Acts, 23:1-35
Vern Peterman · Aug 7, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 31
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826233041336

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Let's see, a couple of things here. Acts 23, 1-35, we'll be taking a look at that. Question number one there, and remember the situation was, here's Paul, and he is swept off to Caesarea before the Jews can take him out. That was their plan. It was thwarted because Paul's sister's son, his nephew, had come in and warned Paul, and Paul said, tell the commander. And so he told the commander and got word to the commander. 470 soldiers took Paul to Caesarea. And we talked about, you know, at first that might sound like a bit much, but the Romans were plenty willing to be heavy-handed with things, and if overkill was doable, they didn't mind at all.

So, alright, so the questions we came up with here, Paul had come to it before the Sanhedrin and He could have just sort of presented the case, but what he says is I come before you today because I Believe in the resurrection and of course he knew very well that that was a divide by resurrection strategy having been a longtime Pharisee and and having been amongst the Sadducees and Pharisees and Was it an ethically valid move on his part, knowing that it would be divisive?

Was it true? When it was all done, what did the Lord think of it? So, anybody give some thought to that one? Was it okay for Paul to come in, and knowing full well this is going to be like slapping mercury, was it okay for him to come in and say that? Was that right? Since it was true, it was okay. That's Art's response. Does everybody agree with him? Disagree? Thoughts on that? Yeah, Tom?

Yes, Christ University. The Lord Himself taught it. Matter of fact, if you want to read up on that, 1 Corinthians 15. Okay? And He had just written it. 1 Corinthians 15 will give you an introduction to that. the resurrected Christ. Here Paul is saying, you know, I have been out on now three missionary journeys, and what's he been telling people? Christ, the promised one, and by the way, the Sadducees didn't believe in the Messiah, only the Pharisees did. Christ, the promised one, has been crucified and buried and resurrected. And, of course, that whole message was something the Sadducees just had no appetite for at all.

So what he declared was true. It was the right thing to declare. I would have to say it was also strategic. But it was still true. Now, why was it right for him to say that even though it was divisive? Yes. Yes, it was fine for him to say it because it was true And it would hit right on the hit the nail on the head and where the Sadducees were off the mark Thank you for bringing that up because Jesus remember Jesus Talked to the Sadducees they came up to him and gave him this little you know word puzzle to have him try to figure out Because they didn't believe in the resurrection So what did Jesus do because the Sadducees only believe in the first five books of the Bible? And the first five books of Moses, so what does he do? He quotes from those books to prove them wrong. He says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, present tense, and therefore you are very wrong.

And it shut him up. It shut him down. Isn't that strange? We use the up and down the same way almost. They were just shut out. So thank you for bringing that up. It is a profound doctrinal difference and a huge error. Can you imagine how hopeless it is if what we do here on planet earth is it? When you're breathing your last breath, you're through doing anything useful. You're done. Instead of the hope that Paul was teaching, and that is, hey folks, this is just the beginning. That's a vast difference.

Yeah, Tom? Question 2. If Paul had been killed on the way to Caesarea, would that have been a biblical problem? Why or why not? What would we have or not have in the New Testament? And would it make any doctrinal difference? Think about that. What if Paul had been killed on the way to Caesarea as the Jews would like to have done? What difference would... What are the problems with that? What would we have that's different?

Can you think about that? Yes? I think it's good to remember that what Paul said in Scripture, what James said, isn't their ideas or their doctrines. Okay. Yeah. Okay, God would have got it through another way Yes, that's that's what what the Lord intended to reveal would not have been thwarted. Yeah, good point All right. Let's say that it had taken place.

We would not have had which one of Paul's letters Anybody got any guesses at that? Which ones of Paul's letters would not have been written had he been killed on the way to Caesarea? Pardon? Yeah, the Ephesians and Colossians that we're studying, Philippians, those books would not be. Philemon would be another one. The latter books to Timothy. None of those books would we have. So those are the books.

