Sermon Tone Analysis

When we left Paul last week he was being held by the Roman regiment in Jerusalem.

Remember a riot had started in the city because of the false accusations against Paul and the Roman soldiers had taken him into custody.

They were actually preparing to submit Paul to the scourge when he told them that he was actually a Roman citizen.

Since it was illegal to scourge a citizen the commander was worried and withdrew.

And that’s where we’re going to pick up reading this morning.

Before we do that though, this is one of those cases where you just have to wonder about the people who broke the books of the Bible up into chapters and verses.

The books of the Bible were not written in the form we have them today.

They would have been written in a single flowing narrative.

The chapters and verses were added sometime in the 1500s.

But sometimes as you’re reading you just have to wonder what the folks who added the chapters and verses were thinking.

Like I said, this is one of those cases.

We went through the story of the riot and the Roman soldiers arresting Paul last week.

As we move into the next chapter today we’ll see him before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious ruling council.

But for some reason the beginning of this story of Paul before the Sanhedrin is placed at the end of chapter 22.

So we’ll begin our study of chapter 23 in the final verse of chapter 22.

Acts 22:30-3:1

The Roman commander decides, “We need to get to the bottom of this.”

So he calls in the Sanhedrin and the chief priests and asks them what exactly they are accusing Paul of.

But when they all get together and Paul is brought in before them, he doesn’t even give them time to talk before he addresses them.

Paul tells them, “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

I’ve lived my life before God and my conscience is clear.

Now I’m sure you can guess the Sanhedrin doesn’t like this very much.

We see that in verse 2.

Acts 22:30-

You know, it really wouldn’t have mattered what Paul said when he addressed the Sanhedrin.

Remember these were the men who had accused Jesus.

These were the men who had schemed and connived their way into the good graces of Pontius Pilate and had convinced him to have Jesus crucified even though he had done nothing to deserve it under Roman law.

And here is Paul who is preaching the same gospel that Jesus preached.

Paul upholds Jesus as the Messiah whom the Jews have been waiting for for so long.

So it wouldn’t have mattered what he said, they were going to continue to accuse him.

So Ananias

Ananias orders Paul to be struck which was an illegal order since, just like in our own justice system, someone standing accused before the Sanhedrin is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But he orders it anyway.

And Paul responds just like we would expect, he is humble and meek just like Jesus and he turns the other cheek.

Right?

Well, not so much this time.

This is different.

All through the trial of Christ we saw him meek an humble.

He never accused his tormentors.

He never threatened.

Even on the cross, among his last words were, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

When Stephen was stoned to death earlier in the book of Acts he maintained this same humble, meek persona.

Even Paul, as we saw last week, in the face of false accusations and facing the prospect of torture remained calm and simply pointed out that he was a citizen of Rome.

So what changed here?

Why does Paul break his calm demeanor and threaten the high priest with the impending wrath of God? Well there are a few different options.

Paul was justified in his remark because of Ananias’ character and behavior.

If you dig into the history of Ananias the high priest you’ll find that he was famous for bribery and stealing money from the temple offerings.

Not the nicest guy.

Paul was justified in expressing righteous anger.

Paul spoke calmly and delivered a prophecy of God’s judgment on Ananias.

Paul lost his cool.

Stretched beyond the breaking point by the previous day’s events, he said something he should not have said.

Now as I studied this week, it seems that many commentators choose the last option.

Paul lost his cool.

And that’s somewhat true.

But I honestly think that all four of these options are true.

Was Paul justified because of Ananias’ character?

You bet he was.

Here’s someone sitting in judgment to uphold the law, but breaking the law in the execution of his office.

Was Paul expressing righteous anger?

Yep, you bet he was.

Did Paul deliver a prophecy of God’s judgment on Ananias?

Probably not consciously, but Ananias was assassinated several years later which could very well have been the execution of God’s judgment.

Did Paul lose his cool?

Yeah, probably.

But you know what?

I think that’s OK.

Paul was human.

He was going through an incredibly stressful situation.

So, yeah, he lost his cool a little bit.

We beat ourselves up over things that we’ve done; over things that we’ve said, when we don’t live up to the example of Christ.

We have to remember that Christ is perfect and we are not.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we can do whatever we want.

Paul himself addresses this idea in and 2

Romans 6:

So we don’t have a license to sin, bu we do have the grace that when we do sin, when we lose our cool, we know it’s covered under the blood of Christ and that we can be forgiven.

So we don’t have to dwell on our sin.

But let’s continue reading in .

Acts 23:4-

So the people closest to Paul react to his statement to Ananias.

And just as quickly as Paul lost his cool, he regains it.

He basically says, “You’re right, I’m sorry.

I didn’t realize who he was,” and then he quotes from the book of Exodus with the bit about not speaking evil or a ruler of the people.

Paul’s lost it for a moment, but now his head is back in the game.

But as further evidence of how thrown off he was, we’ll see in the next section we read that he looks around and realizes something about the makeup of the Sanhedrin.

This is a big deal because, remember, Paul actually used to be part of this group.

When Stephen was martyred back in chapter 7, he stood trial before the Sanhedrin and Paul, who was then known as Saul, was a young member of the council who guarded the cloaks of the older members as they carried out the sentence of death.

So he should know the make up of the council.

He probably personally knows many of these men.

He may even have known Ananias but just not realized that he had been elevated to the position of high priest.

That’s why the beginning of this next section is a bit surprising until to take into account the stress that Paul has been under.

Acts 23:

Paul looks around and suddenly it dawns on him, “Wait a minute.

This is the Sanhedrin.

There are both Sadducees and Pharisees here.”

Why is that a big deal?

well, you have to understand the differences between the two groups.

The Sadducees were part of the Jewish aristocracy, the upper class elites, so they were exposed to much more secular education.

The Pharisees were made up mostly of middle class Jews who were committed to upholding the Mosaic law.

Ultimately, Sadducees were essentially liberal elitists who incorporated the concept of free will into their understanding of the Mosaic Law.