Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 23-25.

In today’s passage we have a contrast between Paul’s behavior and that of his enemies.  First, we have Ananias, the high priest ordering Paul to be struck, contrary to the Law of Moses, for saying he stood before the Sanhedrin with a good conscience. After this, some Jews conspired and took an oath before God to kill Paul.  Some members of the Sanhedrin conspired with them in order to bring Paul to where they could carry out their plan.  Later, some of the chief priests and elders requested that the Roman governor transfer Paul back to Jerusalem for trial because they had a plan to have him ambushed on the way to that trial.  Paul, when he was before the Sanhedrin and after being told that the man he called “a whitewashed wall”(almost certainly a reference to Ezekiel 13), apologized for speaking ill of the high priest.  Later, when he was tried before the Roman governors, Paul clearly defended himself as innocent of the charges brought against him by challenging his accusers to bring forth witnesses to support their accusations.  It is worth noting that Paul was basically accused of angering those who disagreed with him so much that they started riots.  So, we had a high priest ordering someone struck for declaring themselves innocent.  We had other people taking an oath to God to murder someone.  Then we had people who held themselves up as the arbiters of moral rectitude conspire to help those people murder Paul.  Let us follow Paul’s example, who modeled what Peter wrote about in his first letter.  “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 23-25.

The first thing I want to write about is when Paul apologizes for insulting the high priest by quoting Exodus 22:28, which says “Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.”  Although Paul quotes it as saying “Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.”  Which is something we need to remember when we believe that the rulers of our nation are in some way inadequate or bad.  It is definitely a reminder which I need.  The next thing which I wanted to write about was the 40 men who vowed to not eat or drink anything until they had killed Paul.  They never did kill Paul, so did they starve themselves to death?  Or, did they break their oath?  That is just a minor curiosity which struck me a few years ago, but that I never felt like writing about until now.  More significant is the fact that they conspired with the chief priests, which would have included the man about whom Paul said he should not have spoken evil, in their attempt to execute this plot.  Then later, after a new governor was appointed over Judea, the chief priests again attempted to arrange a chance to get Paul to where they could ambush and kill him.  Again, another group about whom Paul’s belief that he should not speak evil about the ruler of his people would apply.  So, if Paul apologized for speaking evil of the ruler of his people who was conspiring with people to kill him, I don’t think we have any room to justify speaking evil of our rulers today.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 23-25.

When I read this passage today, I was struck by the idea that a group of zealous Jews conspired with the chief priests and elders to ambush and kill Paul, while he was in Roman custody.  It struck me because Caiaphas, the high priest, justified having Jesus crucified out of fear that He would cause an uprising which would lead Rome to sack Jerusalem and destroy the Temple.  Yet now we have a powerful faction of the Sanhedrin conspiring with a plan to attack a unit of Roman soldiers in order to kill Paul (which would have sparked a more violent Roman response than anything Jesus had done).  These thoughts led me to re-examine my understanding that the Zealots ( a party of religious Jews who actively sought, and eventually succeeded, to foment rebellion among the Jews against Rome) were completely in opposition to the Sanhedrin.  From reading this passage, it seems to me that there existed a group of Jews who used violence to advance their religious, and most likely political, goals which connected with at least one faction of the Sanhedrin.  As I spent a little time researching this, I came across a theory which holds that Saul was a member of such a group up until his conversion.  That theory would go a long way towards explaining why he so rapidly and frequently faced violent opposition from Jewish groups wherever he went.

I want to make the point that the association between the Sanhedrin and the violent insurrectionists indicates a level of hypocrisy which we must work hard to avoid in ourselves and enabling in others.  Further, the conspiracy indicates that Christianity was perceived a s a threat both by those who sought to accommodate Roman rule and by those who sought its violent overthrow.  In fact, both perceived Christianity as so much of a threat that they allied with those whose goals appeared on the surface to be diametrically opposed.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 23-25.

In each of the three hearings Paul was in in today’s passage (before the Sanhedrin, before the Roman governor Felix, and before the Roman governor Festus) he revealed an understanding of the court before which he stood.  When he was before the Sanhedrin he pointed out that the high priest had violated Jewish law by ordering him struck before the trial began, and then used their division over the issue of resurrection of the dead to force the Roman commander to remove him.  When Paul was tried before Felix, he demonstrated a clear understanding of Roman rules of evidence and provided a better argument for his innocence than the Sanhedrin’s lawyer did for his guilt.  When Festus tried to force Paul to accept trial before the Sanhedrin, Paul appealed to Caesar in order to take that off of the table. In doing this, Paul gave us an example of following Jesus’ teaching from Matthew “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”   In a similar fashion, we should be prepared to hold those who oppose the Gospel to the rules by which they claim to live.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 23-25.

