Acts 22

STUDY TWENTY-SEVEN: ACTS 22

In the next few chapters Luke reports the testimony that Paul gave before various people –

Chapter 22 – before the already furious crowd of Jews.
Chapter 23 – before the Sanhedrin.
Chapter 24 – before Felix.
Chapters 25, 26 – before Festus, who replaced Felix as Governor, and King Agrippa.

These reports are interlaced with references to the determination of the Jews to kill Paul.

As we study these four testimonies that Paul gave as his defence, it is important to understand that they are not about Paul trying to save his own skin. We have already seen in Acts 21:13 that he was ‘ready to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ And it is in that readiness that we are given the real purpose of his apparent self-defence – that his life was not the main point. That the main point was the truth about Jesus Christ, the truth about his name. It is for the name of the Lord Jesus that Paul desired to speak; it is in the defence of the gospel that he testified again and again.

Here in Jerusalem the future of the gospel was at stake. Ever since the conversion of the Gentile Cornelius and his household (Acts 10) the perceived tension between the law of Moses and the gospel of Jesus Christ has been evident. First, Peter was questioned because he had gone and preached to Gentiles. Then, repeatedly, Paul was challenged, not just by Jews who held to their historic Judaism, but also by Jews who had come to believe in the name of Jesus. How to manage this tension between law and gospel became a problem for James and the elders in the church in Jerusalem. The question of whether or not the law of Moses ought to be imposed on Gentile Christians kept popping up. It was a central issue in all of the conflict. For some, the centre of the conflict was even deeper – whether Gentiles could be accepted by God without first becoming Jews. And deeper still – whether the message about God’s Messiah should be given to the Gentiles. And, deep underneath it all, the question – ‘Was Jesus the Messiah, or was he not?’

Reports had come to Jerusalem that Paul taught ‘all the Jews who live among the Gentiles’ to disobey the law of Moses (21:20, 21), and the Jews in Jerusalem had believed those reports. James’ suggestion that Paul sponsor and join the four men undergoing purification rituals was an attempt to diffuse the public anger against Paul. But, as we have seen, that attempted toning down of public antagonism did not succeed. Rather, seeing Paul in the vicinity of the temple on the last day of the purification period, and with the mistaken idea that he had taken a Gentile into the temple, the crowd was stirred up to uncontrollable fury.

With the permission of the commander, Paul, already beaten and bruised and almost pulled apart, stood on the steps of the Roman army barracks and began to speak.

A. HIS LIFE AS A JEW – 21:40 – 22:5

Read 21:40 – 22:5. What do you learn about …
Paul’s manner?

Paul’s choice of language?

Paul’s childhood?

Paul’s training?

Paul’s zeal for God?

Paul’s former hatred of ‘followers of the Way’?

What he previously did to them?

Who could testify that what he said about that was true?

The authority he had to do it?

A.1 Some new information about Paul
Some of the things Paul said here are very similar to his list of personal credit points that he used to boast about (Philippians 3:4 – 6). But Paul gives two significant pieces of information that

Luke has not previously reported –

(1) That, although born in Tarsus, Cilicia, he had been brought up in Jerusalem. Therefore, he was not ignorant of the Temple or of all the feasts and rituals associated with it. Every morning and evening, every Sabbath, every New Moon, and with all the annual feast days, he would have seen the priests going about their various duties prescribed by the law of Moses. Whenever he walked through the streets of Jerusalem, he would have seen the Pharisees keeping their strict observance of not only the law of Moses, but also of the hundreds of mini-laws defined by the scribes in an attempt to make the law of Moses clearer in its requirements. He knew Jerusalem, he had lived and breathed the very fibre of its existence as the Holy City of God. He had been part of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem had been part of him.

And now he is in Jerusalem, driven there by a divine compulsion, willing to die for the name of Christ, knowing the urgency of somehow getting the Jews of Jerusalem, (which means the ‘city or foundation of peace’), to understand and to know the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, and the peace that he came to establish between God and all who believe in him.

He is driven by the same grief and urgency that Jesus felt as he looked over the city – ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’ – Luke 13:34. Instead, Jerusalem had killed him. And Paul here stands before the inhabitants of Jerusalem – Jerusalem that had killed the prophets, that had killed Jesus, and had, just a few minutes previously, almost killed Paul, and that would try and try again to do so.

(2) That he studied under Gamaliel, and had been thoroughly trained in the law of the fathers (ancestors) of Israel. We have read of Gamaliel in Acts 5:34, where he is described as ‘a teacher of the law, who was honoured by all the people’. It was on Gamaliel’s advice that the Sanhedrin had released Peter and John, instead of killing them; he reasoned that if the message preached by them was just a human message, the new movement would, in time, simply lose its impetus; but, if it was from God, then the Sanhedrin would find themselves fighting against God (Acts 5:34 – 40). Now, quite some years later (estimated by some to be almost thirty years), the name of Christ is still being proclaimed, many thousands of people are followers of Christ, and the Jews, including the Sanhedrin (Acts 22:30 – 23:1 – 22), are still fighting against the name of Jesus and those who preach that name.

