A Very Disfunctional Family Gathering

Notes:

Introduction:

Explaining how Paul ended up in this situation:

Governer was trying to figure out who Paul was:

Egyptian Rebel?

Questioned the Crowd, but “some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another.”

Tried to get answers from Paul through torture. BUT that backfired because Paul is a Roman citizen.

Finally trial by the Sanhedrin.

Those to know:

Commander: Who was this guy?

Ananias: Who was this guy?

Josephus: “A great hoarder up of money’; he even “took away the tithes that belonged to the priests by violence.”

Ananias commanded Paul to get slapped why? Paul’s words “seemed to Ananias the height of arrogance, even of blasphemy.” Stott

Did Paul lose his patience in his response? Was he being sarcastic? “I did not realize that a man such as you could be the high priest.” Stott. Stott argument: Paul has bad eyesight. “You white washed wall’ may have been not so much a reference to hypocrisy as an uncouth allusion to a white-robed figure across the court whom Paul could only dimply perceive.”

Paul deliberately causing division?

Stott: “Was Paul justified in deliberately setting the Pharisees and the Sadducees against one another? And was he correct to call himself a Pharisee?”

Commander

Religiously Conservative

Had all the right theology but missed the gospel

Religiously Liberal

Had all the power but no grace.

“Anti-supernaturalist stance” Stott

Violence got so bad that the Commander had to save Paul for the 3rd time!

Eugene Pederson

“Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines….the practice of resurrection is not an attack on the world of death; it is a nonviolent embrace of life in the country of death. It is an open invitation to live eternity in time.