Acts, 25:1-27

As we're getting through the book of Acts here, the story goes like this. We've got, after today, because this is covering the 26th chapter, we've got actually just two more chapters. So next week we'll be looking at chapter 27, which is Paul's travel towards Rome and then chapter 28's kind of the final leg as they land and head into Rome. So we'll be taking a look at that over the next couple of weeks. The following three weeks we'll be taking a look at some different topics, if you will, in And what we'll be looking at is kind of a more lengthwise slice through the Book of Acts, looking at kind of longer term things. Because as we progress through it, which is a valuable thing to do, there's sometimes value in also looking at it a little bit longer term.

What happened to Barnabas? What happened to John Mark? If you were to look only, for example, at the Book of Acts and say, how did John Mark turn out? Not a good story. And yet when we look into the epistles, we end up with a very different outcome. So it's valuable for us to take a look at the bigger picture. So we'll be taking a look at some bigger picture issues. And as I think I mentioned before, do feel free to let me know if you've got some questions you'd like us to take a look at together, some issues, because that would be a helpful input. All right. Let's grab here chapter 25 from last week.

And the situation that we saw being set up there is here is Festus, Porcius Festus, having replaced Felix, who was on the outs because he couldn't seem to handle all the Jewish rebellion all that well. and it was getting out of hand, and so now they put it in Porcius Festus.

Porcius Festus was a fellow who had a reputation for being not corrupt. The implication in the Book of Acts is that Felix was looking for a bribe. As a matter of fact, we have two secular historians that also say that he was prone to take bribes. Now here's Porcius Festus. not known for being corrupt, but nonetheless also new to the task and not as familiar with the whole, you know, what are these Jews like? So Porcius Festus is getting the advice of Agrippa II and Bernice, who have much more expertise. As a matter of fact, Paul makes note of it. Agrippa especially has expertise in dealing with the Jews and the Jewish issues, Jewish questions. Did you folks get a handout for this week here? Make sure you get covered here. Thank you. I can help them with that. Appreciate it. Alright, let's take a look at some of the questions we've got here. And it goes like this.

It's clear that Paul took advantage of the legal options available to him and the information at his disposal. Dr. Luke even records what seems to be inside information, not generally available, about Judea's political leadership. How would a Christian reconcile Paul's defending himself by testimony and legal action with Christ's directive to turn the other cheek and similar teachings from the Sermon on the Mount? Tom, what did you come up with?

There are probably people in charge or close to it that basically sin against the Holy Spirit. It's a moot point. These people are under God's purview because they choose to not listen to the Holy Spirit. Okay. Okay, so you would say that these people weren't responding to the appeal that the Lord was making, and so it's not the same issue. Okay, any other thoughts on that? Yes.

Yeah, notice if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, it's specifically who's talking? Jesus. And who's he talking to? Jews. And as a matter of fact, we pointed out several things in the past. One is, for example, what's often called the Lord's Prayer, and in many Christian churches is repeated weekly. The truth is that it's a combination of two conventional Jewish prayers. that any God-respecting Jew of the New Testament era would have repeated those regularly, and it's a mixture of those two.

The other thing is frequently in the Sermon on the Mount, there's reference made to the Gentiles as another party apart, like it's not addressed to them. I would point out in chapter 10, chapter 15, Jesus in the first instance, chapter 10, tells the disciples, to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and not even on a road that leads to the Gentiles. And then in chapter 15, he says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So, yeah, one thing is just applicability seems to be an entirely different issue. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Any other comments there? Let's make this personal.

As believers, Is it correct for us to take advantage of legal options that are available to us in a legal situation we might find ourselves in? Yeah, yeah. What we're seeing here is Paul is not being in error in doing so, that there are options that a Christian can take when they're in the midst of a situation and that it is not a violation of Christian principle for them to defend themselves. Tom? Yeah, that's kind of the flip side of the question, isn't it? That there are legal options at times that you may choose not to exercise. an option may be available to you, and yet you look at it and you say, based on Christian principle out of Scripture, that no, I wouldn't do that.

Let's take a very clear for instance. Is it legally viable for me to sue another Christian? Yes, it is. Is it biblically viable? No, it's not. So we can be in a situation where we have to exercise some biblical discernment It is a legal option, it's not a biblical option. There are a number of other things like that. There are things that are legally allowable in our culture, in our country, that Christians should not opt for. Yes. Yes.

Ultimately, one of the things we saw earlier in Acts, here's Peter and John in there before the Sanhedrin, and what does Peter say? Peter says, you know, ultimately we must follow God rather than man, and so we always have to put that in our thinking as well.