Now, had Jesus Christ just appeared to him and told him, you'll go to Rome, right? And so that would be a thwarting of that kind of promise to Paul, right? So basically the Lord has promised to Paul, you're going to get there, but it doesn't mean it isn't going to happen without some troubles, but you'll get there. One of the other things is that the Lord had really positive things to say to Paul. There are a number of folks who question the wisdom of Paul's move towards Jerusalem and obviously subsequently being forcibly taken to Rome. But when the Lord appears to Paul, none of that seems to come up. He seems to have supported Paul's testimony in coming to Jerusalem.

So that's a key point. And so as you look at this, what was happening, as difficult as it was, appears still to be what the Lord has designed. Now, question three. The Lord did not tell Paul the specifics, but gave him a quick outline of what was to follow in the time to come. This is the Lord's appearing to Paul, right? The next couple of years or so. Why was this valuable? Yes. Ah, yes. He told him he would be alive. He didn't say, you're going to have no problem. Everything's a smooth highway from here on out, right? But he told him he would be alive and he would continue on. This isn't going to be the time when you're taken out. You will get to Rome.

So he lays it out. What we have recorded for us is brief. The Lord may have said more. This is what Luke has recorded for our benefit by the Lord's inspiration. But we have that much that here he's told you're going to get here. Now think about this for a minute. Put yourself in Paul's shoes. Was Paul ever prone to be discouraged or confused? I mean, we're talking to the Apostle Paul here.

Does that happen to him? Could it be that that takes place? Yes? No? Yeah. Yes, Tom? As you look at these various passages, and including various passages of scripture, there are places where Paul makes it clear there are times when things are confusing. There are times when he's scratching his head trying to figure out what's happening.

What's interesting here is the Lord saw fit to appear to him directly and to lay out at least that much. that just in the same way you've testified here in Jerusalem, you will testify in Rome. That the Lord may not have spelled out every detail, but the Lord gave him some specific direction.

And I think we'll find that in our own lives. The Lord will pick moments to encourage us. The Lord will pick moments and times to give us pivotal direction. The Lord will pick certain moments. We may be feeling like, I hope you don't mind my using you as an example, the Lord may have brought Ruth to a place where she was saying, heaven sakes, how am I going to live through this? Am I supposed to live through another year of teaching where I'm at? And at this moment, then the Lord comes and says, you don't know it, but I'm about to turn a corner here. And the Lord may indeed put us in situations like that, where it looks pretty confusing.

And He chooses the times when He says, okay, but you need to know this, and I will bring you this encouragement. I will bring you this pivotal direction. You ever had those times where the Lord gave you that necessary encouragement in that direction? And at those times, those are very welcome moments, because that the fog starts to clear some. The dark clouds are not quite so dark.

And we see that here in Paul's life. Paul, I mean, when he lists to the Corinthians, you know, I've been shipwrecked and stoned and left for dead and beaten and all these other things. And so he has lots of things that come at him. And yet here's Paul, the one who's been through all kinds of stuff, and we have the Lord appearing to him at this pivotal moment saying, You know, I want to give you some clarity.

I want to give you some encouragement. I want to give you some direction. Things are going to happen here and some of it's going to be tough to handle, but you can depend on where I'm sending you and what I've sent you to do. You can count on that. And so here even Paul was able to take from the Lord this moment of encouragement, this moment of direction. And I think that's valuable for us to look at, too. That the Lord, at the right time, will do those things in our own lives. He will give us the kind of encouragement and direction that we need at the moment that He sees fit.

It was also, if you look at the time that the Lord showed up in his life, you might have thought, well, why not some other time when He's got a little more time? Why pack it in? Because after all, he spent two years in Caesarea, right? Why not wait till then or do it a little bit earlier when he's not so busy?

The Lord may indeed bring direction to us or encouragement at a moment where a lot of things are going on, too. That could happen as well, right? So I think that's valuable for us to look at, look at Paul's life and recognize that, boy, this is a day when a lot of stuff's happening, and yet the Lord says, Now this is the right time to pack this in, because it's the right thing to do for Paul at this moment in time.

