Tag Archives: Paul

Same Old Story

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SAME OLD STORY

“The next day, determined to get to the root of the trouble and to know for sure what was behind the Jewish accusation, the captain released Paul and ordered a meeting of the high priests and the High Council to see what they could make of it. Paul was led in and took his place before them.

“Paul surveyed the members of the council with a steady gaze, and then said his piece. ‘Friends, I have lived with a clear conscience before God all my life, up to this very moment.’ That set the chief priest Ananias off. He ordered the aides to slap Paul in the face. Paul shot back, ‘God will slap you down! What a fake you are! You sit there and judge me by the Law and then break the Law by ordering me slapped around!'” Acts 22:30-23:3 (The Message).

Paul was in the same position as his Master had been some three decades before, standing before the Jewish Sanhedrin to answer for his life. Unlike Jesus, he at least had the protection of the Roman government as a Roman citizen.

It was obvious that the men of the Sanhedrin were tarred with the same brush as the religious zealots they represented. He had hardly opened his mouth to speak before the high priest, as the highest religious authority in the country, began his physical abuse of Paul. It seems that he was exactly the same as his predecessor, Caiaphas, unreasonable and a bully. He was not prepared to give Paul a fair hearing to satisfy the captain. He was using his position to vent his own spleen on him.

The church had begun in Jerusalem and flourished for more than thirty years in spite of the Sanhedrin’s efforts to stamp it out. Caiaphas had led the charge against Jesus, fully believing that His death would put an end to the movement that was growing up around Him, but instead showing up the character of the men to whom the people looked for spiritual guidance.

Paul had been their most successful partner in this enterprise. He was a Pharisee like many of them, fanatically zealous for the Law they were supposedly upholding. Unfortunately for them, he had turned traitor and was just as zealously proclaiming the very One he had been opposing. It was a golden opportunity to get rid of him and Ananias lost no time in demonstrating his intention. Humiliate him first and then kill him!

Jesus had taught His disciples not to be doormats to anyone. It’s one thing to have an attitude of meekness, choosing to submit to authority even if you don’t like it, but it’s another thing to submit to bullying just because you are a Christian. ‘Turn the other cheek’, Jesus said. What does that mean?

We think it means, ‘Accept abuse because you are a believer,’ but in the culture of Jesus’ day, to be slapped on the right cheek was an insult because the hitter would have to use his left hand which was considered “unclean” because the left had was used for toilet purposes. To offer the other cheek meant that you were insisting that you were an equal and should be treated with dignity.

Was Paul being rude or disrespectful? I don’t think so. Jesus protested when He was slapped in the face during His trial. If the trial was intended to find out what lay behind Paul’s arrest, then the way to find out was to give him an opportunity to speak for himself, not to use him as an object of contempt to be abused at will.

What does this incident say to us? It clearly teaches us that everyone has the right to be treated with human dignity no matter who they are. Colour, culture, social standing, financial position, language or even accent does not disqualify anyone from being treated fairly because everyone has been created in the image of God.

Eye For An Eye

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EYE FOR AN EYE

“The people in the crowd had listened attentively up to this point, but now they broke loose, shouting out, ‘Kill him! He’s an insect! Stomp on him!’ They shook their fists. They filled the air with curses. That’s when the captain intervened and ordered Paul taken into the barracks. By now the captain was thoroughly exasperated. He decided to interrogate Paul under torture in order to get to the bottom of this, to find out what he had done that provoked this outraged violence. As they spread-eagled him with thongs, getting him ready for the whip, Paul said to the centurion standing there, ‘Is this legal: torturing a Roman citizen without a fair trial?'” Acts 22:22-25 (The Message).

What set the crowd off again? They had been listening to Paul’s story without any reaction up to this point, but at the mention of “Gentiles” they went crazy, demanding his annihilation as though he were a bug. This puzzled the Roman captain. What was it with these people? Why this pathological hatred of Paul?

He thought that there was something more sinister to this man, Paul, that he was not letting on about; he would wring it out of him under torture. Flogging him would do the trick, so he thought.

Paul was not looking forward to yet another beating, Roman style. He had one card up his sleeve to put a stop to it which he quickly pulled out while he had the chance — Roman citizenship. He did not whine to God about this unfair treatment. He used the system of the world he was in to protect himself from unnecessary suffering. There was enough of that ahead for him over which he had no power.

What should our response be to the injustices we, as believers, have to suffer at the hands of religious bigots? Jesus had an answer that befits citizens of the kingdom of God whose task it is to bring heaven down to earth.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 (NIV).

Strange as it may seem, Jesus maintained that persecution was a reason to rejoice, firstly because there is a great reward for those who are unashamedly loyal to Him and follow Him with no qualms; and secondly, because you are in good company since their own prophets received the same treatment as you are receiving.

