| CHAPTER 22 The first part of this chapter gives us
Paul’s speech in the Temple. It belongs with the end of Chapter 21. Then
verses 22-29 tell how trouble broke out in the Temple again. Verse 30
belongs with the first part of Chapter 23.
Verses 1-21: Paul’s speech in the Temple
At the end of Chapter 21, we left Paul at the top of the stairs which led
from the Temple courts. They led into the Antonia or Castle. Paul was with
some Roman soldiers and army officers. They had saved him from the angry
Jewish crowd below. The tribune, Claudius Lycias, has agreed that Paul
should speak to the crowd. The Jews have become silent as Paul speaks to
them in their own language. But, of course, the Romans understand very
little or nothing of what Paul says.
(Verse 1) As Paul begins, he calls the crowd ‘Brothers and fathers’. See
Acts 7:2, where Stephen begins his great speech like this. Paul asks the
crowd to listen to his defence or ‘apologia’. We mostly use the word
‘apology’ when someone says that they have wronged someone else. Here, Paul
will tell his life story, but it is not to say that he is wrong. Rather, it
is to say why he is right! This is a different use of the word ‘apology’.
Paul will say what God has done in his life.
Every Christian should be ready to do this. Paul may have had time on his
journey from Greece to think about what he might say in Jerusalem. Yet he
did not know just what would happen. He had no time to get a sermon ready.
This was a very important time. It was Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem. Had
the Jews listened to all that Paul had to say, history would have been very
different. If the Jews had listened to the Good News that day, the history
of the church would have been quite different. So would the history of the
Jews and indeed of the world. We need to listen with care to men of God who
preach the Good News!
So (Verse 2) a deep quiet came over the crowd. [22.1] Paul begins to tell
his life story. (Verse 3) We learn things about Paul which we did not know
before. We knew that he came from Tarsus. Perhaps Paul showed early promise
and this was why his father sent him to Jerusalem. For Gamaliel, see
5:34-40. See also [5.9] So Paul grew up in Jerusalem. He ‘sat at the feet of
Gamaliel’ to listen to Gamaliel the Elder as he taught the law of Moses.
Probably Paul was stronger than his great teacher. (Verse 4) ‘This way’
means the way of Christ :see 8:3. Some of the early Christians died because
of what Paul did. ‘Arrested’ (NIV) is perhaps not quite the right word. Paul
bound Christians with ropes or chains. (Verse 5) Ananias was the High Priest
of the Jews from AD 47 - AD 58. When Paul was in Rome in AD 52, Ananias was
in Rome, but he was back in Jerusalem now. Ananias had not become High
Priest at the time when Paul persecuted the church, but he knew all about
what had happened. Many of the men who made up the Council or ‘Sanhedrin’
would be the same. They knew what harm Paul had done to the Christians. Paul
does not blame them for what he had done. He takes all the blame himself.
See 9:1 and 2. When we come to Chapter 26, Paul tells the same story. There
he calls the Christians ‘saints’. Here they are just ‘the ones there’. So
Paul set out to do his bad work in Damascus.
(Verses 6-13) Paul tells how Christ had met with him on the road to
Damascus. Jesus had changed Paul’s life. See 9:3-18. The glory of God had
blinded Paul. God gave his sight back to him when Ananias came to visit him.
The first thing that Paul saw then was the face of Ananias. He had never
seen that face before. Now he saw in it the love of Christ. This Ananias at
Damascus is nothing to do with Ananias the High Priest.
In verses 14-16, Luke tells us more about what Ananias had said to Paul in
Damascus. Paul had told the Jews (verse 12) that Ananias was a Jew who kept
the law with care. The other Jews in Damascus honoured him, although he was
a Christian. So Paul says that it was a good Jew who told him these things:-
a) That as a Jew, Paul’s God was the God of the Jewish ‘fathers’.
That meant the great men of the past. Paul would not have a different
‘god’ now;
b) That this God had chosen Paul;
c) That Paul would know God’s will. This would not just be God’s will
for Paul’s life. It was God’s will to spread the Good News;
d) That Paul would see the Righteous One. That, of course, means God.
e) That Paul would hear words from God’s mouth. Few other Christians
would have that experience;
f) (Verse 15) That Paul would speak God’s truth and His message to all
men. He would tell them what he had seen of God’s glory. He would tell
them what Christ had said.
As we read these words we can look at what God had said to Ananias in
9:15 and 16.
When Paul spoke about ‘all men’, the Jews might have become angry. But they
were still quiet as Paul went on.He spoke about what Ananias had said to him
in Damascus, years before. (Verse 16) Paul was to get up! (See 9:18) He had
been blind and he had not been able to do anything for three days. Now God
had given his sight back to him.
We do not know who baptised Paul. Perhaps it was Ananias. Paul was to wash
his sins away. They were the sins of violence and cruelty to the Christians.
There were other sins as well. See 1 Timothy 1:16. Paul was to call on the
name of Jesus. He was to ask Jesus to become his Saviour and to take his
sins away. Paul did call on the name of Jesus. From now on, Paul would serve
Him.