We have legal options that are available to us, and it is fine for a Christian to take advantage of those legal options, but the higher principle here is what does God say and not what does the government say. And there may be times to say, that's an option available to me legally, but as a Christian, it is not an option available. It's not one that I could choose under the Lord. And we may be in that circumstance at some point or another and have to decide, no, I won't take this action and put aside what is a legal right for the sake of our stance before the Lord. Okay, how about, let's take a look at the next one down here. It's got a scripture quote there along with it.

It was in the midst of the kind of rolling political and moral scandals, and that's, it was like one after another, right? Such as we find in the lives of Festus and the descendants of Herod the Great that Paul writes to Timothy to pray for such political leaders. Here you've got Festus and he's taking over for Felix, who was known for being very corrupt. And now we've got Festus and he's having Agrippa II and Bernice come to visit. And they're in what from all appearances was an incestuous relationship. And you've got many of the Roman emperors were profoundly immoral.

And it's in the midst of that that Paul says here in 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2, First of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. What does this tell us about how we should pray for our political leaders here in the United States? Does that change if they are found or known to be corrupt in any way? What's your thoughts on that? Yeah. Yeah.

We pray for those in authority and notice that it was in the context of, you know, these are not Christians. These are not people who are even remotely Christian in their viewpoint or their lifestyle. They just pray for them. And notice you don't pray for them because they are godly. You pray for them to the end that our own lives might be carried out.

And he describes the character of them. And so I think that's key for us to take a look at. If we find some politician, we say, man, that guy is so disgusting, I just can't pray for him. And you may feel that way. On the other hand, to look at the context that Paul wrote in. As he stood before Agrippa and Bernice, telling them the account of what was taking place there. some pretty disgusting things to take a look at, but it was after appearing before them that he wrote this. Pray for these people everywhere.

And he didn't qualify it, you know, if they're moral and if they're ethical and such as that. So yeah, it's a real valuable lesson to be learned. What do you think is behind that? Why is it that we can pray as believers for somebody who we know is just out and out ungodly and disgusting if we'd make any moral measure of them. Yeah, Tom? Sure.

Daniel prayed faithfully in the midst of a very pagan and, you know, lost situation, ungodly. How about Jesus? He stood before Pontius Pilate, and of course Pontius Pilate was a fine and moral fellow, right? He stood before Pontius Pilate and said, told Pontius, you would not have authority had God not given it to you.

So it's a real interesting thing. We can look at the leader and say I have no respect for that leader and yet have the urging here to pray for them because God has given them that authority. Whether or not we can look at them and say well that's a fine moral character. Many times not. But the authority that they have is still given from God and God is still the one calling the shots. God's in control, God's in charge. And the one who is in control is not there by accident. So, yeah, there is a place for us to pray for all kinds of leaders, even those that might cause us disgust.

All right, let's grab ahold of your next handout here. And I think, Tom, you've got, as a matter of fact, I'm just making sure I grab my copy here. I keep enough stuff out sometimes I can't even locate it. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Alright, so we've got the scene here. Here's, remember one of the things we pointed out last week.

Here is Herod Agrippa II and Bernice showing up with Festus. is looking for some input and advice from people who've been around the area much longer. Agrippa II and Bernice, in spite of their scandalous relationship, are well known for their expertise in Jewish issues.

And so he's wanting to get their input and get their insights on what's taken place with Paul, and what judgment would they make? So this is an unofficial review. This is not a matter of Agrippa II and Bernice making a decision when this is done. They're going to advise Festus as to what's going to happen here. And what we're going to find as we get to the end here is it's almost a punchline, because the last comment made is one that is pivotal. in Paul's history and in church history, as a matter of fact. Okay, so let's get into this. We've gotten the background on Agrippa and Bernice, so we won't reiterate that.

One of the things to look at here is Roman law. Remember when we first saw Paul in this kind of a preliminary hearing? And what had the Jews done? They had hired a Roman lawyer, Tertullus, and the term at the time was called a rhetor. As a matter of fact, we have that reflected in our language. We talk about rhetoric, and it's manner of speaking. And so they had hired Tertullus.

The fact is that it was not required even at the high level that they're talking about here, it was not required that you hire an attorney. You could, that was an option, but it was not required. And so what we see is Agrippas, you know, sitting there and after all this pomp, great pomp, as Dr. Luke describes it, remember we used the word, he used the word, the only place in the New Testament, Phantasia is the Greek word that he used there. And I don't know if that gives you, you know, thoughts of Mickey Mouse running around with brooms and everything else, but that's the word that he used.

And here, he just starts off and says, go ahead and speak. You know, just kind of a simple introduction. Because it is, in fact, an informal hearing. He's wanting to get Paul's input for advice to Festus. This isn't a matter of, you know, get all the court records down and everything of that sort.

