was deeply committed to obeying the God of Israel his whole life, what could Paul do?

In accepting the truth that Jesus really was the Lord, Paul telescoped the situation a bit to summarize the important details for Agrippa and probably recounted the commission details that Jesus would give him over the course of the three days in Damascus as one event with the initial encounter with Jesus. His commission was clear and specific and came from the Lord, it was not a self-appointed job. First, Paul would fulfill the requirements of an apostle by being a witness of the resurrected Christ and being directly commissioned by him to do so. Second, he would be rescued from the backlash of the Jews and be sent to the Gentiles to declare the gospel to them. Third, he would be sent to the Gentiles to open their blind eyes and rescue them from the darkness into the light of the family of God. Fourth, this act of rescuing them from Satan would result in their being forgiven of their sin by being baptized into Christ.

These were the very activities that had gotten Paul in so much trouble and generated so much opposition from the Jewish leadership. They were incensed that Paul would declare that Gentiles could enter into the family of God’s people through such a meager means, in their eyes, as a baptism of faith into the life of Christ. But Paul made clear to the King that he had little choice as one who had committed to obedience to God. He was not only obeying God, but if the Jews would simply open their eyes they would see that Paul was preaching that they must repent of their sins and turn to God. True, they were not observing the Law but they were turning from their idolatry and sin to the holy lives of God’s family.

When Paul put it in those terms, it almost makes the Jewish opposition to him look silly. How could Paul be faulted for doing nothing more than obeying God by bringing the Gentiles under the rule and reign of God as any Jew, no matter how begrudgingly, would have to admit was something that God had declared through his prophets would eventually happen? At least this was Paul’s perspective. He had been arrested and persecuted for preaching nothing more and nothing less than what Moses and the prophets, in other words the Old Testament Scriptures, had proclaimed would happen.

The Scriptures, particularly Isaiah, had pointed to a Messiah and a suffering servant that would take on the suffering of the people onto himself. They also declared the vocation of the people of God to be a light to the world and the means through whom God would bless the entire world. Of course that’s where expectation and reality had run directly into one another. By the time of Jesus and Paul, the typical Jewish expectation was that the Messiah would come and bring about the end of the present age. It was then that the presence of God would flood the earth, restoring it and bringing the Kingdom of God to bear on the earth, and only then fully judging and somehow also blessing the nations of the world. Paul’s message about the Messiah had slammed up against all of that belief. They had gotten some of the details correct, but they had been wrong on the important stuff just as Paul had until he was confronted by the resurrected Christ. That’s when the reality of what God had really done through Jesus had burst forth into Paul’s understanding. The age to come, the resurrection life, and the blessing of the Gentiles would all come fully at the end of the present age and yet somehow, quite shockingly, they had all broken into the present age and were available to all who would have faith in the life of Christ and enter into it.

That was Paul’s gospel that he was boldly proclaiming to Agrippa. It hasn’t changed one bit since then. The question that we must bring to bear as witnesses of the gospel is the same question that Paul wanted Agrippa to answer. Would he see what God had done for all of humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, and accept it in faith.


Devotional Thought
Does the opinions of the people around you matter more to you than what God has called you to do? I think it’s important that we don’t answer that question too quickly and really take time to think how much we can water down God’s word because we don’t want to stand out or be different. Paul was willing to obey God’s call on his life no matter what opposition it brought him. Are you just as willing?

Friday, March 16, 2012

Acts 26:1-11

1 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.”

So Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense: 2 “King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.

4 “The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. 5 They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee. 6 And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today. 7 This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me. 8 Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

9 “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.




Dig Deeper
Father’s Day is one of those days that rolls around every year and I usually don’t pay much attention to it. It kind of sneaks up on me and I don’t even realize that the day has arrived until my wife or someone else wishes me “happy Father’s Day.” A few Years back, my wife and sons told me in the morning that we were going to go see a movie that Sunday afternoon after our church gathering with the family of God. I enjoy a good movie now and then and was always particularly excited about spending the day with my family and seeing a film with them. After leaving our church’s building, my anticipation was growing to go see the movie. We stopped by our house to get a few things and then my wife said that she would drive. The movie theater is right around the corner from our house so I was confused when she went the other way and got on the interstate. When I asked her about it, she said to just relax and not ask questions.