And imagine as Paul's traveling with all these soldiers, and knowing full well that some Jews have promised not to eat or sleep until they've done them in. That can be a very valuable moment to know that the Lord says, no, you'll get to Rome, don't worry about it.

Let's look at something on the overheads here. And one of the things we're going to look at here is you've got Felix as the governor. Remember, Claudius Lysias, the commander, sent Paul off to Caesarea. And it was to have him appear before Felix. the governor, procurator is one of the more technical terms, and he's going to appear before him, and so as he's sending him off, one of the things that comes up early in this, I'll call it a preliminary hearing, the Jews hired Tertullus, and that's what we're seeing in chapter 24, the Jews hired Tertullus, who was a Roman governor, a rhetor is the term that they would use, we have our term rhetoric, a rhetor who would be an expert in law and court procedure. And this rhetor, Tertullus, would make reference to Paul being a real troublemaker, a real problem. Matter of fact, he even calls him a term we'll take a closer look at. He calls him a plague, a pestilence. How about that? Pretty potent. Let's look at it here.

The tensions between the Jews and Gentiles were often severe. And we'll take a look shortly at a kind of a history of that. The Jews had groups which directed strategic covert attacks towards the Romans. We talked about these earlier. These are called the Sicarii. They're mentioned in Acts. I think it's chapter 21. Anyway, this group were known, otherwise it's translated as assassins. These guys are like the Jewish terrorists.

They came up during the governorship Felix this guy that we're about to take a look at Felix was the guy that stirred the Jews so much because his reactions to Jewish rebellion was so severe so ruthless That the Jews got stirred up even more in an attempt to suppress it and say I'm going to put it down but good He actually stirred it up all the more because of the severity that he came through with so Anyway, this Felix guy that we'll be reading about here, he is the guy that stirred up what eventually became a total Jewish rebellion that was ultimately responsible for the destruction of the Temple. Okay, let's take a look here.

The Jews received special exemptions from some Roman laws. Can you think of what would some of those exemptions be that the Jews had? Tom? Ah, yes, the Jews were exempted from emperor worship. They did not, like all the rest of the people in the empire, have to go and do, you know, bowing down to the emperor as if the emperor was a god. The Jews got a special exemption for that.

What do you think the rest of the people thought about the Jews getting special exemptions? Got them jealous? Ticked off? They didn't like this at all. Why do you get some special exemption? If we don't do it, we get killed. So why do you get some special exemption? Oh, I'm a Jew. Just made them mad. Now, what else would the Jews get exemptions for? Well, yeah, that would be a part of it, but the holidays were not a mandatory thing.

Think through this. Roman soldiers. What do Roman soldiers get fed? Gentile food, right? Not kosher. And so, in order to avoid the whole problem of the Jews saying, well, I can't eat that. The Jews saying, you know, hey, I know you said we have to march, but it's sundown Friday afternoon and it's my Sabbath, I've got to stop. That whole thing just didn't work.

So the Jews were exempted from duty in the Roman military. So they got a Roman military exemption. They got exemption from having to do the worship of the emperor. And so the Jews got special privileges and the Gentiles were resentful of that. Why do these guys get special privileges? We might have whatever sort of objections or pangs of conscience about something and it doesn't make a lick of difference. So you'd have differences from circumcision, clothing, personal hygiene, language, food, and religion.

You can imagine you go to the marketplace And they've got all kinds of food out there. The Jews come to the marketplace. They say, I'm sorry, I can't buy your food. That meat's OK, but you touched it to that pig meat over here. I can't have that. You're along the seacoast here, and we don't mind buying your fish at all, but that might have been next to the crab or the shellfish. You can't have that. So I'm sorry, we can't buy your food. Your clothing. Boy, that's a really nice looking toga there. Did you mix the fibers? Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't buy it.

Ah You see that what goes on one thing to the next? It's it's aggravating to work with these people Okay, it's exasperating. You know, I can't I can't figure out what you know What can I do to sell the things of these people because they got all these rules things they can't do they can't buy my stuff You know, they can't go to the temples with me They can't participate in the parades that we've got, to the God of wine. All these things, you know, these people are just downright difficult. So, you can see how it would be tough.

