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?