Defense Before the Mob

Last week we left Paul just outside the temple where he was being beaten within an inch of his life by the Jerusalem Jews. [ 001 ] If you remember, they had accused Paul of desecrating the temple by bringing non-Jews through the Gentiles’ courtyard, into the Inner Courts (Something they didn’t even bother to fact check – just went with the rumors, like often happens), and secondly they accused Paul of preaching that the entire system of the law and everything that makes them Jewish doesn’t matter now that Jesus has come. Now on some level that’s true – You don’t have to be Jewish or follow Jewish customs in order to be saved or stay saved. It’s by grace we’re saved, not by doctrine or by religious customs or practices. But Paul was not telling people to stop being Jewish. He’s telling people that Jesus is the Messiah they have been promised. But some very devout Jews have had it out for Paul for a long time, and they want to see him done for.

So in an effort to make peace, Paul was here in Jerusalem, in the temple, performing a ceremonial vow to prove that he’s not opposed to Jewishness. But the rumors win out and they jump him, drag him out of the temple, and proceed to try and beat him to death when the Romans stepped in and arrested him – not because they care about the temple or Jewish laws, but because they care about peace. They don’t know who Paul is or why he’s getting beat up, so they start looking for answers. And as they drag him toward the Tower of Antonia barracks there at the top right, Paul (v39) asks the commander for a favor – may I speak to the people who were beating me?

1 Peter 3:15 says “but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” In studying Acts these last two years and specifically the life of Paul, I get the feeling that he literally went around always prayerfully asking the Lord, should I share it now? What about now? Is this a good time? I imagine Paul in a restaurant, asking the server – hey are you super busy right now, or do you have time for a quick story? I admire people who think like that – it’s something I want ask God to grow in me.

Just outside the temple, here in Acts 21, Paul is being led away by the Roman authorities, and he decides, hey this is a great time to give my testimony! Guards, would you mind if I talk to the people?

[ 002 ] 40 After he had given permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When there was a great hush, he addressed them in Aramaic:, 22 “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you.” 2 When they heard that he was addressing them in Aramaic, they became even quieter. 3 He continued, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of our ancestral law. I was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

Let’s say you are on vacation somewhere, you’re on a resort somewhere in Florida, or you’re at the campground in a national park, and you meet another person at the pool or on the shuttle bus or whatever, and you’re talking about where you’re from – and as it turns out, you’re both from the MidWest. I’m from Iowa, oh cool – we’re from Missouri. Oh yeah, what part? Oh, cool! I have friends that live there. Really? What part of Iowa you from? Iowa City area. No way! What part? Well, Riverside, just a few minutes south of there. Oh, sure! And so on.

Right? That’s sometimes how the conversation rolls, where we often try to find as many connections as we can with someone. That’s what Paul is doing in these verses. He is trying to establish credibility with the Jews by making as many connections with them as he can.

[ 003-1 ] First of all, he speaks their language. Not just “he speaks English,” but he speaks their language. Aramaic. This was a common language for Jews of the time, even if their native language was different. If Paul wished to be understood by most Jews, he would use Aramaic (Bock). The Roman soldiers don’t speak this language. This is specifically for the Jews.

[ 003-2 ] Brothers and Fathers – He’s relating to them as family; Not condemning them for treating him the way they just did

[ 003-3 ] I’m a Jew – Doesn’t say “I was” a Jew

[ 003-4 ] Educated by Gamaliel – Think of a famous Christian leader in the world – John Piper, Tim Keller, Billy Graham – That was Gamaliel. Very influential, very popular, and very wise.

[ 003-5 ] According to the strictness of Our ancestral law – Paul’s way of saying, thanks to my teaching from Gamaliel, I know every inch of the law. Not just “the” law – “our” law. Mine and yours.

[ 003-6 ] Hat’s off to you guys - You’re zealous for the law – I was too. In sports you say game recognizes game when two really good players shake hands and show respect. In fact, you want to talk about zealous, Paul says, I was so zealous that [ 004-1 ] 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, arresting and putting both men and women in jail, 5 as both the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. [ 004-2 ] After I received letters from them to the brothers, I traveled to Damascus to arrest those who were there and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished.