There was one more thing that God had said to Ananias in Damascus. See 9:16.
Perhaps Ananias did not say that to Paul. If he did, Paul does not add it to
what he says now to the Jews in the Temple.
Paul does not say anything here about the next two or three years of his
life. See Galatians 1:17. (Verse 17) He does speak about his next visit to
Jerusalem. This was about the year 36 AD. See 9:26-30. Then Paul’s life was
in danger. Paul had talked about Jesus to the Jews who spoke Greek. The Jews
who did not believe wanted to kill him. Paul had a ‘vision’ then in this
same Temple where he now stood. (Verse 18) God had then told him to leave
Jerusalem at once. If Paul did stay, the Jews would not believe in Jesus.
(Verse 19) Paul did not give in to God easily. These Jews in Jerusalem knew
what Paul had done to the Christians. Paul remembered that he had watched as
the Jews had killed Stephen. See 7:54-8:1. ‘Saul’ in those verses later
changed his name to Paul, of course.
(Verse 21) God put an end to Paul’s doubts. He did not have to choose what
he would do. Perhaps Paul thought:- ‘I may only win a few of these Jews to
the Good News. But those few could be such a great help to the church here
in Jerusalem.’ Great numbers of people would come to know the Good News
through Paul’s preaching. But he did not know that. Christian people
sometimes have to make choices like this. It may seem right to do work which
is very hard. It may be work where we can hope for little blessing. We can
expect little fruit from our work. It may seem to us to be wrong to leave
that work. It may seem wrong to do something which is not nearly so hard.
Yet it may be God’s will. We must guard against pride.
So Paul tells this crowd of Jews in the Temple: ‘God said to me: Leave here.
I will send you far away to the other nations’.
Verses 22-30: Paul and the Romans
(Verse 22) Years before this God had told Paul to take the Good News to
other nations. He was no longer to go to the Jews. Paul tells the crowd
about this. The crowd in the Temple had been quiet until then. They had
listened to what Paul had said to them. Now they became more angry and
violent then ever. (Verse 23)
The old prophets had often told the Jews that God would punish them. God had
done such great and good things for them. They had sinned and God would
punish them. The Jews would listen to that. But there was something that
they would not listen to. No one could tell them that they would lose God’s
favour. No one could tell them that God would give His blessing to other
nations. See Matthew 21:43; Mark 12:9 and Luke 20:16. The three Gospels show
how what Jesus said led the Jews to turn against him.
(Verse 24) The tribune had saved Paul once before when the Jews were about
to kill him. Now he gives orders to the soldiers to take Paul into the
castle. The tribune’s job was to keep order in Jerusalem. He wants to know
why the crowd in the Temple are wild with anger. The tribune would not have
understood Paul’s speech. If he had known Aramaic, he would not have
understood why the Jews went wild when they did. So he gave orders to the
soldiers. ‘Flog Paul. That will make him talk’.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11 (verses 24 and 25) that the Jews and the
Romans had beaten him several times. This flogging would have been far more
cruel. It might not kill you. It was bad enough to kill many people. But
those who lived were ruined for the rest of their lives. (Verse 25) This may
mean that the soldiers fixed Paul to a pole or column with ‘thongs’ or
perhaps straps of leather. They would then hit his bare back with the cruel
‘scourge’.
Then Paul spoke up. The Romans could do what they liked to slaves. They
could do what they liked to free men who were not Roman ‘citizens’. But
Roman citizens had certain rights. Paul was a Roman citizen and now he
claims his rights. He spoke to the centurion. He knew at once that it was
wrong to put Paul in chains. It would have been far worse to flog him. Paul
had a right to be heard in a law court. So (Verse 26) the centurion spoke to
the tribune. (Verse 27) The tribune went to Paul. We do not know how people
could prove that they were Roman citizens. Anyone who said that he was a
Roman citizen when he was not would be put to death. Paul told the tribune
that he was a citizen. Back in verse 21:39 the tribune must have thought
that Paul was only a citizen of Tarsus.
(Verse 28) About AD43, early in the reign of Claudius, people with money
could buy Roman citizenship. Before this, the Romans mostly gave it to
people who had helped them. This tribune, a Greek called Lysias, had had to
pay a high price for his citizenship. Perhaps he was rather bitter because
it was much cheaper after a few years. He probably thinks that Paul had paid
much less than he did. But Paul had not paid at all for his citizenship. His
father was a Roman citizen, so Paul was a Roman citizen too. (Verse 29) So
Paul came safely through, but the tribune still did not know why the Jews
had gone wild.
(Verse 30) The next day, the tribune tried another way to find out why Paul
had made the Jews so angry. He arranged for the Jewish Council, the
Sanhedrin, to meet. The soldiers took Paul and he had to stand in front of
the Council. The hall where the Council met was not far from the castle. But
this meeting may have taken place in a room in the castle. The tribune must
have thought: ‘I could find out nothing from the angry crowd. The Council
should be able to help me’. We should not think of a full meeting of all
seventy members of the Sanhedrin. |