ACTS 24
Read Acts 24:1-27
Paul was now in Caesarea where the Romans were based. The governor, Felix, was going to hear the case against him. A lawyer named Tertullus opened the case for the prosecution and tried to get the governor on his side with some words of flattery. He then accused Paul of being a troublemaker (the New English Bible has ‘a perfect pest’) and stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world (v5). This was a serious charge because it had political ramifications; political unrest in the Roman Empire was not to be tolerated. Tertullus also accused Paul of being a ringleader of a sect (the Nazarenes, that is, Christians) and also that he tried to desecrate the Temple. Tertullus and the rest of the Jewish authorities ended their accusation by swearing that these things were true (v9).
This being a Roman court rather than the kangaroo courts we have seen before, Paul was allowed to defend himself, and he did so robustly. First of all, he was most certainly not a troublemaker. He had only been in Jerusalem a day or two and he had gone to the Temple to worship not to cause a riot. It was his accusers who had caused the riot. He then addressed the issue of being a ringleader of a sect. He admitted that he was a follower of ‘the Way’ but in doing that he was still worshipping the same God of their ancestors and the he still believed the Old Testament law and everything that went with it (v14). Finally, Paul said the he had not desecrated the Temple at all but had come to the Temple for proper religious purposes. He had not come to cause a disturbance; rather it was some Jewish people that recognised him from his journeys who started the trouble. Paul then said that all these charges were nonsense and the real reason he was on trial was because he had the nerve to speak of the resurrection of Jesus (v21).
This is all rather detailed and we might think not really relevant to our lives today, but what it does do is to show the lengths to which opponents of Christianity will go to try to discredit our faith. Paul’s accusers were quite happy to misrepresent the truth and to tell outright lies in a court of law in order to keep him from speaking. We sometimes see the same sort of thing today. When the opponents of Christianity go on the attack they try to discredit what the Bible says by misrepresenting it or claiming that it says things that it doesn’t. There has been so little engagement with the Bible by most people over the last few generations that people really don’t know what the Bible says, so if someone like Richard Dawkins or Stephen Fry says something like, ‘the Bible is ridiculous because it says . . . ‘ then people will believe them. What they have said maybe completely wrong but because they are well-known popular figures people will believe uncritically what they say. Paul relied on his knowledge of God’s word and his faith in the Lord to put up a strong defence against his attackers. We might feel a bit inadequate if we are ever in debate with someone who seems to know what they are talking about; but we have the word of God and they don’t, and we have the promise that we have the Spirit with us to tell us what to say.