What you’re doing right now with me, arresting me, dragging me out of the temple, ready to punish me to the death – been there done that! Everything you’re fired up about right now – that was me too! I know where you’re coming from, and I respect you for it.

But I have to tell you what happened to me [ 005-1 ] – 6 “As I was traveling and approaching Damascus, about noon an intense light from heaven suddenly flashed around me. [ 005-2 ] 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ [ 005-3 ] 8 “I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are persecuting.’

Paul is like, what I never realized the whole time I was dragging people out of their homes was that I wasn’t just hurting them – I was persecuting Jesus himself! Jesus himself was so present in the people I was targeting, that it was him I was sinning against.

And I want to hang out here for a minute, because this is something I think we can overlook sometimes.

One of Paul’s favorite illustrations he uses to refer to the Church is the body of Christ. Just like every one of our bodies is made up of a lot of smaller parts – fingers, arms, legs, feet, muscles, ligaments, cells – Paul would say in several of his NT letters that the Church is not an organization. The Church is an organism, a living body, made up of many members joined together in salvation. At his ascension, Jesus left earth and went back to the realm that he came from – the place God inhabits apart from his Creation. He did not leave his human body here on earth. It did not disappear in the clouds somewhere, he did not change his being somewhere between here and heaven. When he returns, in Revelation 19, he has a body. So there is no reason to think that he is not still fully human, with a physical body, even as he is King of kings and Lord of lords, still second person of the Trinity.

But, in another sense, when Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to live in anyone who has been spiritually brought from death to life, the actual members of the Church are now the physical representation of Christ in the world. I’m not the body of Christ, just a tiny part of it. There aren’t a whole bunch of bodies of Christ running around, nor are there a whole bunch of bodies of Christ meeting for worship this morning. There is one body of Christ, and River City is just a small part of it. But put us all together – everyone who has called on the name of Jesus across every century past, present, and all those who will call on Jesus in the future, and collectively, together we are so united to Christ, so joined to him by faith that if you persecute a Christian, you are persecuting Jesus himself.

While we’re on the subject, here’s another angle for the same concept. The Apostle Peter did a lot of his ministry in Jerusalem, so he used the illustration of the temple , where each member of the church, 1 Peter 2 is a living stone, stacked together, overlapping each other, each doing our parts, linked and locked together with other members of the Church – all being built together as a house for the Holy Spirit to live in.

For that reason, you don’t go to the house of the Lord like they did under the Old covenant – in Christ, you are the house of the Lord. You don’t go to Church – you are the Church. If you have been saved by grace through faith, then at your conversion you received the Holy Spirit to indwell you at all times. And if it’s true that the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then wherever you show up, he shows up.

We don’t turn this gym into a sacred space on Sunday mornings because we have a formal gathering where we sing certain songs, take communion, pray together, etc. If a teacher or student who loves Jesus and is filled with the Holy Spirit walks into this gym on a Tuesday afternoon or Thursday morning for PE, this is just as sacred as space as it is right now. You don’t have to come to this building to meet with God. You don’t have to come here to be filled with or experience the Holy Spirit.

When you are standing at the kitchen sink, with kids screaming and something spilled on the floor, you are in a sacred space. God is not less present there than he is right here, right now.

When you sit down at your desk on a Monday, it becomes sacred space. Even if the bills are stacked up and the cash flow is fading and the best employee you have or co-worker you enjoyed working with puts in their two week notice, God is no less present there than he is when you are singing your heart out here on a Sunday morning.

When you scrub up for your shift at the hospital, every room you enter is sacred space – filled with the presence of God – because if you belong to the body of Christ, anywhere you go, he goes.

So much so, that if someone is giving you a hard time at work because you talk about loving the Lord, they aren’t just giving you a hard time, they are persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And like he was with Paul on that road to Damascus, Jesus is your defender. Not only is he always with you, He will come to your rescue, one way or another. He will stick up for you when no one else will.

Paul’s story is that he has been on the other side of that equation. Yes he’s being persecuted now, but once upon a time, he was the one doing the persecuting. The Lord came to the defense of those Paul was attacking, and interrupted Paul’s plans there on the road to Damascus. So, 10 “I said, ‘What should I do, Lord?’ (How do I recover from that one!) “The Lord told me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told everything that you have been assigned to do.’