I was trying to be patient and trusting but I was a little disappointed because I had my heart set on seeing a movie and now it was clear that we were not going to do that at all. After an hour of driving I still had no idea what we were going to be doing and was starting to feel a little upset that we were not going to be seeing a movie as I had been promised. That is, until my wife suddenly turned us into a drive-in theater. In fact it was the very one that we had gone to on our honeymoon many years before. Even though I had thought our plans had changed I realized that they hadn’t. I had just not understood the signs and trusted my wife’s promise of that morning that we were indeed going to a movie. My expectations had changed and that had caused me some consternation but in the end she had come through on her promise just as she had stated it. In fact the promise was never the problem it was that my hopes of the fulfillment were far too small.

This describes something of the situation that the pre-Christian Paul and first century Jews found themselves in. Israel had great national hopes that they found in the promises of God as handed down to them in the what we call the Old Testament. Israel believed that God really had called them to be his people and to live in covenant with him. They had been disobedient to that covenant and found themselves punished for their disobedience by being dragged off into exile and having the Temple destroyed. But that was over 500 years before the time of Paul and the people of Israel had returned to their land and rebuilt the Temple. But they believed that the important part of the exile was ongoing because God had not yet returned to Jerusalem. Just as important, God had not fulfilled his great promises to bless his people that descended from Abraham and through that family to bless the whole world. They believed that God would do this in one mighty sweep of justice and judgment when God would return and his Messiah would put down the pagan nations that hadoppressed God’s people and sinned against the one true God. At that time, God would judge the nations and exalt his people Israel. He would resurrect the righteous and punish the unrighteous and somehow through that mighty day, all peoples of the world would truly be blessed. This day of the Lord would be the beginning of God’s age to come, or eternal life when he would cleanse the entire world of evil and rule in his kingdom with his people for eternity as the realms of heaven and earth were brought together as one as they were always intended to be. This was the great hope of Israel. It was the hope that Paul clung to before becoming a Christian and it was the same hope that he had embraced in becoming a follower of Jesus.

It was not that Paul had given up his hope and somehow embraced the idea that God had failed to come through on his promises to Israel. The truth was far from that, in fact. It was not God’s promises that had failed, but when the resurrected Christ confronted Paul he suddenly realized that it was the expectations of himself and his fellow countrymen that were wrong and misinformed. God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would become the family of God and that people of all nations would be blessed through that family. God had also promised resurrection to the righteous. All of those things were correct. But just as I had made assumptions about my wife’s promise and missed what she was actually doing, so did Israel with God’s promises. They had shrunk them down.

And that was Paul’s point to Agrippa. He had not abandoned the hope of Israel. He just followed the road signs when they led in a different direction than he had planned to take. In the end, he had arrived exactly where he had hoped and where God had promised all along. God had promised a Messiah who would throw off the oppressor of his people and would, through resurrection, bring his people into the life of the age to come to dwell with God forever. But they had assumed that this would all take place at the end of the present age. They had the right hope but missed the signs for the turn-off and were now steaming ahead in the wrong direction. God had returned to Israel but through the person of Jesus Christ. He had brought about his promised family through Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, but entrance into that family must come by having faith and being baptized into his life. When one did that, they could begin to live out the life of the age to come right then and there in anticipation of the resurrection that will yet take place one day. That was the key. Resurrection and the life of the age to come had broken into the present age through Jesus rather than taking place for all of the righteous at the end of time. And through his death and resurrection, Jesus had defeated death and sin, the real oppressors of God’s people. It was not Rome after all, or any other pagan nation. Sin was the problem and now in Jesus Christ peoples of all nations could enter into God’s family and be blessed and live with the Father for eternity.

Paul’s point was one that he made at every opportunity he had to speak regarding the issues that the Jews had with him. He had not abandoned his people and certainly had not abandoned the promises of God. Paul still had the same great hope of resurrection that he always had but Jesus had shown that God was fulfilling those promises in a way that he had never imagined. Paul was certain that Agrippa knew of those hopes well. Not all Jews had those hopes, certainly the Sadducees did not, but the mainstream Jewish thought lay in the hopes of resurrection. That’s why Paul was on trial. Not because he had deserted the national hope but had followed the obvious signs and realized that the hope lay in Jesus Christ, the true Israel, and not the nation of Israel.

The hatred that had grown against Paul from the standpoint of the Jewish leadership was far more than just the disdain for one that had left their cause and switched his beliefs away from what they hoped for. He was saying that they had missed the signs and that God was delivering on his promises in a way that was outside of their control. They would have to lay down their preconceived notions and trust in Christ but they were unwilling to do that.