James also wrote about the benefits of various trials and tests. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James1:2-4 (NIV).

Peter had this to say about the trials the believers were undergoing in his day: “In this (all the benefits of salvation) you greatly rejoice, though now, for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7 (NIV).

Paul also recognised the benefits of suffering: “Therefore we do not lost heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV).

What is God’s take in this? Will those who inflict pain on His people simply because they belong to Jesus and bear witness to His grace, never receive the justice they deserve for the injustice they have done against other human beings?

“You’re suffering now, but justice is on the way. When the Master Jesus appears out of heaven in a blaze of fire with His strong angels, He’ll even up the score by settling accounts with those who gave you such a bad time. His coming will be the break we are waiting for. Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Message will pay for what they’ve done.” 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 (The Message).

A Hornet’s Nest

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A HORNETS’ NEST!

“‘And that’s when I met Ananias, a man with a sterling reputation in observing our laws — the Jewish community in Damascus is unanimous on that score. He came and put his arm on my shoulder. ‘Look up,’ he said. I looked, and found myself looking right into his eyes — I could see again!

“Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors has hand-picked you to be briefed on His plan of action. You’ve actually seen the Righteous Innocent and heard Him speak. You are to be a key witness to everyone you meet of what you’ve seen and heard. So what are you waiting for? Get up and get yourself baptised, scrubbed clean of those sins and personally acquainted with God.'” Acts 22:12-16 (The Message).

Mmm! Paul was very careful to emphasize Ananias’ credentials, a Jew from Damascus who had good standing in the Jewish community there; but that did not take away from the fact that he was also one of those who followed Jesus in the “sect” they called “the Way”.

Just as Paul was looking for every way to defuse the situation, the crowd was waiting for him to indict himself by his own words. Up to this point there was nothing in his story to condemn him, so they allowed him to continue.

“‘Well, it happened as Ananias said. After I was back in Jerusalem and praying one day in the Temple, lost in the presence of God, I saw Him, saw God’s Righteous Innocent, and heard Him say to me, ‘Hurry up! Get out of here as quickly as you can. None of the Jews here in Jerusalem are going to accept what you say about me.’

“‘At first I objected: ‘Who has better credentials? They all know how obsessed I was with hunting out those who believed in you, beating them up in the meeting places and throwing them in jail. And when your witness, Stephen, was murdered, I was right there, holding the clothes of the murderers and cheering them on. And now they see me totally converted. What better qualifications could I have?’

“But He said, ‘Don’t argue. Go. I’m sending you on a long journey to outsider Gentiles.'”
Acts 22:18-21 (The Message).

Paul’s credentials in his old, pre-Christ life were also impeccable. He was so zealous for the law that he was willing to kill those whom he considered traitors to Moses. Strange, isn’t it, that he was murderously defending the law that said, “Do not commit murder”! He was oppressing those whom the law defended against oppression! He was making decisions for those to whom God had given the right to make their own! Isn’t this how religion works?

He had turned his religion into an idol which he worshipped with such fanatical zeal that it had turned him into a heartless monster and as blind as a bat to the truth. He had long since lost the understanding of the true God — the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who established a covenant of love with them and taught them, through the provisions of that covenant, to care about people and to protect them, not to destroy them because they had believed in their Messiah about whom his Scriptures had spoken.

It had taken nothing less than a face-to-face confrontation with Jesus to convince Paul that he was dead wrong about Him. Now Paul was trying to convince people who were as equally blind and stubborn as he had been, that Jesus was their Messiah! His journeys through Asia and Europe had not yielded much fruit among the Jews. It was not likely that it would be any different here in Jerusalem.

Paul was standing next to a hornets’ nest and at any moment they would break loose and strike!

Ready To Kill For God

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READY TO KILL FOR GOD

“Standing on the barracks steps, Paul turned and held his arms up. A hush fell over the crowd as Paul began to speak. He spoke in Hebrew.

“‘My dear brothers and fathers, listen carefully to what I have to say before you jump to conclusions about me.” When they heard him speaking Hebrew, they grew even quieter. No one wanted to miss a word of this.

“He continued, ‘I am a good Jew, born in Tarsus in the province of Cilicia, but educated in Jerusalem under the exacting eye of Rabbi Gamaliel, thoroughly instructed in our religious traditions. And I’ve always been passionately on God’s side, just as you are right now.” Acts 21:40-22:3 (The Message).

And so Paul began his defense. This was the first time he was allowed to tell his side of the story. Throughout his missionary journeys, when he was falsely accused and hounded from city to city, he was never given the opportunity to speak for himself. The word of his accusers was believed and acted on and he was punished or had to flee on their word, lies or no lies.