Each group had nicknames for the other. We saw in Philippians, There were two names for dogs in the Greek. One was the pet dog and the other was these wild mangy pack dogs that would run around scavenging stuff. The Jews called the Gentiles that pack dog name, Kuan. So they had nasty names for each other. Each of them had names that they'd call each other and they didn't mind using them.

Here is the area primarily where the Jews were distributed within the Roman Empire and to the east. Oh, one point we made before, at least two-thirds of the Jews alive during the New Testament era lived outside of Israel. So a good many of them were living in Gentile lands. So that's something else to keep in mind. Okay, here's the kind of map we've used in the past of the Roman Empire.

The green areas are the ones that were in the Roman Empire by the time of Augustus, the emperor. That was the emperor when Jesus was born and into Jesus' childhood. Remember when Jesus was at the temple, about age 12, Augustus was towards the end of his reign as emperor, about then. Now, 38 AD, okay, this is Roughly half dozen years after Jesus had been resurrected and ascended, 38 AD, the Jews were slaughtered and persecuted with Roman approval.

They went to the amphitheater and the governor just sort of winked and looked to the side while they took the Jews out into the amphitheater for no cause at all other than these people are irritating and slaughtered and was bloody. It was a mess. And the governor just sort of grinned. So the record holds it. 41 AD, Alexandria.

The Jews are accused by a letter from Claudius of stirring up a universal plague throughout the world. I bring that point up and quote it because look real carefully at how Tertullus describes Paul. He uses an almost identical phrase and he uses the exact same word, plague. He says, and it's sometimes translated a pest, or a pestilence, but it's the same word, lemos. He used the same word to describe the Jews.

So what Tertullus was doing was repeating the words of the emperor from the decade before. Now, here's 49 AD. This is about a decade roughly before Paul is appearing here before Felix. The Jews were expelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius. That was recorded for us in Acts 18.2. Here is a quote from Suetonius, the Roman historian. It says, because the Jewish people were continually causing disorders, the catalyst being Crestus, I'll remark about that in a minute, he, Claudius, expelled them from Rome.

Some historians believe that Suetonius wasn't aware of who Christ was and didn't get it straight, that he may be referring to, this is the response to the to Jesus Christ being given this gospel among the Jews and that the Jews were causing a lot of trouble as they did places where the gospel was brought. So it is not an absolute established fact, but a number of historians strongly suspect that this is actually a reference to Christ and the gospel being brought among the Jews and then having trouble just like we saw in a lot of the cities where Paul went and brought the gospel. So, interesting connection, but it does a couple things. One, it tells us if this is indeed a reference to Christ, by mistake misspelled a little bit, if that's indeed a reference to Christ, then it is the first Roman reference to Christianity that we have a record of.

Secondly, it also reinforces the fact that the Jews were just thought of as troublemaking people, and this was just sort of an official act to recognize the trouble. 49 AD. See, here's 49 AD here. 49 AD, Achaia. The Jews were driven off after making accusations against Paul. That's in Acts 18. So more Jewish trouble about the same year, same chapter of Acts. In a different place. And 52. Now, 52 is just a few years later, right? After 49.

This is where there's the riot in Ephesus. You know, initially it was about Paul's message when Jews came up to speak, they'd, he's a Jew, we're not going to listen to him. And it turned into mayhem. And that's, this was the one that the city clerk had to come and kind of settle down after they were screaming great as Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours.

All right. So these, these Jews were again at the center of trouble and there was a rejection of Jews from it. This is the chapter right immediately after chapter 18, where we had a couple of Jewish disruptions, if you will. Romans were defeated in Jerusalem in 70 AD. That whole thing started, let me give the quick sequence.

Here's Felix, the guy who we're reading about here. Felix from 52 to 59 was the governor. His severe and ruthless suppression of smaller Jewish uprisings stirred Jews who otherwise would have been fairly calm and moderate into violent upheaval. So Felix's hard suppression stirred it up.