Paul understood all of that. He didn’t have some vague or muddled version of the national hope that he received out in Tarsus. He was trained in Jerusalem by the best and brightest and had taken his number among them. He knew exactly what the Jews believed and hoped for. He had believed it so adamantly himself that he was willing to persecute the Christians with great zeal. In fact, what he tells us here goes beyond what Luke has previously told us. Paul and the Sanhedrin had killed numerous Christians (he might here have been intentionally trying to shame the Sanhedrin, of which he had been a part, by admitting to Agrippa that they had illegally put people to death, as the Sanhedrin could only execute those who violated the sanctity of the Temple’s inner courts), and had forced many into renouncing Christ. He well understood why the Jewish leadership was against him so violently.

But he also had come to realize the hope that they had was based on their own assumptions and not what God had actually done. When Paul spoke of the hope it wasn’t some vague notion. It was the promise of resurrection and the age to come. This was the thing that Paul wanted them to grasp above all. If they really believed that God could resurrect people, why not believe that he had called his Messiah to be the fulfillment of that promise? If they would but stop and consider another possibility for a moment, they would see that what Paul was saying was not that far-fetched and that it was not an abandonment of their hope at all. What Paul was declaring was the hope of God’s people if they would only look; if Agrippa would only look he would see the same.


Devotional Thought
Paul’s assertion was that the Jewish people were in danger of missing what God was doing because of their preconceived notions of how God was going to fulfill his promises. Do you ever find yourself in danger of missing what God is doing because you of your own expectations? Take some time in prayer and ask for fresh eyes to see what God is doing in your life and if there are any areas that you have been upset with God or missing his power because you wanted him to work in another way.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Acts 25:13-27

13 A few days later King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus. 14 Since they were spending many days there, Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king. He said: “There is a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner. 15 When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked that he be condemned.
16 “I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges. 17 When they came here with me, I did not delay the case, but convened the court the next day and ordered the man to be brought in. 18 When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. 19 Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive. 20 I was at a loss how to investigate such matters; so I asked if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem and stand trial there on these charges. 21 But when Paul made his appeal to be held over for the Emperor’s decision, I ordered him held until I could send him to Caesar.”

22 Then Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear this man myself.”

He replied, “Tomorrow you will hear him.”

Paul Before Agrippa
23 The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the audience room with the high-ranking military officers and the prominent men of the city. At the command of Festus, Paul was brought in. 24 Festus said: “King Agrippa, and all who are present with us, you see this man! The whole Jewish community has petitioned me about him in Jerusalem and here in Caesarea, shouting that he ought not to live any longer. 25 I found he had done nothing deserving of death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor I decided to send him to Rome. 26 But I have nothing definite to write to His Majesty about him. Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that as a result of this investigation I may have something to write. 27 For I think it is unreasonable to send a prisoner on to Rome without specifying the charges against him.”



Dig Deeper
I recently had the opportunity to watch an episode of a rather old television sitcom that I had enjoyed quite a bit as a child. The show was called “The Facts of Life” and was a pretty big hit in the 1980’s. It was a comedy about four friends that lived at a posh boarding school and followed them on their adventures through the school and it even ran so long that they eventually all graduated from high school and the show continued to follow them through college and into adulthood. At the time, the ladies who starred in the show were fairly big stars and easily recognizable anytime they made appearances on other television shows, on awards shows, in magazines, and so on. The last year or two of the show a new character named “George,” who was a handyman who became friends with the four girls joined the cast. A few years later that same actor joined the extremely popular “Roseanne” show next to the wildly famous stars of that show as a side character named “Booker.” At the time, hardly anyone noticed this actor as he was a minor character in both shows and was seemingly a very unimportant actor.

That was then, though. Since then that actor, a guy by the name of “George Clooney” has become one of the famous, most influential, and most recognizable actors in the world. His career has far surpassed those that were once big stars on those television shows and most of those folks have since slipped off into obscurity. Now when those shows are rerun, the big selling point on commercials is that it “stars” George Clooney. I’m sure that if someone would have told the stars of those shows that this would be the case in the future, they would have been rather offended and not believed it. The passage of time, however, can do strange things like that.

