Paul is confronted by Felix, the Roman governor in Caesarea.  Is Paul truly the rabble-rouser the Jews make him out to be?  That is a serious charge in peaceful Rome.  In response, Paul confesses the following:

It is true that I do worship the God of my ancestors according to the Way which they call a “sect.”  I believe everything which is written in the law and the prophets, and I hold to the hope in God, for which they also long, that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. (24:14-15)

What strikes me here (and in almost every other public address either Peter or Paul gave in Acts) is that resurrection is so foundational to the belief-system of the apostles.  Key to the gospel is resurrection from the dead.  This is mentioned again later in the chapter at 24:21.

I wonder if resurrection is that fundamental to our ways of thinking and talking today.  I more often hear forgiveness from the guilt of sin mentioned in our gospel language.  That is okay.  Of course, forgiveness is important as well, and it was a part of the gospel sermons in Acts too (c.f., Acts 2:38).  But not as often as resurrection.  If we have downplayed resurrection in favor of forgiveness of guilt from sins, what are we missing?  And why have we made this switch?  What does this reveal about us?

Paul is a wanted man.  Leave him alone in Jerusalem for 15 minutes and he is dead.  He is sitting in a Roman jail under suspicions of disturbing the peace.  Rome deals swiftly and decisively with people who upset the Pax Romana.  In Felix, he is talking to a man who more so wants a bribe than the truth, and Paul has no intentions of paying up.  He is headed to Rome, where Caesar’s word is truth, and Caesar has no reason to preserve Paul’s life.

How can Paul maintain such boldness and calm?  Paul has already told us:

I hold to the hope in God . . . that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. (24:15)

What do you think about this?

Paul is born in Tarsus in Cilicia making him a Roman citizen.  He is born a Jew, and it clear from today’s passage that it is this Jewish heritage that mattered most to Paul’s family.  These were Pharisees, apparently a long line of them (23:6).  Paul’s father will go to the expense and trouble to get him to Jerusalem to train under Gamaliel the Pharisee (22:3).  This is a good education.  By all of his own accounts scattered throughout Acts and his letters, it is this Jewish background that Paul gloried in.

And yet in today’s reading it is Paul’s Roman citizenship that makes all the difference between life and death.  The Jews are ready to tear him “in pieces” (23:10).  A gang of Jewish extremists have pledged not to eat or drink until they kill Paul (23:12).  An assassination plot is hatched (23:15).  But leave it to the Jews and Paul is as good as dead.

Ancient Roman Citizenship Diploma

It is because of his Roman citizenship that the Roman tribune is involved at this point.  The tribune’s greatest desire is simply to preserve peace, but he ends up protecting Paul nonetheless.  The tribune’s palace guard whisks Paul out of the fomenting Sanhedrin.  The Roman respect for law ensures Paul a fair trial.  An army of two hundred foot soldiers and seventy horsemen escort Paul out of Jerusalem and off to a Caesarean prison, and safety as well.  Ultimately, it is Paul’s Roman citizenship that will bring him to Rome so he can give his “testimony about [Jesus] in . . . Rome” (23:11).  Bottomline:

When I [the tribune] learned that he was a Roman citizen I went with the guard and rescued him. (23:27)

Where one is born is not nearly as important as what one does once one is born.  And yet Paul’s place of birth is what rescues him at this moment.

What seemingly insignificant detail from your life has turned out to have made a world of difference?

†

Christians are called to live in this world, yet not become a part of the world.  That is a hard balancing act.

Twice in today’s reading, we see Paul tell people he is, or at least once was, just like them (22:3-5, 19-20, 25).

Paul disputing with Jews and Greeks (mid-12th century)

A murderous mob of Jews has descended on Paul at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Some have heard he has defiled their sacred space with a unclean Gentile.  Others just hate this traitor and want to see him gone.  Either way they are ready to rip him limb from limb.  Had it not been for the intervention of the low-level Roman tribune, they would have had their way.  Paul uses the opportunity to address his accusers.  The gist of his remarks are that he once was just like them.  A Jew.  A well-trained one.  A law-respecting one.  He too once persecuted Christians.  He gets where they are coming from.  He once was just like them.