People could, and Paul in this case could, as he did previously, speak without a lawyer, just speak for himself. One of the things that's interesting, as we go through this, one of the things you might have noticed, and we'll see it come all the way through to this chapter, Dr. Luke sometimes doesn't record things that we might have questions about. Like, wait a minute, who went here? And what happened here?

And yet what we do find is, notice that the interactions with the Sanhedrin are all recorded. He makes detailed notes of that. And now these legal appeals, he makes notes of that in a fair amount of detail. A whole chapter gets consumed with this review we're looking at here, and it's informal review.

John Mock, who is a Christian attorney out of the Chicago area, has done an extensive study of the background, written a book called Paul on Trial. I highly recommend it, but you'll have to go through quite a few lengthy lists and tables and things of that sort. What he does is he lays out this idea, that the book of Acts is a legal submittal by Dr. Luke on behalf of Paul, written to Roman legal review official named Theophilus and That's why you'd find in the beginning of the gospel of Luke first four verses Luke says, you know almost excellent and by the way, that's the same way that they would address governors and and people of high official status in the Roman Empire and So he starts off with that and then he starts telling Theophilus that he's researched everything and looked at very carefully and drawn these conclusions so that Theophilus would know exactly what happened.

And that the Book of Acts then would be a continuation of that. And that would explain why the Book of Acts contains so much detail on the legal appeals, and not as much on some other things that we might have some questions about. It would also do one other thing. It would be a major support for the detailed and accurate historicity of the Book of Acts and of the Gospel of Luke.

Because anything that Dr. Luke submitted that was not true would get him in deep trouble and would throw out the validity of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. And that's one reason why John Mock's thesis, he released that book in 2001, his idea that it was a legal submittal, which as I reviewed it, I continue to see more and more support for that understanding. It speaks to the testimony, the true testimony, of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, and those who are skeptical of the truth of those books don't like his thesis.

And it's not that they don't like it from an evidence standpoint, they don't like it from an emotional standpoint. But increasingly as I look at it, it makes more and more sense. Okay, now, that having been said, one of the other things that comes out is that it would also explain why Dr. Luke would continue to show the Christian faith as a fulfillment of Judaism rather than a rebellion against it. And that's exactly what we see the testimonies coming up as as well.

Okay, so now we have here, here's a couple of quotes, Acts 23.6, but perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out to the council, Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.

I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. This would be a testimony saying, hey, look, I'm not here to try and rebel against anything here or violate any laws. He says, I'm a Pharisee, you know, to the core. It's just that I believe that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of everything I've been hoping for. And that would be his appeal.

And we see it again here in the testimony that we're reading here today. Acts 26, 22, and 23. So having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both the small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place. That Christ was to suffer, that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. He is just saying, this is exactly what the Old Testament has predicted. This is exactly what you would expect in reading the Old Testament. And I'm standing here before you today just testifying to the truth of that. Now, looking at the second page there, something to take a look at is this. Paul makes a statement that I'll just tell you flat out.

Those who are unbelieving Jews today and knowledgeable will say that they reject it. They don't see the Old Testament as predicting the things that were fulfilled in Christ's first coming. Orthodox Jews today are looking for the Messiah to come after a seven-year period of great tribulation upon the earth, after which the Messiah will reign from Israel for a long period of time. That's what Orthodox Jews today are looking for.

In broad outline, we would agree with them. What they reject is that the first coming was Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying is that first coming is indeed Jesus Christ, and he is the fulfillment of these. We could go through, there's about 300 Old Testament passages that point to Christ. I'm just going to outline a few of them here. Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 are a couple of passages that describe Christ's suffering on the cross. And so you can imagine, here's Paul, he's going to walk into the synagogue and read those, just like people have been reading them, and say, that's exactly what Christ went through. And the Jews would either say, oh, yeah, or argh, you know, one response or the other.

The other here, Psalm 16.10, the Old Testament is a reference to the resurrection of the Holy One.

It's quoted in Acts 2.37, Peter, and Acts 13.25, Paul. So what you have is, again, repeated Old Testament reference there. Christ also made reference to God as the eternally present I Am of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as proof of the resurrection. So here's this continued looking back at the Old Testament and building upon it, not just saying, hey, forget that.

I've got something else. And so all Paul was saying was, look, I'm not here to throw anything out. I'm just saying that what you have seen prophesied has indeed come to pass. And that's what he's laying out here. Then you can see some other passages there. You notice how that verse that I just read, Paul talks about light to the Gentiles. And a couple passages, there are a few passages in Isaiah that speak exactly using those words. So anyway, we can take a look at that. One of the things to note is you'll see it in the Old Testament, some of our versions will say, you know, nations.