An ironic shift of importance like that of the career of Georgy Clooney pales in comparison to the one that we have here. Paul was not considered highly in the first century. At best, he was a first-class nuisance, and at worst he was a crazy, blasphemous, trouble-maker. He was a rag-tag itinerant babbler who was quickly becoming a career prisoner. Yet he somehow kept finding himself in the presence of the high, the mighty, and the most powerful people of his day. In just this ongoing affair involving his arrest in the Temple, Paul has been dragged before the High Priest, the Governor Felix, the Governor Festus, and now he will come before King Agrippa and Bernice, who were something of superstars in their day. Soon he will be sent on to Caesar himself. All Paul had to him was this silly message about a resurrected Messiah that he kept rambling on about.

That was then, though. The high and mighty of Paul’s day would be shocked and scandalized, in fact, to find out that things have changed around completely. No one thinks of Paul as being so lucky to have come into the presence of so many great and mighty people. Most people now only know of Agrippa, Festus, and the others because of their brief encounters with Paul. “How lucky,” we think, “that they were actually in the presence of Paul.” That’s how dramatically time has changed things but we will miss some of the power of this scene if we don’t keep in mind that Paul was not the star in these encounters at the time. He was the no-name. Time and again, the Spirit had moved so that Paul would have chance after chance to proclaim the gospel to the most powerful and influential people of his time.

Agrippa, or Herod Agrippa II, was born Marcus Julius Agrippa and was the great-grandson of Herod the Great. He was a rising star in the Roman empire and was the Rome-appointed ruler over Judea at this time. He grew up in Claudius’ court in Rome and was so favored by the Emperor Claudius that he wanted to make Agrippa King when he was just 17. He was talked out of this due to his youth and inexperience, but Agrippa was eventually appointed King by Nero. Bernice was actually his sister. She was something of a socialite and scandal magnet in the first century. In between a number of high profile marriages and affairs, including Titus (who was the son of Vespasian and brother of Domitian and who would later become the Emperor of Rome), there were persistent rumors that Agrippa and Bernice were embroiled in an ongoing incestuous relationship and that her marriages were merely fronts to quell those rumors. But make no mistake they were superstars in the ancient world and when they showed up to establish a relationship with the new Roman Governor of the region, there was quite a splash that would have been made that would have stood in stark contrast to the prisoner Paul who was brought before them in what was quite likely his prison rags.

Having Agrippa in town was quite beneficial to Festus who really wasn’t quite sure what to make of Paul and perhaps this would be an opportunity to not only get some help from Agrippa but also forge a bond between the two men. Festus’ reasoning that he laid before Agrippa was that there were no specific charges against Paul and it wasn’t wise or right to send him to Caesar with nothing to charge him with. Throughout his explanation, though, it is clear that Festus was attempting to make himself look as good as possible, massaging the truth at every opportunity, including claiming that he would not hand Paul over with out facing his accusers when the truth was not quite so noble as Luke has already made clear that his motivations had much more to do with keeping favor with the Jews than some sense of justice.

What is truly fascinating in this scene is to see Paul from the perspective of the Romans. He was not the highly revered apostle and man of incredible depth and wisdom that Christians spanning from the first century to the twenty-first would view him as. Nor was he the incredibly dangerous blasphemer, spewing out lies that could be damaging to thousands and who must be stopped before he became too influential and powerful, as the Jews viewed him. He wasn’t even a dangerous rebel leader that needed to be dealt with by Rome. From the Roman viewpoint he was little more than a Jew of some sort who was claiming that some man named Jesus was still alive. That is all. Festus really couldn’t figure out why this man would be at the center of such a storm of controversy. He seemed harmless enough to him.

Two important historical points jump out at us here that should not be missed. The first has to do with the insignificance that Jesus had in Roman eyes. Today, many critics of the Bible argue that if the Jesus of the biblical accounts really existed then there should be much more written and known about him in non-biblical sources. Although there actually is an impressive amount of non-biblical material on Jesus, relatively speaking by first-century standards (there are equal number of non-biblical sources about Jesus and Tiberius Caesar, who was Caesar at the time of Jesus’ death, within a 150 years of their lifetimes). The Romans didn’t write about Jesus because those who didn’t come to faith Christ saw it as foolishness and nothing worth writing about. That doesn’t lessen the impact of Jesus, it simply explains the Roman malaise towards him and early Christianity. It wasn’t until Christianity began to really turn the world upside down and become a threat to Rome, at least in their eyes, that Rome truly took full notice of the Christians.