Paul must have known that his own words would not be enough to put out the fires of hostility in the hearts of these fanatical Jews. They had already decided that he was guilty and must die. His defence meant only one thing — they were waiting for him to indict himself just as the Sanhedrin at Jesus’ trial pushed Him to admit His own guilt.

“‘I went after anyone connected with this ‘Way’, went at them hammer and tongs, ready to kill for God. I rounded up men and women, right and left and had them thrown in prison. You can ask the Chief Priest or anyone in the High Council to verify this; they all knew me well. Then I went off to our brothers in Damascus, armed with official documents, authorising me to hunt down the Christians there, arrest them, and bring them back to Jerusalem for sentencing.'” Acts 22:4-5 (The Message).

Not a pretty track record, when one reads Paul’s “Before Christ” CV! But so convinced was he that he was right that he though God needed help in defending His cause. Such is every religious system that needs human beings from preventing his kingdom from going under! The silversmiths of Ephesus had this problem on their hands. If they did not take action, the goddess Artemis would be robbed of her divine majesty?

Could Paul or any other religious zealot protect God from losing His divine majesty without his intervention? What kind of a God is that? This is sheer human foolishness. Isaiah mocked the gods of the nations around Israel that they were so keen to worship. ‘They are burdens you have to load on donkeys because they can’t even walk,’ he reminded God’s people. ‘Our God is not like that. He is the one who carries you, even when you are so old that you can no longer walk!’

Paul did not realise until his confrontation with the living Christ, that God did not need his help to protect Him, particularly since Paul had such a screw bald idea of God that he was fighting an entirely wrong cause. He thought Jesus was an imposter and that the best way to unmask Him was to exterminate His followers.

Every false religious notion uses the same argument for venting its spleen through its followers to try to silence the truth. But God’s truth will stand while every lie will fall. God has spoken. “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:11 (NIV).

If God Be For Us

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IF GOD BE FOR US

“The captain came up and put Paul under arrest. He first ordered him handcuffed and then asked who he was and what he had done. All he got from the crowd were shouts, one yelling this, another that. It was impossible to tell one word from another in the mob hysteria, so the captain ordered Paul taken to the military barracks. But when they got to the Temple steps, the mob became so violent that the soldiers had to carry Paul. As they carried him away, the crowd followed, shouting, ‘Kill him! Kill him!'” Acts 21:33-36 (The Message).

How many times had Paul been in a similar situation? In almost every city he had preached in, he had faced being lynched, either by Jews or enraged Gentiles stirring up violence against him for some perceived grievance. This was religious bigotry at its worst.

His ploy to appease the opposition hadn’t worked. They were not taken in by his shaved head and pathetic attempt to convince them that he was a good Jew. His reputation had gone before him and it took only one tiny spark of hatred to set the whole city alight. Roman soldiers or no Roman soldiers, the mob was determined to get him this time, once and for all.

It was only divine intervention that could save him, and it came to him in the form of Roman authority which, at this moment, was on his side. This little Jewish colony was a constant thorn in Rome’s side. There had to be a strong military presence here to keep the volatile crowd from erupting over any little religious nit-picking especially when it came to the issue of Jesus of Nazareth.

Some thirty years before, representatives of the city had made their choice. ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children,’ they had yelled at Pilate. Not only had they chosen to speak for themselves but they had also implicated their descendants in their decision to reject their Messiah and consign themselves to the unbelief that has dogged their nation down the centuries.

For Paul there was one tiny light at the end of the tunnel — Rome. He was not going to die here at the hands of the Jews, no matter their intention, because God had assured him that he would testify to His grace in Rome. As scary as his situation was, he was assured of divine protection and he could rest in the presence and promise of God.

“When they got to the barracks, and were about to go in, Paul said to the captain, ‘Can I say something to you?’

“He answered, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you spoke Greek. I thought you were an Egyptian who not long ago started a riot here and then hid out in the desert with his four thousand thugs.’

“Paul said, ‘No, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus. And I’m a citizen still of that influential city. I have a simple request. Let me speak to the crowd.'” Acts 21:37-39 (The Message).

Surprise! The Roman captain thought he had to do with yet another marauding gang leader, not an educated, Greek speaking, respectable citizen of an influential city in the Roman Empire. That put a different slant on things. God was slowly building His protective shield around Paul, growing respect for him in the heart of the Roman captain which would stand him in good stead in days to come.

Once again Paul was learning that the safest place to be was in the will of God because he was untouchable in the worst of circumstances as God’s plan for him unfolded. When David was a fugitive from the murderous hatred of Saul, he also experienced a safe place in God.

To Abiathar, son of the murdered priest, Ahimelech, he said, “‘Stay with me, don’t be afraid. The man who is seeking your life is seeking mine also. You will be safe with me.” 1 Samuel 22:23 (NIV).