I want to focus on something that the Roman commander of the Jerusalem garrison wrote in his letter to the governor when he sent Paul to the governor in Caesarea: “there was no charge against him which deserved death or imprisonment.”  So, the commander found no basis for imprisoning Paul, yet he sent him as a prisoner to the governor in Caesarea.  There the governor, Felix, had the Jewish leaders come down and make their case against Paul.  Felix found no basis for condemning Paul, but kept him as a prisoner anyway.  When Festus succeeded Felix as governor, he held a hearing on the charges against Paul.  Festus also found no basis in the law for keeping Paul a prisoner, but ruled in a manner which led Paul to believe he had no choice but to appeal to the emperor.  So, we must ask, since none of these men found a legal basis for Paul to be imprisoned, why did they keep him imprisoned?

The commander of the Jerusalem garrison would have claimed that he did so to protect Paul from those plotting to kill him.  Yet, he did not need to send him to Caesarea as a prisoner in order to protect him.   Luke tells us that Felix was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, but Luke also tells us that he wanted to do the Jews a favor when he left the office of governor, so he did not release Paul.  Festus found no basis  in law for keeping Paul a prisoner, but he wanted Paul to go to Jerusalem to face charges.  However, all three men had one thing in common, they feared that if they released Paul that there would be riots in Jerusalem (and perhaps elsewhere).  So, rather than do what they believed was what the law called for and release Paul, they kept him imprisoned.  The Sanhedrin used the threat of riots to manipulate the Roman authorities into punishing those they found inconvenient.  It is not actually accurate to say it was the Sanhedrin which did this.  As we read between the lines in the Gospels and the Book of Acts we see that it was a select group of the most powerful members of the Sanhedrin, including the high priest.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 23-25

When Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin by the Roman commander, he called the high priest a hypocrite without realizing he was the high priest.  When someone pointed out to him that fact (that the man he called a hypocrite was the high priest), Paul apologized and quoted Exodus 22:28 in a way that we should all remember. Paul quoted that passage as saying that we should never speak evil of our rulers.  This is a challenging command to follow.  It is worth noting that Paul says similar things in his letters, which tells us that this does not just apply to the Jewish high priest. So, let us strive, especially in difficult times, to obey this command and refrain from speaking evil, or, as the passage in Exodus says, cursing our rulers.

Later in the passage, when Paul was before the Roman governor, I find a connection to current affairs in the charges which Tertullus made against Paul.  First, he accused Paul of stirring up riots among Jews all over the world.  In some ways this was true, but it was never Paul who encouraged people to riot.  It was always those who opposed what he had to say.  In the same way today we often see people being accused of stirring up violence because those who wish to silence them riot wherever they speak.  The more important accusation which Tertullus brought against Paul was that he was trying to desecrate the Temple when he was arrested.  I am sure that Tertullus, and those with him, believed this to be true.  It was what the Jews from Asia who stirred up the mod against Paul had alleged.  Again, based on what Luke writes, I am quite sure that they thought this to be the case when they stirred up the mob.  Again it reminds me of some violence which happened earlier this year, where the attackers believed that their victim had published writings on neo-Nazi blogs.  They were mistaken, just as these Jews from Asia were mistaken.  The lesson here for us is that we should be sure of the facts before we make accusations, and before we believe accusations made by others.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 23-25

Paul’s appearance before the Jewish high council illustrates an interesting fact.  On a purely logical analysis of their beliefs, the Pharisees disagreed to a greater extent with the Sadducees than they did with Paul and the Christians.  Paul took advantage of this divide to prevent the high council from adopting a charge against him which might carry weight with the Romans.   It is worth looking at this divide.  The Pharisees believed  in the supernatural, the Sadducees did not.  We see such alliances between conflicting ideologies today, where people work with people whose worldview is in complete contradiction to their own to attack others who they perceive as a greater threat.  We should be prepared to point out the  conflicts in these alliances and be aware when we are entering into such agreements.  

We see the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders in those who plotted to kill Paul.  Our focus should be on avoiding the same hypocrisy (and not necessarily letting ourselves off the hook because we will not go as far as murder).  Are we willing to compromise our professed values in order to silence those with whom we disagree?  Do we proclaim to believe in honesty, but then lie to win the argument?  I will not go on, I think you get the point.