The second important historical note is that the resurrection that Paul was preaching was a physical one. Jesus was really alive was his claim. This was no mere spiritual vision or some type of spiritual resurrection as some today claim. Jesus walked out of the grave in full bodily form and Paul was preaching that those who entrusted their lives to Christ would do the same one day.

Festus didn’t know what to do with Paul because he was looking at him from a human point of view, just as Paul had once looked at Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17). No one in the room that day would have looked at the less-than-impressive Paul and the super couple, Agrippa and Bernice, and surmised that they would one day be known to history almost exclusively because their lives had crossed paths with this strange little man that was proclaiming that some Jewish would-be Messiah had resurrected from the dead and because of that the new creation of the one true God was available to anyone who would enter into his family. It was just one more way that the gospel was turning the world upside down and it serves as a reminder for us to be careful how we view the things of the world. We can so easily become far too impressed with the things of the world but as the old hymn, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” says “the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”


Devotional Thought
Are there any things in the world with which you can get impressed and see from the world’s perspective rather than God’s? I’m sure that Paul was tempted to fee intimidated and small but he continued, in faith, to see things from God’s perspective. That’s why he was able to turn the world upside down and it’s the same thing that will enable us to do so.

Monday, March 05, 2012

Acts 25:1-12

Paul’s Trial Before Festus
1 Three days after arriving in the province, Festus went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem, 2 where the chief priests and the Jewish leaders appeared before him and presented the charges against Paul. 3 They requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way. 4 Festus answered, “Paul is being held at Caesarea, and I myself am going there soon. 5 Let some of your leaders come with me, and if the man has done anything wrong, they can press charges against him there.”
6 After spending eight or ten days with them, Festus went down to Caesarea. The next day he convened the court and ordered that Paul be brought before him. 7 When Paul came in, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him. They brought many serious charges against him, but they could not prove them.

8 Then Paul made his defense: “I have done nothing wrong against the Jewish law or against the temple or against Caesar.”

9 Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there on these charges?”

10 Paul answered: “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. 11 If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!”

12 After Festus had conferred with his council, he declared: “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”



Dig Deeper
Every election cycle it happens. Some new aspiring politician decides to run for the office of their choice and they immediately begun thumping their chest over all of the reforms that they are going to bring to whichever governing body they are hoping to be voted into. They criticize the way things have been done in the past and promise all sorts of new hope and big changes that they are going to bring to the office for which they are running. And like clockwork people get very excited about this new hope and the new possibilities of what this new politician will do. Just as predictably as these new faces come out for every election cycle though, the vast majority of them that are elected come into office and find that they have just entered a hornet’s nest that they were simply not prepared for. They come in with fresh hope and big ideals but most of them get swallowed up by the same system that their predecessors did and the voters soon discover that the only thing that changed was the face of their representative and the only hope left is that maybe the next guy will be different.

What is true today was just as true in the Roman Empire. Granted, they didn’t have elections the way we do in the United States and many other parts of the world these days, but certain elements of politics are strikingly similar wherever you find humans running things, despite the form and function of government. A new governor would come into a region of the Roman Empire and hopes would raise that perhaps this guy would be better than the last, perhaps he’d be able to sort out all of the things that the last guy couldn’t. But then reality set in. The new guy rarely knew all of the ins and outs of the system like the last guy did and once he did learn them, a few mistakes later, he conformed to the pattern of the machine that had been in place just like the last guy.

In this case Felix was the last guy and Festus was the new governor that would preside over the region that included Jerusalem. After arriving in the province, Festus did what a smart new leader would do; He went around to meet and get acquainted with the local leaders in his area. If he was going to be a successful governor then he would have to be able to work with the Jewish leadership. Clearly Festus was eager to do this and set out for Jerusalem after just three days on the job. He certainly had many things on his plate as the new governor but going to Jerusalem for a brief visit was a priority.

It had been two years since the chief priests and Jewish leaders had the opportunity to make their case against Paul before Felix and Felix had stubbornly refused to rule one way or the other. It seems clear that Felix knew Paul wasn’t guilty of anything that he could rightly be punished for but he also knew the headaches that would come for him if released Paul. Two years had gone by, though, and we might think that the anger towards Paul would have abated during that time, but it obviously had not. Of all the things that the Jewish leadership could have brought before Festus on his first day in Jerusalem as governor it was the issue of Paul. They wanted another shot at him.