Paul’s story will mess with your theology if you believe that every person on earth has the free will to choose God on our own terms when we’re good and ready. Paul didn’t choose Jesus. He was in full-on, hunt you down, drag you out opposition to Jesus when this happened. His heart wasn’t softening toward Jesus, it was hardening. His mind wasn’t changing about the things of Jesus – it was more locked-in than ever AGAINST the message of Jesus as Messiah. I would like to think that’s why Paul [ 007 ] writes in Romans 5,

“For while we were still helpless...Christ died for the ungodly.

God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son…”

Paul would go on to write in Ephesians 2 this is true of any of us who believe in Jesus. You were actively DEAD in your sin, living in step with the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in those who are disobedient to God and his purposes. Being spiritually dead isn’t like being physically dead.

You can be spiritually dead and actively pagan at the same time. Many of you have that story. But you can also be spiritually dead and actively religious at the same time. Many of us have that story!

But in either case, we were all dead in sin at one point, Paul says. But then he writes the two greatest words in all of scripture if you ask me. [ 008 ] But God . That was the story, BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy (you don’t get what you deserve), because of his great love that he had for us (not because I said the right prayer or because I had enough faith or because we were good people who went to church and put some $ in the offering) because of his great love, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses.

Here’s the gospel – the good news, are you ready? You are saved from the eternity of punishment your sins against a holy God deserve, not because you made a choice or said a prayer, but because a compassionate, mercy-rich, God moved toward you with great love for people who were dead in sin – and Jesus’ death and resurrection unlocked the door to that grace. Paul goes on –

[ 009-1 ] Verse 11 “Since I couldn’t see because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and went into Damascus. [ 009-2 ] 12 Someone named Ananias, a devout man according to the law, (Watch Paul once again trying make connections – Ananias is a godly man, follows the law) who had a good reputation with all the Jews living there, (You guys would have loved him) [ 009-3 ] 13 came and stood by me and said, ‘Brother Saul, regain your sight.’ And in that very hour I looked up and saw him. Not only did he refer to me as brother Saul, God did a miracle for me through him. [ 010 ] 14 And he said, ‘The God of our ancestors (yet another shot that I’m one of you) has appointed you (Here’s the assignment Jesus gave to me)…

to know his will, That’s what’s happening right now as Ananias explains it to Paul…

to see the Righteous One…All the way back in Acts 1, what made someone eligible to be an apostle is that you had seen the risen Lord Jesus (and Paul now meets that qualification because he’s met with the risen Jesus)…

and to hear the words from his mouth, Which, again just happened the road when Jesus spoke to him and called him to action…

…15 since you will be a witness for him to all people of what you have seen and heard. Your assignment is that you will be a witness: This goes back to Acts 1:8, the exact words Jesus told his disciples – the whole purpose of filling you with the power of the Spirit is so that we would be witnesses. And this is when I imagine Ananias getting a little more animated, and saying, 16 And now, why are you delaying? Why are you still sitting here?!? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’

This is the moment where Paul repents of his sin, calls out to Jesus for salvation, and is baptized by Ananias right there in his home. Paul could point to his own story and say there is no question – I did not choose Jesus, he chose me. I did not clean up my own act – he justified me, washed me of my sin. I didn’t even know I had sin that needed to be washed away when he found me. Paul is simply saying to the mob here in Acts 22 – this had nothing to do with me – it had everything to do with Jesus and what he has assigned me to do.

River City – this is a picture of salvation by grace! It’s true of every one of us. Our sins may look different, but underneath it all is a sin nature that has corrupted us to the core, so that we come into this world no different than Paul. Romans 5:12 says sin entered the world by one man, death was the result, put two and two together – we’re all guilty. Enemies of God. Ungodly. Spiritually Dead. King David says in Psalm 51 that we are corrupted at conception. But 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, that the same thing that happened to Paul when God literally blinded him with light is the same thing that happens to all of us who come to faith in Christ. “The God who said, back in Genesis 1, where he began Creation with these words: “Let light shine out of darkness,” has turned on the floodlights of his grace in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” it’s like God said, Okay, this guy Paul has been in the dark long enough. (Turns on lights) And when those floodlights come on, we can see Jesus for who he is, our sin is exposed, and God begins a new Creation in us by saying Let there be light! Romans 12 again, death entered the world through one man, but so did an overflow of grace and the gift of being made right with God, just as if we had never sinned at all, and it opens the door to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Our response then is to act on this – Why are you still sitting here!?  