And he makes reference here to the Gentiles. The Greek, it's ethnos. It gets translated both ways. So even though in the English it may come across as different words, in the Greek it's the same word. One of the other things that Paul recounts, and he's actually done it two or three times here, is he talks about his conversion when he became a believer.

He tells, hey, first, and this is one of those passages, I pursued Christians to the death. I pursued Christians to the death. In fact, when he writes 1 Timothy 1, verses 12-16, you might make a note of that. 1 Timothy 1, verses 12-16. Paul says, God had mercy upon me and in spite of who I am, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here, he says he put me into service. He says I was a blasphemer, and to the Jews that's worthy of the death penalty. I was a blasphemer, he said. He says I persecuted the church, and what we see in this 26 here is I persecuted the church to the death. And the third thing he says, and the English translations will frequently talk about things like... I'm trying to think of what some of them are.

Anyway, the third item there, the Greek word is hubris, and we don't have a single word that translates that well, because it's a very complex word. To the Greek mind, the worst thing you could do was commit hubris. And we hardly know what that means.

But here's the idea. Hubris was to have a bold over-assessment of yourself so as to make the gods jealous and to take pleasure in the suffering of other people. So it's a combined kind of shaking your fist at the gods and saying I'm greater and being sadistic. Isn't that interesting? So that's what's involved in that one word.

To the Greeks that was the worst thing you could do because it was inviting the wrath of the gods. So what does Paul do is, he obviously doesn't believe in the Greek pantheon, but he uses that word to say, completed the three. He says, as a blasphemer, I was the worst offender against the Jews. As a persecutor of the church, I persecuted them to the death. A great offender of the church. And, among the Greeks, I was a violent offender. I was one who took pleasure in the pain of others. And, he says, I basically shook my fist at God.

He didn't realize that he was persecuting Jesus Christ. And so Christ confronts him on the road, and Jesus doesn't say, Paul, why are you persecuting those people? He says, Paul, why are you persecuting me? Jesus takes it personally. And I think that's something that we can take to heart as well, that the Lord doesn't look at the things we're going through as just, you know, that's too bad for you down there. He looks at it as, hey, that's me. Why would that make sense as believers? Why would the Lord take persecution against us personally? We're in Him. Yeah. We are repeatedly said to be in Him. That's one thing. He is the head. We're the body. And I don't know about you, but my head and my body are usually connected, you know? And when my body hurts, my head knows it.

You know, I can remember one time, you know, working on the house two decades ago, you know, I'd be nailing away, and there's a few times I hit the wrong nail. And in the middle of that, you know, it's funny, I didn't just look at my thumb and just sort of objectively say, that hurts. You know, I'm going, ow! You know? It gets my attention.

And the same thing we see in especially Ephesians and Colossians, those are the two letters that really put forward that idea that when the body hurts, the head knows it and the head feels it. And the response that we have comes out of the head. So as Paul is recounting this, there is a lot of depth in the brief account that he spells out there. Here's something else that's kind of amazing, and that is as you look at the account that he spells out, here he is like seconds from the Lord just telling him, hey, I'm Jesus and you're persecuting me, and he's just coming around to this immense and life-changing realization. And the Lord begins telling him what's going to happen to him right then.

Can you imagine that? I'm going to send you to the Gentiles. What? I'm coming here to persecute the church. You see the radical change that was taking place? I'm going to send you among the Gentiles, and even telling Ananias that this Paul has many things to suffer for me. Isn't that something? Here's this guy, he's just become a believer after going out and trying to persecute the church to the point of death, and the Lord's telling him, You've got many things to suffer for me.

Ever come across that quizzical passage where it talks about completing the sufferings of Christ? Ever seen that in Colossians? A little puzzling? Is Christ in heaven and is He suffering? There? Not directly, is He? But, we're the body. And the sufferings are not complete until he takes us home. Okay? Completing the sufferings of Christ. They're not complete until he takes us home. Not that he is suffering, not that we have to make up for the sufferings of Christ as if his cross was insufficient. But until he takes us home, it's not done. Because we're connected to him. We're in him. And that's why he would say to Paul directly, why are you persecuting me? Important distinction. Alright, now, let's take a look here at the last couple of items on the bottom of page 2. One of the things to ask here is that you kind of have this punchline at the end of chapter 26.

Boy, we could have set him free if it wasn't that he had appealed to Caesar. Now some experts on Roman law have said, ah, there's an oops, because legally, according to the Roman law, Festus could have set him free. Legally, that was in his right to do. But there are a few things here.