Those forty radicals that had taken the vow to kill Paul had surely eaten in the convening two years but they were still dead set on eliminating Paul, so the request to bring Paul back to Jerusalem to be tried before the Sanhedrin was little more than a rouse to make another attempt to ambush and kill him. Their hope was a bit desperate that Festus would fall for this, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Felix certainly didn’t bring them what they had wanted.

We don’t know what Paul’s thoughts on having a new governor were. Felix was clearly a coward that was comfortable with allowing Paul to languish away in prison, but he was a known commodity. He was well aware of the dangerous and cut throat political angles in Jerusalem and the Roman Empire as a whole and although he wouldn’t give Paul his freedom, he also was not going to fall for the tricks of the Jews and turn Paul over to them for a sham trial that would result in nothing but Paul’s death. That is, if they didn’t ambush him and kill him on the way. Festus, however, was unknown. What kind of governor would he be? Did he understand the complexities of first century Jerusalem? Did he know anything about the Way and the desire of the Jewish leadership to stamp it out using any means necessary. Did he understand that giving into the favors of the chief priests to have Paul brought to Jerusalem would indeed result in the unjust loss of Paul’s life.

Festus’ initial decision to refuse to have Paul brought to Jerusalem seems to have had more to do with his own convenience than with any particular savvy about the plots of the Jews to kill Paul. If they were so urgent to try this man then they could accompany him back to Caesarea and do it there. As they convened the case, the vitriol of those opposed to Paul had not abated one ounce since their last seeing him. They surrounded him and began shouting out charges in an intimidating manner. It appears, in fact, that during the two year interim they had had time to trump up several new charges against Paul. They were going to throw the kitchen sink at Paul, including the new charge that his activities did not just endanger the Jewish Law and Temple but also Caesar himself. Charging Paul with activities that went against their own way of life had not moved Felix much but perhaps sweetening the pot with a few charges of sedition against the Roman Empire would seal the deal with Festus.

The Jewish leadership could reel off all of the charges that they would like against Paul but even a new governor like Festus didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday and could see that they had no evidence to back up these trumped up charges. But, Festus was prey to the same political games that Felix was susceptible to. He was a little more interested in what benefited him politically than in strictly finding justice for Paul. If he could find favor with the chief priests and leadership by moving a trial of Paul to Jerusalem then maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Felix was wiling to play games but he knew the leaders in Jerusalem enough to know that they were quite willing to assassinate Paul or do whatever they had to to get their way with him. Festus was apparently a little more naive. His willingness to move Paul to Jerusalem made it clear that he was over his head and could be manipulated by Paul’s opponents. This left Paul with Little choice. His vocation was to go to Rome, the Spirit had confirmed that. He had hoped to go there of his own free will and strengthen the brothers and sisters there as well as proclaiming the gospel up and down the streets of the mighty city, but perhaps events were making clear that that would not be possible. God had another plan in mind.

If he agreed to go to Jerusalem for trial, even if it was Festus that was still running the show, he was likely signing his own death certificate and the place of death would be stamped “Jerusalem.” This was the moment when Paul’s prayers to go to Rome would intersect with the opportunity that God had laid before him. He would have to act and put his cards on the table. And at this point, the only other card that Paul had to play was his trump card that he had been saving for the most dire of circumstances. He would engage his right to appeal to Caesar which was an option that was available to Roman citizens but was not widely used because facing Caesar could be dangerous in and of itself, and there was absolutely no recourse if Caesar deemed him guilty. It is stunning and convicting at the same time that Paul was not worried about death. He believed in resurrection and put his faith in the God who was in control of his life or death situations. What concerned Paul was dying before he reached Rome. The option to appeal to the Emperor, then, made a lot of sense because it would remove him from the sham trial that would be run at the hands of the Jews and not only would he have the opportunity to declare the gospel in Rome, he would now be able to do it to the Emperor.

Paul was out of viable options but he kept his eye on what he firmly believed was God’s will for his life. The only way he saw that he could fulfill the Spirit’s will in his life and get to Rome was a risky venture indeed. Paul’s dogged commitment to the will of God in his life is inspiring and challenging. He was willing to do anything to carry out God’s will in his life and so as Festus put it “to Caesar you have appealed and to Caesar you will go.”


Devotional Thought
How committed are you to carrying out God’s will in your life and proclaiming the truth of his kingdom to others? Would you be willing to make a radical decision like Paul did when he appealed to Caesar in your commitment to God’s will in your life? Is God calling you to make a hard decision in your life in order to expand his glory?