1. Repent of your sin! Not simply saying I’m sorry, but taking whatever measures necessary to change that habit in your life. If you are not married but you’re sexually active, if you’re entertaining pornography, if you are prone to angry, explosive outbursts, if you are prone to compulsive shopping or always envious of what other people have – it is not repentance to simply say “God I’m sorry.” That’s acknowledgement and confession, and that’s important. But Jesus’ first sermon was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” That word “repent” implies a complete 180˚ turnaround. It means taking whatever measures necessary to change that routine and go the opposite way. I was headed west, now I’m headed east. Ephesians 4:28 gives a clear picture: “Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need.” Stop taking, start sharing.

2. Be baptized. Go public with your faith. Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Baptism is the public opportunity to do exactly that.

3. Call on his name. Start actively seeking Jesus, growing in him, walking with him. So Paul heads back to Jerusalem, the city he knows, back to the building he knows, so that he can pray and call on the Lord.

17 “After I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw him telling me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ 19 “But I said, ‘Lord, they know that in synagogue after synagogue I had those who believed in you imprisoned and beaten. 20 And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I stood there giving approval and guarding the clothes of those who killed him.’

I read a statistic this week that said over 70% of people who profess Christ make that profession of faith when they are a child. So I assume many of you are like me, and you wanted to receive Christ when you were young. I was 11 years old when I called my mom over to my bedside one night and asked her to pray with me to receive Christ. I was 18 when that faith really took hold and became personal and real to me.

The other 30% though, you might have a story closer to Paul’s, where if people from high school would run into you today, they’d be surprised that you are now a follower of Jesus. No way, that guy!? That girl?! And so you might be thinking what Paul is thinking – hey, if you just give me a chance to talk to them, they’ll notice right away a huge difference in my life from the last time they knew me – my story will be enough that they’ll be moved to love Jesus too!

It looks like Paul at first wanted to stay in Jerusalem, because he thought his story would gain him some credibility there. They know me. They’ll see a difference in my life. But in this vision Jesus gave him, Jesus told him something different. They aren’t going to believe you. You need to leave Jerusalem and do it quickly, because verse 21 “…I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

And Paul’s whole point in telling his story to the Jews like this is to say, look I didn’t ask Jesus to knock me down on the road to Damascus, I didn’t ask to be sent to the Gentiles. In fact, I was a good Jew like all of you – they were the enemy to me just like they are to you! If you have a problem with God reaching the Gentiles, take it up with him, not me (Bock)!

And that was where things started going downhill here outside the temple. What you have to remember is that Paul is speaking in Aramaic. There is a good chance that the commander and the soldiers do not have any idea what Paul said. They are sort of watching the crowd’s reaction and trying to figure out what’s going on – everything seemed to be going alright until all of a sudden, the whole crowd went berserk, screaming for his death again, ripping their clothes, scooping dust and throwing it in the air – basically, this is a dramatic reaction to what the think is blasphemy.

As it turns out, God was right when he told Paul “they won’t receive your testimony here.” And apparently the commander must have said to Paul, hey what did you say that’s making them act like this? What did you do? And Paul must have either kept quiet and chose not to answer, or he may have just said, “nothing”, because in verse 24, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, directing that he be interrogated with the scourge to discover the reason they were shouting against him like this.

The scourge is a whip with leather straps, but tied to the ends of those straps are small pieces of bone and or metal. The scourge is designed to remove flesh from your body, and was something Romans only did to criminals and foreigners because it was so horrific. They wouldn’t do this to a normal Roman citizen. If a man did not actually die under the scourge (which frequently happened), he would certainly be crippled for life (Stott, 349).

But then, as they are stretching him out for the beating, in verse 25, Paul plays the Roman card. Hold up, are you allowed to do this to Roman citizen who hasn’t had an official trial? And over the next four verses, Luke records that the laws of the land were upheld, and they untied Paul, holding him overnight to start actually looking into who he was and what he had done. God was using the power of the Roman Empire to protect Paul and eventually get him to Rome (Wiersbe, 1:493).

SOURCES

Bock, Darrell L., Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 657–68

John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today, (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994)

Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996)