Tag Archives: King Agrippa

THE BOOK OF ACTS – CRAZY OR CONVINCED?

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CRAZY OR CONVINCED?

“That was too much for Festus. He interrupted with a shout: ‘Paul, you’re crazy! You’ve read too many books, spent too much time staring off into space! Get a grip on yourself; get back in the real world!’

“But Paul stood his ground. ‘With all respect, Festus, Your Honour, I’m not crazy. I’m both accurate and sane in what I’m saying. The King knows what I’m talking about. I’m sure that nothing of what I said sounds crazy to him. He’s known all about it for a long time. You must realise that this wasn’t done behind the scenes. You believe the prophets, don’t you, King Agrippa? Don’t answer that — I know you believe.'” Acts 26:24-27 (The Message).

Why did Festus react so violently to Paul’s story? Did Paul sound like a crazy man? To a Roman who was steeped in the bizarre and ridiculous beliefs of his idolatrous religion, for a human being to be executed and then to rise from the dead, and then actually to appear and speak to the man who stood before them who was willing to lay down his life for what he was saying, was beyond reason. Did Paul really expect them to believe his story?

What if it were true? What were the implications for him? Brush Paul off as out of his mind and he could escape the obligations this testimony laid on him. Festus’ reaction is often the reaction of people who do not want God to intrude into their lives with His requirements. They have no interest in living in harmony with their Creator. “Get rid of His witnesses and then I don’t have to worry about what He says. I can make Him go away if I silence the voice that speaks of Him.”

Unfortunately for Festus, Paul was not a lone voice in bearing witness to the Messiah who came from God, laid down His life and then rose from the dead. For many centuries before it happened the Hebrew prophets spoke of the event as a fait accompli — and it was because, from God’s point of view, it was finished from before the foundation of the world.

Paul was not speaking of something brand new. He had stepped in time into the plan of God which was conceived and effected before time began. Festus could shout and scream and call him names but that did not alter the truth that Paul was declaring before this august assembly.

The Jesus whom the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman soldiers thought that they had safely disposed of was the Jesus who had stood before Paul in His risen glory to rescue him from his self-destruction and send him out as one of those he had so vehemently despised to carry His message to the ends of the earth. Paul had no option but to explain why he was on this apparently suicidal mission. It was not his idea. He had been chosen and commissioned to do it and he had accepted the package.

Paul appealed to King Agrippa. He was fully conversant with all the facts. He was an authority on Jewish affairs. Perhaps this was Agrippa’s moment to put it all together and to realise that Paul was speaking the truth.

In the environment of Governor Festus, blinded by his pagan outlook on life, Agrippa and Bernice, arrogant and pompous regents of an out-of-the-way and obscure province in the Roman Empire, and all the glitterati in Caesarea, Paul preached the gospel of the risen Christ who outshines and outlives all.  These so-called intellectuals refused to believe the truth but they gladly swallowed any old bumph dished up to them in the guise of religion as long as it left them alone to continue in their inflated opinions of themselves and their perverted way of life.

That was their choice. What’s yours?

THE BOOK OF ACTS – A TWIST IN THE TALE

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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 defense 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!