This event here started by 66 AD. The Jews were in outright rebellion against the Romans. This Antonia Fortress that we've been hearing about, the Jews rushed the fortress and overwhelmed the thousand Romans that were there. And wiped them out. It took four years for the Romans to finally squelch the whole rebellion. They brought in 12 legions of Roman soldiers from as far away as Britain in order to suppress it. So an intense reaction finally suppressed with the end result being, here's the temple and they show it burning. Here's the temple we've been looking at here throughout the Book of Acts.

This is an area where some of the rubble was dumped off. What they've done is left some of the rubble and some of the others that's been cleaned up. You can see by dumping the rubble, it even kind of depressed the soil and kind of a sidewalk area underneath there.

But this is where the Romans, you know, in the temple, Jesus told them, not one stone is going to be left upon another. They took the temple because it had burned. And to get at the gold, the soldiers pried all the stones apart, took it, and just shoved the whole thing off the edge. And that's where it was shoved. That's where you see it, piled up. And they've gone through that and dug into it.

This was one of two signs, and we've talked about this. Remember, why did Paul get into trouble here at the temple? What was the problem? What was the accusation, anyway? Yes, they had seen Paul with Trophimus the day before, and so they somehow assumed that he had taken Trophimus, the Greek, the Gentile, into the inner temple.

There were at least three of these signs, and two of them have been found, at least three of these signs in the entrance areas saying, as you see, here let me put it down there, If you go past this, you've got yourself to blame. And it's not written here, but any Jew that assists you or accompanies you in doing so is also subject to death penalty. So that's where Paul got into trouble.

And that's to kind of give us the right background for this story. Okay, let's take a look here. Let's grab your handout. And there are two parts. One, I gave you another copy of this Herod family. This is the Herod family tree and it is simplified. The Herod family tree, it looks fairly complex here. I'll warn you that the Herod family tree, this is a simplified version in spite of the complexity. There was so much intermarrying and that kind of thing within the Herod family. It's one of those I'm my own grandpa kind of deals. It was a mess. It really was a mess. And people would get married two or three times and switch around between marrying aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers, and it was just nuts. But anyway, this is to help clarify somewhatly the situation.

I've taken the passages in Acts, which is Herod Agrippa I, and then three of his offspring show up here at the end of Acts. And Drusilla is the one who crops up here in this passage. We'll see in the next couple of chapters Herod Agrippa II and Bernice. are also part of the group there, and oddly enough, also inherit a group of the second, Bernice, husband and wife. So anyway, real complicated, but anyway, that's to help straighten it out.

Okay, here's the deal. So Paul, as we saw the last chapter, chapter 23, Paul is sent off by night courier, if you will, to Caesarea. He lands there, Felix takes a look at the kind of letter of transmittal for Paul from Claudius Lysias, takes a look at it and says, OK, well, we'll set up for a preliminary hearing. And that's how he does it.

He has Paul staying there at what's called Herod's Praetorium. This is Herod the Great, the guy who's at the top of your chart there. Herod the Great had built Caesarea. It was previously called Strabo's Tower. He had built it into a major Roman port. He had this praetorium or palace that was there. And of course, they'd have other rooms associated with it. So Paul wasn't necessarily living in luxury, but it was in a room that was built onto there. Now, so here it opens up and you have this Roman retor, tertullus.

And real interesting. First, let's take a look at Felix. Felix is very, and I put it in the write-up here, a very interesting character. You know what I mean by interesting. I could probably use other terms and it would be just fine. But anyway, here's this guy.

He had been the slave, along with his brother, of the mother of Claudius, Emperor Claudius. We've mentioned Claudius a few times already here. Claudius' mother, Antonia, had two slaves and Felix was one of them and his brother Paulus was the other one they were both freed they were both set out as freed and so here Felix went from being a slave in Rome to being the governor in Israel wild change huh? wild change now it gets better I guess sort of He is described by two different historians, Josephus is one, Tacitus is another, as being one who accepted bribes, so very corrupt. It even mentions in this passage, so we have historical confirmation a third time, that this guy is one who accepted and expected bribes. And one of the reasons he held Paul as he did, one of the reasons, was because he was hoping for a bribe.