As the chapter continues, the tribune himself orders that Paul be flogged so as to expedite his interrogations.  Paul is quick to assert is rights.  He is a Roman citizen from birth.  He is entitled to a trial.  Again, though, we see Paul saying essentially, “I am just like you.”

And yet now Paul is different.  He has discovered there is something more important to God than law.  He has learned that the Messiah has come in the form of Jesus.  He is a Roman, but his ultimate allegiance is to a different Lord than Caesar.

I once was just like you.  Now you can become one like me.

Some will like that message because it brings hope and purpose.  For other it will only be scandalous and the heat will be turned up.

What struck you anew in this chapter?  

For instance, just in today’s reading alone, we are approaching the end of Acts and Paul is in the Temple doing an act of “purification.”  Unbelieving Jews have charges trumped-up against him.  A mob demands that Paul be killed.  Yesterday we saw Paul in a “Gethsemane moment” of solitude and a “last supper” with dear disciples in Ephesus.  Next, we will see a series of Jewish and Romans trials that are anything but conclusive.  I have never noticed this parallelism before.

Maybe the point is that Jesus’ followers will be exactly that: followers.  They will share the experiences of Jesus.

Have you noticed this?  In what details?  

Interestingly, in this passage Paul isn’t as enthusiastic about his trip to Jerusalem.  Nor was Jesus in Luke’s first volume (Luke 9:51).  Both had to set their faces resolutely towards the city of David.  Jerusalem meant death.  Jerusalem is the place of loss and separation, in this context.

This is likely why Paul seems more melancholy and introspective in today’s reading.  By the middle of the chapter Paul is in Troas on his way to Ephesus on his way to Jerusalem.  The rest of his party sails from Troas to Assos but Paul, who usually surrounded himself with traveling companions, walks the 25-mile journey to Assos alone instead.  In Ephesus, Paul gathers the elders of the church together to encourage them to watch out for “fierce wolves” in sheep’s clothing and to stay strong in Christ (20:29-31).  Paul knows he is “bound by the spirit” to go to Jerusalem (20:22).  Twice he tells the Ephesian elders they will not “see my face again” (20:25, 38).  Paul’s phrase “after I am gone” (20:29) has a foreboding tone of finality.

These are last words.  The kind of things Jesus said to his apostles in John 13-17 just before he died.  The kind of things you say just before “going to Jerusalem.”

Yet, both Jesus and Paul went.  It was their mission, and they knew it.

What stood out to you?

Today’s chapter is filled with power.

God performed unusual works of power through Paul’s hands. (19:11)

So the word grew and was strong, in accordance with the Lord’s power. (19:20)

Paul walks into Ephesus with incredible power.  Disease and evil spirits flee from Paul whose very skin exudes power (19:20).  An evil spirit, “too strong” and “overpowering” for the seven sons of Sceva, the Jewish high priest, submissively acknowledges Paul’s power through Jesus (19:15-16).  The name of Jesus grows in “prestige” and “power” in Ephesus (19:17, 20).

This emphasis on power is no accident.  This is Ephesus, after all.  Power was everything in Ephesus.

Ephesus was the most important city in Asia Minor at the time.  Though the city was a part of the Roman Empire, they had been granted the right of self-government so long as they maintained the rule of law and a general state of peace in the city (read that into the end of the chapter).  All roads converged in Ephesus, making it a center of commerce.  They had a major stadium and theatre.  Most every street had a major temple to some pagan god or the Caesars.  Ephesus was the home to the temple of the fertility goddess Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  Altogether, Ephesus had the power of empire, trade, law, culture, and the womb.  This was an ancient New York, London, or Toronto.  Power in every kind, everywhere you went.

But now, with the gospel’s arrival with Paul, there was a new power in town.

What did you notice today?

Everybody’s working for the weekend/everybody wants a little romance/everbody’s goin’ off the deep end/everybody needs a second chance. 

Remember those lyrics from the ’80s Canadian rock group Loverboy?  Are we going through the week working for the weekend?

Actually, I think Paul was, at least when he was in Corinth.

Paul comes to Corinth and meets up with Aquila and Priscilla, two tentmakers from Rome. Paul quickly takes up with them because this is his trade too.  Paul spends eighteen months in Corinth (18:11) and it appears he supported himself (along with some support from the Thessalonians) during that time making tents.