Paul’s thorough training in the Old Testament scriptures prior to his conversion enabled him, once he had seen and heard the risen Lord Jesus, to immediately speak convincingly about Jesus, the Christ (Acts 9:20, 22). His powerful preaching ‘baffled the Jews living in Damascus’. Having been confronted by the Lord Jesus, realising that he was the Son of God, all of Paul’s knowledge of the Old Testament immediately took on a whole new Christ-centred dimension. Paul saw that the Old Testament was all about Jesus Christ.

How did Paul express this in these verses?
1Corinthians 2:6 – 16

Galatians 3:21 – 25

Ephesians 3:2 – 6

Colossians 1:24 – 2:3

A.2 His former hatred of Jesus
In verses 4 & 5, Paul describes his determined former persecution of followers of the Way. He refers to:

His zeal for God.

Arresting and imprisoning both men and women.

The letters from the high priest, authorising him to arrest people in Damascus and bring them to Jerusalem for punishment.

All of this, he said, could be verified by the high priest and the Council.

In mentioning this part of his history Paul aligned his younger self with the anger and murderous intentions of the huge crowd he was addressing. He knew exactly how they were feeling – he had felt the same way. He knew their reasons – he had had the same reasons. He knew how it felt to want to kill a person because of zeal for God’s honour – he had felt the same zeal when an earlier angry crowd had killed Stephen.

But he had been wrong about Jesus. And he wants them to know how wrong they also are.

A.3 The confrontation with the Lord Jesus – 22:6 – 11
Most of what Paul says here is the same as Luke’s report in Acts 9. There are two small additions – (1) that here the Lord Jesus identified himself as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ (not just ‘Jesus’); the longer name avoids any possibility of confusion with some other ‘Jesus’. (2) That in 22:10, Paul says that Jesus referred to ‘all that you have been assigned to do’, while in 9:6 we read ‘what you must do.’ Both are strong statements; one speaks in terms of God’s sovereign purpose for Paul, the other says the same thing but from the perspective of Paul’s responsibility. The Lord Jesus Christ had assigned the work to Paul, laid out all the years of Paul’s ministry of preaching the Gospel: Paul must do it. Paul said more about this when he testified before Agrippa (Acts 26:15 – 18).

What do these verses say about this divine appointment, and how Paul felt about it?
Acts 26:19

Romans 1:1 (and similar first verses in other letters)

Romans 1:14

Romans 15:15, 16

2Corinthians 4:1

2Corinthians 10:13

Galatians 1:1

Galatians 1:15, 16

A.4 Confirmation and explanation of Paul’s commission – Acts 22:12 – 21
Again, Paul’s account parallels Luke’s in Acts 9, and again there is some additional information.

(1) About Ananias: We now learn that as well as being a believer in Jesus Christ, he was also ‘a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living’ in Damascus – 22:12. This is the man chosen by God to instruct the newly converted Saul and to introduce him to the Christians in Damascus. He was not a Gentile; and he was not a renegade Jew. Rather, he was a strict Jew, fully committed to the law. Here in this man the two belief systems, which Paul’s audience regarded as mutually antagonistic, are united: a devout, law-keeping Jew is also a follower of Jesus Christ. By this reference Paul adds weight to his defence, and to his defence of the gospel.

(2) About what Ananias said to Paul: Paul adds a few more details than Luke:

That Paul was chosen by the historic God of Israel to know his will.

That Paul was chosen by God to ‘see the Righteous One’ – that is, the Holy One mentioned in Psalm 16:10 (and already referenced in Acts 2:31; 3:14 and 7:52).

That Paul was chosen by God to hear the words of ‘the Righteous One’.

That Paul would be the witness of the Righteous One to all men (that is, not just to Jews, but to people of all nations).

All of this authenticates Paul and his teaching, linking his mission with the purpose and will of the God of the Old Testament, and identifying the Jesus Paul preached with the ‘Holy One’ promised by the Old Testament.

In this way Paul endeavoured to communicate to the crowd that, whereas he had once, like them, been vehemently opposed to the name of Christ, God changed his mind completely. So completely that soon he himself was the target of the same hatred of the name of Christ that he had previously held towards Christians (22:17 – 20). Paul again gives additional information – that God ordered his departure from Jerusalem, telling him ‘…they will not accept your testimony’ and ‘I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’

B. THE REACTION – ACTS 22:22 – 29

In Acts 22:22 we learn that the crowd had listened to Paul until he told them that the Lord had said ‘I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ And here we come to the deep centre of the Jew’s antagonism: that they, at least some of them, wanted to keep God for themselves. They did not want the Gentiles to know God.

How does this attitude stand in conflict with the Old Testament mindset?
Genesis 22:18

Psalm 22:27

Psalm 57:9

Psalm 65:5

Psalm 98:3

Isaiah 11:10

Isaiah 25:6 – 8

Isaiah 49:6

Isaiah 52:10

But at Paul’s statement that God has sent him to the Gentiles, the crowd’s silence was replaced by an uproar so violent that the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks (22:22 – 24). The crowd wanted Paul dead.

B.1 In the Roman barracks – 22:24 – 29
The Roman commander has no idea what the fuss was all about (22:24b).

What happened in the barracks?
What did they do to Paul? (v25a)

What did Paul say that stopped them from flogging him? (v25b)

How did the centurion in charge of the flogging respond? (v26)

How did the commander react when he was told? (vv27 – 29)

At this point, Paul’s Roman citizenship had saved him from a flogging, but the commander was still perplexed about why the Jews were accusing Paul (v30).