Alright, now, he is married to Drusilla. Is Drusilla his first wife? No. His second. No, third, excuse me. Third wife. Now, here's the story with Drusilla. Look at this chart. See this chart? Okay, now. Herod Agrippa had several children and one of them was Drusilla Drusilla was married to a king in Syria under the Romans again and this king in Syria was married to Drusilla and Felix wanted her very badly and so he did all sorts of things to try to get her to be his wife instead of the king of Syria He even hired a magician to help. If you can imagine that.

And finally, he married her as her second marriage when she was 14 years old. By the time this took place here, five years had gone by, so she was 19 when this event took place. So I had a complicated situation and this is the great-granddaughter of Herod the Great. So she is living in the palace that her great-grandfather had built. And Felix had enticed her away from the king of Syria.

Puzzled look. This whole thing is puzzling. Try to figure it out. I don't know. Very strange. Alright, so now, this is this Felix guy. Very complicated fellow. He eventually got taken out of power. As a matter of fact, we see that before the chapter ends. He is taken out of power. Why? The Romans, I guess, didn't mind so much that he was corrupt. That didn't bother them a whole lot. But he wasn't handling the Jewish rebellion all that well. That's what bothered him. So they took him out of power and put Porphyrios Festus in.

Okay, so there's the intro to that. Here's this Tertullus, and one of the things is if you read through what Tertullus says, it looks like, man, he's sure buttering up Felix. But as it turns out, that was the typical way for a lawyer to talk in the courtroom in those days. You go there and first you butter up the judge.

He talks about how Felix has made things peaceful and prosperous and it's all lies, but that was the classical thing to do. And then he promises to be brief, and that was also something that was standard procedure. It didn't matter if you were brief or not, you still promised it. So he went according to standard procedure and promised to be brief.

And then he makes his accusations. Now as it turns out, his accusations are not quite true. This is like any of those TV courtroom dramas, only it's real stuff. And you've got crazy people for judges. All right. So now here's Tertullis, and he's using flattery with this Felix, who's already bonkers. And he's using flattery with this Felix guy, telling him he's going to be brief, and whether he was or not, we don't know. And then he starts talking about Paul, and before he makes any accusations that are really specific, he makes three characterizations, okay?

Let's look at the bottom of page one of his characterizations. We have found this man a real pest. That's the word leimos that actually means a plague or a pestilence. This guy is like the bubonic plague of the Roman Empire. That's what he's telling Felix. This guy is just flat out nasty. It's something we all ought to run from or put out or something. He is characterizing Paul as somebody really, really awful, a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world.

And of course, we've been through the sequence here. Tertullus could say this with a history of Claudius describing Jews using the same word, pestilence, and very similar phrase to what Claudius wrote in his letter. So it'd be kind of like almost standard phrase, You know, we have that in our own culture. We'll have a phrase or a cliche that we'll use. And we'll tend to drop those.

Well, he's done very much the same thing. All right, now, any ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. In other words, what is he talking about here? This is the word that is translated otherwise, heresy. So when he talks about the sect, it's starting to have implications. This is a this is a deviation or as you've got these Jews. This is a deviation coming out of the Jews it's it's it springs from from that group and They're looked at as as being a source of trouble.

How long have the Christians been around at this point in time? This is say 58 59 80 how long have the Christians been around? Yeah, they've been around maybe a few decades, not quite a few decades is the bottom line. But he's just saying, all right, these people have enough of a history that you being the king of this land of Israel here should be well aware that, you know, they're ones that are kind of stirring up some trouble here.

So he's characterized in this ringleader, what does that, does ringleader bring up a positive or a negative thought in your mind. Does it have implications that are positive or negative? Negative. So he's using things, he's giving character statements about Paul. Tom? Yeah, in other words, if you think of somebody who's really heading up something that's not good, okay, that's, he is casting the character of Paul. And do we do that in our courts today? Do we do have people that do that? Yeah, we have character witnesses who are brought up. And so we do that sort of thing today. This is a preliminary hearing, and that's exactly what Tertullus is starting to do.

