Acts 23 & 24

STUDY TWENTY-EIGHT: ACTS 23 & 24

A. BEFORE THE PRIESTS AND THE SANHEDRIN – 23:1 – 11

Having kept Paul safe somewhere in the barracks overnight, the next day the commander ordered the leaders of the Jews – the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin, to assemble, and had Paul address them (22:30). But he did not get beyond his first statement before trouble erupted.

Read 23:1 – 9. Find answers to these questions:
What did Paul say? (v1)

Suggest why this upset the high priest:

How did Paul respond to the high priest’s order that he be struck on the face?

What did Paul say to engage the support of the Pharisees? (v6)

Why did this stir up a dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees? (v8)

How did some of the Pharisees express their support for Paul? (v9)

What did the commander fear? (v10)

While some of the teachers of the law (who were Pharisees) conceded the possibility that Paul had heard ‘a spirit or an angel’ speak (a reference back to Paul’s testimony the previous day, that God had spoken to him (22:6 – 10, 21)), the Sadducees, who did not believe in angels or spirits, nor the resurrection, made no such concession. The fact that some of the Pharisees began to support Paul (v9) only made matters worse.

The commander’s action in verse 10 helps us to understand how violent the members of the Sanhedrin became. Here were the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the religious leaders of the people, so stirred up in their antagonism towards Paul that the commander feared Paul would be killed. It would seem that Paul was already being man-handled by these people – the commander ordered his troops to ‘take him away from them by force’.

To us today, the extreme violence of the Sanhedrin that equalled the violence of the crowd the day before, may seem incredible. How could these religious leaders, who sought to uphold the Old Testament law, engage in such hatred? Paul had pointed out (v3) that even the order to strike him on the face was a violation of the law, which required a fair trial before any punishment was applied.

In their zeal for God, they had believed Jesus was a blasphemer, and therefore should die, and they had accomplished that result. Now here was Paul, who preached a resurrected Jesus, proclaiming to both Jew and Gentile that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and also proclaiming to both Jew and Gentile a salvation from God apart from the law.

Their zeal, at its best, was motivated by a knowledge of God’s holiness – that he alone is God and there is no other God. They knew the judgements that had fallen on the people of Israel and Judah because of their idolatry and their unfaithfulness to God. Since the return from exile in Babylon their ancestors had been meticulous in avoiding idolatry, and in keeping themselves separate from those who practised it.

But their zeal for God was not based on true knowledge of God.

What do these verses say about …?
The Jewish leaders’ ignorance of God – John 8:19?

Their misguided zeal – Romans 10:1, 2?

Paul, when he was still against Jesus – 1Timothy 1:13?

Their zealous hatred of Christ and his name, and now of Paul who proclaimed Christ to both Jew and Gentile, was evidence of how far from the truth their understanding of God, and of the Old Testament, actually was.

[Note about Ananias the high priest: In AD66 a group of anti-Roman rebels assassinated Ananias, having found him hiding in the sewers of Jerusalem. Some time prior to this, the Jews had deposed Ananias because of his corruption and hardness, but he had continued to have the support of Rome.]

A.1 God’s encouragement – verse 11
The following night, the Lord encouraged Paul, telling him that he would testify about him in Rome.

In this we are at last relieved of the tension evident in previous chapters, where what Paul believed God was telling him, seemed to conflict with what other Christians believed God was telling them to tell Paul.

God had a purpose, that that purpose was for Paul to testify about Jesus Christ in Rome, and this had also been Paul’s desire for some time. Whether or not Paul should have gone to Jerusalem is fundamentally irrelevant, because one way or another, God would get him to Rome. Having come to Jerusalem, and having experienced the opposition that God had said would happen there, the Lord is about to use that intense opposition as the means by which Paul would, eventually, be taken to Rome. Paul need not fear that the Jerusalem Jews will kill him – he must testify about the Lord Jesus in Rome.

B. A PLOT TO KILL PAUL FOILED – ACTS 23:12 – 22

Luke reports in some detail how a nephew of Paul’s, having heard about a Jewish plot to kill Paul, alerted the commander of the danger.

As you read through these verses take note of the following:

How serious and deliberate these Jews were in their intention to kill Paul.

How, it seems, they involved whole Sanhedrin in their deception and trickery.

How, even though he is not mentioned in these verses, the Sovereign Lord was looking after Paul. This is evident in various ways in this anecdote.

C. WHAT THE COMMANDER DID TO SAVE PAUL – ACTS 23:23 – 35

It is obvious that the commander was very concerned about Paul’s safety.

Read verses 23 – 35. Answer these questions:
Where did the commander decide to send Paul?

Why did he send him there?

What protection did the commander arrange for Paul?

What does the size of this protection suggest about the commander’s genuine concern for Paul and his understanding of the antagonism of the Jews towards Paul?

Now we finally learn the name of the commander. What was it?

Compare the commander’s brief summary with the events Luke reported in 22:22 – 3:22. What did he say that was not exactly the true order of events?

Suggest why he might have made this change?

Paul is now on his way from Jerusalem, a journey that will end in Rome, but it will take quite a long time to get there, and many things will happen to him along the way. But he is safe; he is alive; and he will have, during the interim, more opportunities to testify about the Lord Jesus Christ.