Then on “every sabbath” Paul would go to the synagogue to share with “great energy” the gospel that “the messiah really was Jesus” (18:4-5).  Paul strikes me as the kind of person who is always talking about Jesus no matter where he is, but it seems that for the better part of a year and a half Paul did most of his ministry on the weekend.  Paul did the best he could and he worked hard at ministry with the time he had.

What struck me today is that Paul didn’t feel bad about the tent-making work he had to do the other six days in order to make his sabbath ministry possible.  Maybe sometimes we feel like our jobs take away from the time we could spend doing ministry in a world that needs Jesus.  Interestingly, Paul himself didn’t feel that way.

In 2 Corinthians 11:7-9, a snippet from a letter written to the very church we are reading about in this section, Paul talks about how his tent-making work was part of his mission, not separate from it.  It didn’t subtract from his ministry, it enabled it.  Therefore, he was working as hard for the Kingdom each day when he made tents as he did on the Sabbaths sharing the gospel.

This might give us an even greater appreciation for the work God has blessed us with, regardless of occupation.

What did you see anew in this chapter? 

These are the people who are turning the world upside down! (17:6)

What an incredible thing to have people say about you, especially as Christians, especially knowing that upside down is really right side up!  What do such people talk about along their revolutionary way?

They’re saying that there is another king, Jesus! (17:7)

The kingship of Jesus was foundational to the message of the gospel from its beginning.  If you want to shake up a society, preach that Jesus is King.

This was Philippi, the main city in a highly patriotic Greco-Roman colony.  Many of the residents in Macedonia were former members of the military.  The city Philippi and the region Macedonia were named after Philip of Macedon, the father of Greek conqueror Alexander the Great.  There is only one king in this city: Caesar.  He is Lord and King, and to suggest otherwise is seditious.

Later in this chapter we see the same thing happening in Athens.  Paul walks into this thoroughly, conscientiously idolatrous city and says to the Athenians: your religiosity is “ignorance” (17:23).  There is an invisible God over all of these idols, from whom all life comes.  This God had even conquered death through a man named Jesus (17:31).  The intelligentsia of Athens heard this message and called it “ridiculous” (17:32).

I am not sure we have perfect equivalents to this.  Maybe it is like walking into the Republican Convention with a “Jesus for President” sign.  Better yet, it is like Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the day of Prince William’s coronation turning crown in hand to the front altar of Westminster Abbey and saying Jesus is the only real king.  It is telling Bill Gates that Jesus is the real CEO of this company.  It is telling Stephen Hawking, because of our King Jesus whom he rejects, we understand truth better than he.  It is telling the licentious celebrity culture of Hollywood and the materialistic advertisers of Madison Avenue that we can find greater fulfillment in a man named Jesus.  Seditious, ridiculous.

Actually, much more personally, it is like saying to our own hearts “there is another king, Jesus.  You won’t get your own way.  Your agendas and orders are not the final word here.  There is a better answer than following your own desires.  You are not the center of the universe.

Yeah, that’ll turn our worlds upside down.

What stood out to you in this chapter?  

♥

I have always been drawn to the following passage:

They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, since the holy spirit had forbidden them to speak the word in the province of Asia.  When they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus didn’t allow them to do so. . . . Then a vision appeared to Paul in the night . . . When he saw the vision, at once we set about finding a way across to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the good news to them. (16:6-10)

I am convinced spiritual discernment is a huge topic I have neglected.  I think that is because I come to passages like this one and I leave confused.  I just can’t see my way forward into the topic.

How do we know the will of the Spirit?  How did Paul know the Spirit had forbidden them from going into Asia and Bithynia?  Was it that sixth-sense “knowing” that many of us feel at times, or was it something more?  Was this knowledge from a prophecy he had received?  The Macedonian Call came through a vision; was that how he discerned the stops on his journey?  Then we come to the word “concluding” in verse 10 and it seems some level of reason and deliberation was involved, but to what degree?

Some are sure that every whim and fancy is a message from God.  Others say God gave us a brain and expects us to use it, and the implication often is to use it to the exclusion of all other options.  I am convinced the way forward is somewhere between these extremes, as we see in this passage.  I would like to learn and experience more on this topic.

Do you have wisdom on this matter you can share?