And then, finally, he gives his only real accusation, but one in which he is not going to be able to follow through, and that's in verse 6, number 4, and he even tried to desecrate the temple. Did he do that, in fact? No. So what he's going to be able to do is say, well, have these Christians been a source of some trouble? Yes. Has he stirred up some trouble with the Jews? Yes. But those aren't really serious accusations. The real serious accusation is desecrating the temple and he can't substantiate it. So this is all good lawyer talk, but it's not going to wash when you look at the facts.

OK. All right. Let's go on there. Hmm. OK. So here's the charge. Paul comes to the defense and he basically, Paul says, look, I'm not doing anything other than what's been going on. He says, I'm among the group called the Pharisees. And let's ask the question. Is that a true statement?

Was he among the Pharisees? He had been among the Pharisees. How would he be different from what the Pharisees held to? Did the Pharisees believe in a Messiah? Yeah. The Pharisees believed in a Messiah. Did the Pharisees believe in a resurrection? Yes. Yeah.

What he is saying is that, one, somebody has been resurrected, and it's Jesus Christ, and two, the Messiah that the Pharisees had been looking for has now come and helped kill him. So he could claim this, although what he would describe himself as is one who believed that the Messiah, that the Pharisees talk about, has come, and that there has indeed been a resurrection, and it has taken place in the person of Jesus Christ. So he would claim that, but he would have that distinction from them. He lays it out.

He says, I'm not doing anything to try to get anybody stirred up. He says, I'm not trying to do anything to get people causing trouble. That's not my point at all. And he says, I'm not occupied with that. I'm not pushing in that direction. He basically tried to cast himself in such a way that Tertullis claims had no basis.

Well, so Felix, this is a preliminary hearing, and besides that, he soon sees that a fellow central to this whole picture is the commander, Claudius Lysias, and he's not here. So he sees, ah, delay, that's a good tactic. So, this whole thing's being continued. Ever been at a trial or seen something like that? Let's have a continuance. And this thing's continued until we can get Claudius Lysias here. Now, let's think through something. In Roman law, there was no problem for a governor, judge, to delay a trial indefinitely. They don't want to take 5, 10, 20 years, until the prisoner is dead. They don't care. Roman law, there was nothing pressing him to resolve this.

Now, let's think of this. Paul is a Roman citizen. He must be treated carefully and well. What's the hazard to Felix if somehow Felix mistreats a Roman citizen? Yeah, this is not good. So if I actually carry out a judgment like the Jews want me to against this Roman citizen, I've got a problem. I've already got enough trouble. He's getting close to the end of his reign. This whole thing with the Jews is getting to be enough trouble. So if I do that, Rome's going to be really ticked.

I don't want that. So now, he's a politician, not just a judge. So now he's thinking, alright, now if I do, let's say that I go the other way and say I just let them go. What are the Jews going to think? They're going to be really ticked off. Just chapped. So that's the other extreme. He says that's not going to work out very well politically.

So what I am best off to do is just postpone this thing forever. So what we do is we have a continuance. We say we cannot continue this until Claudius Lysias comes from Jerusalem here to Caesarea. And what you do is just don't bring him. So Paul just stays in jail. He avoids the political extremes of letting Paul go, or handing him over to the Jews, because either one of those puts him at risk.

He also has two other wonderful things happening by keeping him in Caesarea, so far as he sees it. One is he is tremendously entertaining to myself and my wife, and we're very curious about the things that he's teaching, and so we can keep him around as free entertainment. So he thinks that's pretty good. And then the other thing is he knows that Paul came to Jerusalem with a substantial amount of money because remember Paul was bringing money from the other churches because there was as both Acts records and we have recorded in secular Roman history there was in Judea at this time a famine and many of the poor were being hard-pressed by this famine so here comes Paul with assistance from the other churches to help the poor And so he figures, hey, this guy's got his hand on some money. And Felix, being the fellow who is, as both Acts says, and two secular historians record, one who accepts bribes, Felix is thinking, the more I postpone this thing, the better it is politically, the more entertainment my wife and I get, and I might get some money out of this thing. So this whole thing is just keeping the thing strung out. It's just the best thing politically and monetarily and in terms of entertainment.