D. IN CAESAREA BEFORE FELIX – ACTS 24

(Note: some translations omit verse 7 and part of verse 8)

When the high priest and some of the Jews went down to Caesarea to meet with Felix the governor, they took with them a lawyer named Tertullus, who spoke on their behalf.

Answer these questions:
What did Tertullus say in praise of Felix? – vv2, 3

Suggest why he said these things:

What accusations did he bring against Paul? – vv5 – 6

How did the rest of the Jews affirm what Tertullus said? - v9

How did Paul express his confidence in Felix? - v10

What eight things did Paul admit to? – v11 – 18

What five things did Paul deny? – v11 – 18

What did he suggest should happen? – v19, 20

D.1 What Paul’s defence reveals about this theology
If we look at what Paul admitted to in his defence, we gain some insight into what he believed and how his faith was expressed in his actions.

[1] He worshipped ‘the God of our fathers’ – verses 11, 14. As a believer in Jesus Christ, he was not worshipping a different God; he was still worshipping the God who had revealed himself to the patriarchs, the God who had revealed himself in the history of Israel; the God about whom the Old Testament spoke. It was to worship this God of Israel that he had gone up to Jerusalem.

[2] Related to the previous, in deliberately coming to Jerusalem to worship God, he acknowledged that Jerusalem was the holy city, the city of God, where the worship of God was centred. In particular, as we know from Acts 20:16, he had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Day of Pentecost there. (This festival was otherwise known as the Feast of Weeks, fifty days after the Passover. You can read about it in Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15 – 22; Deuteronomy 16:9 – 12. It included ‘a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings’ that God gave. The Israelites were instructed to ‘rejoice before the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name’, that is, Jerusalem.) Paul had gone to Jerusalem to worship God, rejoicing in the blessings that God had poured upon his ministry, and bringing an offering from various churches to benefit the poor in Jerusalem – see Acts 24:17; Romans 15:25 – 27; 1Corinthians 16:1 – 4; 2Corinthians 8 & 9.

[3] Paul testified that he worshipped God ‘as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect’ – verse 14. We have seen reference to ‘the Way’ previously. It was how some people referred to followers of Jesus Christ. It is not clear why Christianity was called ‘the Way’. Two suggested reasons are (1) that Christians are followers of Jesus Christ who called himself ‘the Way’ (John 14:6); and (2) that Jesus taught about the ‘narrow way’ that leads to life (Matthew 7:13, 14).

Tertullus had just called it the ‘Nazarene sect’ (Acts 24:5). The Greek word translated ‘sect’ is hairesis. In this verse, and some others, the KJV translated it ‘heresy’. But we cannot be sure that that is what Tertullus intended, as the word sometimes simply means ‘sect’, that is, a smaller group within a larger group, such as ‘the sect of the Pharisees’ (Acts 15:5) and ‘the sect of the Sadducees’ (Acts 5:17). Paul later referred to the time he lived ‘according to the strictest sect of our religion’ (Acts 26:5). It has its strongest negative meaning – ‘heresies’ in 2Peter 2:1, and a lesser negative meaning in 1Corinthians 11:19 and Galatians 5:20, where it is used to refer to undesirable divisions or dissensions within the church.

[4] He believed ‘everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets’ – verse 14. In other words, he believed everything that was written in the Law (the five books of Moses) and the Prophets (which for the Jews included all of the books that we consider books relating history, as well as what we call the Major and Minor prophets. The Jews called the history books ‘the former prophets’ and the prophets’ writings ‘the latter prophets’). In addition, Paul believed ‘everything that agrees with’ the Old Testament scriptures – that is, it might not be written in those scriptures, but it agrees with those scriptures.

[5] He had the ‘hope in God …that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked’ – verse 15. In this he believed the same as the Pharisees, but not the Sadducees. Because of this confidence, he always strove to keep his conscience clean before God and man, verse 16. His commitment to keeping his conscience clean prevented him from desecrating the temple – verse 18.

D.2 Paul’s suggestions
Having stated his beliefs and denied any wrong doing, Paul made two suggestions – (1) that some Jews from the province of Asia ought to be there bringing any charges they might have. Acts 21:27 tells us that it was ‘some Jews from the province of Asia’ who had stirred up the whole crowd. It may have been these Jews from the province of Asia who had informed the Jews in Jerusalem that Paul taught ‘all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses …’ (see James’ comment in Acts 21:21). And, alternatively (2), for the Jews present at the hearing to actually state what crime the Sanhedrin had found in him.

D.3 What Felix did – Acts 24:22 – 27
Felix, Luke tells us, ‘was well acquainted with the Way’; and it seems that to some extent he was interested to learn more about it.

What did Felix do?
What was he waiting for?

How did he show some consideration for Paul?

Who did Paul talk to Felix and his wife about?

What made Felix afraid?

Suggest why Paul talked to him about those particular topics?

What was Felix’s ulterior motive in talking with Paul?

For how long did Felix have the opportunity to hear, understand and believe Paul’s Gospel?

Why did Felix leave Paul in prison at the end of his term as governor?