Tag Archives: Agrippa

Pomp And Ceremony

Bible Study, , ,

POMP AND CEREMONY

“Agrippa said, ‘I’d like to see this man and hear his story.’

“‘Good,’ said Festus.’We’ll bring him in first thing in the morning and you’ll hear it for yourself.’

“The next day everybody who was anybody in Caesarea found his way to the Great Hall, along with the top military brass. Agrippa and Bernice made a flourishing grand entry and took their places. Festus then ordered Paul brought in.” Acts 25:22-23 (The Message).

What is this? Some sort of circus or celebrity show? Why all the pomp and ceremony just for a man to defend himself against lying accusations? Was this about Paul or was it about King Agrippa? It’s almost as though the town crier had gone through the city shouting, ‘Hear ye, hear ye! King Agrippa is in town. Come and see him in the Grand Hall at 9 o’clock this morning!’

With the arrival of the VIPs and the accompanying military procession, everything was ready to bring in the prisoner. Amazing, isn’t it, how God manages to shift the spotlight so that His servant and His word gets centre stage! Had Paul worked for months to plan this, he could not have arranged a better audience and a better opportunity to proclaim the message of Jesus. God is smart!

“Festus said, ‘King Agrippa and distinguished guests, take a good look at this man. A bunch of Jews petitioned me first in Jerusalem, and later here, to do away with him. They have been most vehement in demanding his execution. I looked into it and decided that he had committed no crime. He requested a trial before Caesar and I agreed to send him to Rome. But what am I going to write to my master, Caesar? All the charges made by the Jews were fabrications, and I’ve uncovered nothing else.

“‘That’s why I’ve brought him before this company, and especially you, King Agrippa, so we can come up with something in the nature of a charge that will hold water. For it seems to me silly to send a prisoner all that way for a trial and not be able to document what he did wrong.'” Acts 25:24-27 (The Message).

Mmm! Festus was a slippery as an eel. He didn’t have the guts to stand up to the Jews, knowing full well that Paul was innocent of their charges, but now that he could hide behind King Agrippa, he was willing to admit that Paul was no criminal. What was the point of this auspicious occasion? Did he grab the opportunity to exonerate himself in public and in front of Agrippa so that the authorities in Rome could not charge him for injustice against a Roman citizen?

But Festus was still caught in the horns of a dilemma and wanted King Agrippa to join him in a conspiracy. If Paul was innocent, why was he being sent to Rome to be tried in the imperial court for nothing he had done wrong? He and King Agrippa would have to come up with their own set of lies to justify sending him to Rome.

Caesar would not be interested in petty Jewish religious squabbles. What would be of concern would be anything that challenged his authority or claim to be “Lord”, and that was exactly the issue that brought many believers in Jesus to trial, torture and execution. The currently reigning Caesar, Nero, arrogantly laid claim to the titles and office that belong to Jesus alone, such as Lord, Son of God, Prince of Peace and Saviour, and demanded to be worshipped as god. To deny these claims was treasonable and the sentence was death.

Festus and King Agrippa would have to fashion their charge against Paul in such a way that it appeared that he had deliberately and verbally challenged those claims and had laid himself open to Nero’s wrath.

It was Paul’s opportunity to shake off these predators once and for all.

A Twist In The Tale

Bible Study, , , ,

A TWIST IN THE TALE

“A few days later King Agrippa and his wife, Bernice, visited Caesarea to welcome Festus to his new post. After several days, Festus brought up Paul’s case to the king. ‘I have a man on my hands here, a prisoner left by Felix. When I was in Jerusalem, the high priests and Jewish leaders brought a bunch of accusations against him and wanted me to sentence him to death. I told them that wasn’t the way we Romans did things. Just because a man is accused, we don’t throw him out to the dogs. We make sure the accused has a chance to face his accusers and defend himself of the charges. So when they came down here I got right on the case. I took my place in the courtroom and put the man on the stand.

“‘The accusers came at him from all sides, but their accusations turned out to be nothing more than arguments about their religion and a dead man named Jesus, who the prisoner claimed to be alive. Since I’m a newcomer here and don’t understand everything involved in a case like this, I asked if he be willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there. Paul refused and demanded a hearing before His Majesty in our highest court. So I ordered him returned to custody until I could send him to Caesar in Rome.'” Acts 25:13-21 (The Message).

Festus’ story sounds quite accurate except for one small twist. He gave his reason for wanting to send Paul back to Jerusalem for trial as ignorance concerning the ins and outs of a case like this. Luke said it was because he wanted to curry favour with the Jews. Which version was correct? When the Jews asked him to send Paul back to Jerusalem for trial, he had refused, citing Caesarea as the place of his jurisdiction over Paul. Why the sudden change of mind?

When the Jews came to Caesarea to put their case before Festus, the sight of Paul coming into the courtroom sent them into a frenzy of accusations. Paul’s defence did nothing to calm them down and Festus must have realised that he was a hot potato. Regardless of the legitimacy of their case, he had a howling mob on his hands whom he had better appease as best he could if he did not want a riot and a bloodbath in Judea.

He had quickly changed his tune, magnanimously offering Paul the option of returning to Jerusalem to answer their charges. Perhaps he knew that he would choose the only other option open to him – trial before Caesar – in which case Paul’s decision was irrevocable – and Festus would neatly have got rid of him without dirtying his hands.

He put his problem to King Agrippa in a plausible way to cover up the real motive for his unexpected move. The issue was not whether Paul was guilty of a crime punishable by death or not — he was certainly not stupid enough to be taken in by the Jews’ emotional frenzy — but how to get rid of Paul without being unjust and at the same time calming the Jews enough to stop the inevitable riot that Paul’s release would spark.

Perhaps the king would come up with a satisfactory solution that would take the responsibility off Festus’ hands. The king’s visit could not have come at a better time -except for one small glitch. Paul’s appeal to Caesar could not be changed.

Festus had another problem. He knew that the case against Paul was all about an internal religious quarrel – he made that clear to Agrippa. What sort of governor would he look like, sending Paul to Caesar with a petty charge like that, as though he were incapable of dealing with it? He needed Agippa’s rubber stamp on the case to make it look more serious and needing Caesar’s intervention.

While all this was going on, Paul was still firmly in the hands of a God who always works everything according to the purpose of His will. Whatever negotiations were going on in the earthly scene, God was inexorably moving His son into position to get him to Rome — at Rome’s expense, mind you — to take His message to the heart and hub of the Roman Empire. Festus had inadvertently played right into the hands of a sovereign God and all of heaven relaxed! God had done it again!