So he just decides to postpone this thing forever and it gets postponed as we see at the end of the chapter until Porcius Festus comes along. Now it turns out that Porcius Festus was an honorable fellow as we have secular historians record. An honorable fellow especially compared to Felix. and actually a fairly sound, reasonable fellow, as Romans go.

But things had already gotten stirred up to the point where Porcius Festus was not going to be able to fix it. Porcius Festus had already gotten the end result of a lot of the stirring up that Felix had done. And Porcius Festus died just a few years later. And so his untimely death also Kind of cut him out of the picture.

But anyway, we'll be looking at that next and see how that goes and that's chapter 25 Questions comments thoughts insights Ponderings Josiah. Oh Please do Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, please do that, thank you. Last week I showed a picture of a Felix coin and Josiah's got one to pass around here so you can take a look at it. And this was a coin that was issued under Felix and now you get to see one face-to-face. I guess you could call it that. See one directly so you can see what that looks like. This Felix guy is a real interesting character.

I mean, you'd imagine, here's this guy from 52 to 59 being governor. Having a pivotal place and stirring up the rebellion that it ended up wiping out the temple Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by other Jews for not joining the rebellion So it was a severe awful time it was a terrible time and Felix the guy who Who this coin was issued under? was one of the guys who helped bring that about by his severe suppression of the Jews.

That particular piece I hadn't heard. It doesn't mean it's not the case, I just hadn't heard that particular point. I read it on the internet. Yeah. Zechariah is a group that we talked about in Bible backgrounds, and they're a group that didn't exist before, but under Felix, because of Felix's severe and ruthless and bloody suppression of Jewish stirrings and rebellions, They came about as a group under Felix and and Porcius Festus Though he probably would not have stirred this same sentiment By his character. He still had to deal with it Because Felix had stirred it up. It was already kind of like a snowball and Porcius Festus was not in his three years roughly of rain was not able to turn that you know snowball around it was already a gaining momentum and getting worse. But yeah, that aspect of it, I hadn't heard before.

And it may be, I just haven't crossed that path. Other thoughts, questions? To me, this is just an amazing period of time. Laban? Go back to chapter 23. Yeah. Yes. Paul said that he lived perfectly to constitute for God. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I would say the high priest Probably would look at that and say you know given what you're get on charges for here That's a ludicrous claim of course that what it wasn't true, but that was Paul's that was how they viewed Paul You're brought here. You know because of what you're you know, what desecration of the temple you've caused, and the things that we understand that you have said to these people are a problem.

Plus, who was the high priest? What group was he from? Sadducees or Pharisees? At the Sadducees, and in his prior talking, he's already, you know, this resurrection thing is something that it's well known that he's talking about this. So he's of the opposing group to begin with. So yeah, he's not going to accept that kind of talk. And he's also knowing full well that that kind of talk is going to cause tremendous mayhem and division among the Sanhedrin. So there's several reasons, both disagreement, trying to suppress the stirring of trouble. You know, his understanding was that Paul acted contrary. There'd be several things that a high priest would be really upset at Paul for saying what he said. and for claiming to be free of any trouble, given what the high priest thought had taken place, and the high priest's own personal views, and knowing that the issue of the resurrection is what's going to stir things up here. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Alright, well, we've run out of time. The buzzer says we are. So let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, we thank you. We give you praise for what you've revealed here. We see that our brother Paul has gone through a great deal of struggle and difficulty, and it's not done. And yet we see your faithfulness through it. We see that you have revealed the truth. It also just lets us know things like, yes, will trouble come? Does that mean that we've been abandoned? No. And will you provide encouragement and direction at the right time? Yes. And we thank you, Lord, for those valuable lessons that we see here. In Jesus' name, Amen.