One is that Festus was new to the process, and it may have been considered an insult to Caesar to say, look, Caesar, I'm brand new here, but I'm not going to let you review this case." And it would possibly have been seen as an insult for Festus, the new governor, to deny the appeal to Caesar, even though he technically and legally had the right. The other thing is, what were the Jews likely to do if Festus just said, okay Paul, here's the door, go for it, have a nice day? kill him right off, right off the bat. And since he was a Roman citizen, exposing him to that would not be a good thing. Furthermore, what had the Romans done in order to get him to Caesarea safely?

They've taken them out secretly, they've taken them out at a quick move, overnight, with close to 500 soldiers, and then now we're just going to open the door and say, you know, see you later, have a nice day? No. That would be rather inconsistent. It would also call into question, why have you kept this guy in prison for two years and then let him go?

So the whole thing would not be, it was legally viable, it was not politically viable. And that's the reason for the statement of Festus. Not based in Roman law, per se, but based on the political realities of Israel, the political realities of the Roman hierarchy, if you will. So those were key things there. Alright, let's take a look at some of these questions.

Why is it that the Lord did not send an angel to deliver Paul as he did for the apostles and for Peter earlier in Acts? How soon was Peter let go and the other apostles when they were arrested back in Jerusalem? How soon were they let go? Yeah, right away. This is like, you know, you're not going to spend 24 hours in here. right off the bat, by an angel, real quick.

How long had Paul been here in the prison at Caesarea? Yeah, a couple of years, right? So, man, what gives here? Can you imagine Paul saying, hey, how come I don't get equal treatment? Dr. Luke's telling me that Peter went in for less than 24 hours and an angel took him out, took him right past the guards and said, go back to the temple. And here, here's Paul, he's in this prison, and gets some degree of liberty, but basically can't move.

This is a guy that's a moving guy, and had obviously done lots of good things. How come this? Why did the Lord keep him there and not do the same thing with the angel and all that stuff? I mean, this is a waste of time, right? Anyway, you figure that out. Second question. What do you think of Paul's defense? Did it succeed in showing him not guilty before Agrippa and Bernice and Festus? Why didn't Paul just remain quiet as the Lord himself had done before Pilate? What else did Paul's testimony accomplish? So you think about that. Give that some thought and some pondering.

Next week, Paul's been spending some time in the prison in Caesarea. Next week things are going to get moving. So I want us to be prepared to just kind of fly because we're going to be hauling across the Mediterranean with shipwrecks and all sorts of things. So lots of things happen in chapter 27. You just want to get ready to get moving with it. So after things being rather settled here, it's going to be very unsettled. and a real different scene as we head towards Rome.

By the way, as he heads towards Rome, what things does Paul know? What does Paul know in this perspective about Rome? He knows he's going to get there. How come he knows he's going to get there? Ah, the Lord told him when he was in Jerusalem, before he even left, you're going to get to Rome. And he told him everything would be hunky-dory and a smooth highway on the way there, right? Not that part, huh? Yeah, you will get to Rome. So that's one thing. Yeah, Tom? Yeah, this is a strange thing. I don't know if he even gave it some thought. He probably looked at it and said, hey, I'm heading to Rome, the Lord's told me.

I'm better off appealing to Caesar heading towards Rome, even if it's whatever season it is, than walking outside with these Jews. And by the way, although they were a minority, there were a number of Jews in Caesarea. We have a historical record, as well as some testimony in the Book of Acts. But there were a number of Jews in Caesarea, even though it was a major Gentile and a military city. There were a number of Jews there, and there may have been a risk just as soon as he walked out the door.

Could be. Yes, yes, very. It's real interesting. We don't have all the details on what happened subsequently, and scholars kind of do everything between speculate and study the question. But it doesn't look like after this that Paul spent much, if any time, in Israel again. That after that, things are getting so unsettled in Israel, tough place to be. Tough place to be. And shortly after this revolution that Josiah is talking about took place, it was probably close to the same time that both Peter and Paul lost their lives.

So, a wild time ahead. Wild time ahead. It's interesting, the Lord didn't just lay out like, here's your life's map. You're going to live this long and you're going to be beheaded. But He told me, you are going to head to Rome and you are going to testify for me there.

Other thoughts, questions? Comments? Exasperations? Jubilations? Okay? Alright? Let's pray. Lord, as we look at what's happening here in Acts, lots of big changes taking place. And lots of turbulence, too. And Lord, thank you that as you've shown your faithfulness then, we can count upon your faithfulness now. And we do that, we look to you here this morning. And thank you for the truths you've laid out for our benefit. In Jesus' name, amen.