A Ready Defense

Acts 21:37–22:24 ESV

As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.” And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying: “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus. “And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him. And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’ “When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ” Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging, to find out why they were shouting against him like this.

For a while we’ve been reading passages and going from one week to the next in this series covering large periods of time, but now we’re stuck on a single day. Last week certain Jews from Asia captured Paul and dragged him from the temple in Jerusalem. They stopped when a group of Roman soldiers came and arrested him. The soldiers carried Paul to the barracks, where they hoped to get to the bottom of who he was, what crime had he committed, how he had managed to get all these people into such an angry frenzy. In the midst of that moment, this happens.  

Brothers and sisters in Christ, who knows you best? If you’re like me, you’d say that it depends. About most things, my wife knows me best, and yet there are some things that I discuss with various friends that she doesn’t care about, she has no desire to know. My parents know me pretty well—I feel like I stay decently connected with them about how life is going. Colleagues in ministry typically know how I’m feeling and what I’m currently wrestling with or excited about with ministry stuff. Maybe for some it’s one of those groups—family, friends, coworkers, or maybe it’s one person—our spouse, a best friend, or a mentor who knows us extremely well.  

I want to be clear, though; I’m not just asking who knows the most about you. Someone could know all the places I’ve lived, the jobs I’ve worked, my sports’ allegiances, my favorite foods, and they’d have a decent sketch about me, they could draw some conclusions about how they expect me to act or relate, but they wouldn’t necessarily know me. To really know someone is to love them, it’s to understand how they think, to know why they do what they do. It’s to know what they care about, what motivates them, what they hope for themselves and others. Even when you have differences, it’s being willing to listen and still care for that person.   

In terms of the content of this passage, there isn’t a whole lot we haven’t heard before in the book of Acts. If you turn back to chapter 8 verse 1 and chapter 9, those were the historical moments Paul told this crowd about. Rather than just repeat previous sermons or compare and contrast these verses to those earlier in the book, we’re focusing today on Paul’s purpose for giving this testimony to these people the way he did.  

 We begin, then, by asking: how can a believer relate to someone who comes against them. To be clear, Paul was not the Egyptian revolutionary the Roman commander thought he might be. As we’ve come to know through Scripture, he was a Christian, an apostle, a missionary for the gospel of Jesus Christ—that’s what made him different from this crowd persecuting him, but that hadn’t always been the case. He had a lot in common with the crowd. He was a Jew, his true hometown was Tarsus, Cilicia, but he also claimed the great city of Jerusalem as a hometown. He had been religiously trained there with one of their most respected and well-known teachers. He had connections and relationships with the same people, the same culture; they ran in the same circles. These were the people who wanted him dead. 

I haven’t spent a whole lot of time pondering what I would call someone who would attack me or persecute me for my faith, if that ever happens. Yet I have a hard time imagining that my first words in addressing them would be what Paul’s were. Chapter 22 verse 1, “‘Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.’” He didn’t refer to them as enemies or simply people; nor did he belittle them with some mean or vulgar term. No, Paul went with familial terms—the family. Maybe it causes us to think back to what happened when fearful Ananias showed up after Saul’s conversion, what we read here in verse 13, he called the popular Christian persecutor, “Brother Saul.” An NIV study note references how these terms brother and father were generally used to “refer to those of a common Jewish lineage.” What made Paul a Jew and what made this crowd of men Jews was their ancestral line, their heritage in the patriarchs of the Old Testament.  

If we stick with the family imagery, Paul was the black sheep of the Jewish family. He wasn’t just annoying or dumb or “kind of out there;” no, they wanted him out of the family. Paul understood that, and while we’ve seen times where he was so fed up that he basically swore off going back to his countrymen, we also know because of passages like Romans 9 that he wanted the Jews to know Christ, he wanted these family members not just to be part of the Jewish lineage but of Christ’s inheritance, too! 

Just as we saw last week, though, Paul continued in his Master’s footsteps. John 1 verses 10 and 11 tells us, “He [Jesus] was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” Jesus testified to that specifically in John 4:44 “(Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)” It was Jewish religious leaders who led the charge against Jesus, another Jew. All throughout Paul’s Christian ministry, it’s been Jews and their leaders that have come up against him and we know things didn’t change with this speech.  

Are you willing to treat people, even argumentative or spiteful people, with the same civility as Paul? Despite not being welcomed or appreciated, despite wrongs done, despite animosity, ridicule, still being willing to recognize the bonds between us. We’re still humans, image bearers of God, we shouldn’t mock others as being beneath that. If we’re of the same blood line, we’re still family members. If we’ve been on the same team, the same committee, part of the same church, and something goes wrong, are we willing to work things out, to show love and respect. Do we follow Jesus’ command in Matthew 7:12, “…Do to others what you would have them do to you”? Maybe we don’t like the way someone leans in terms of politics and those feelings start to rub off on how we treat them as a brother or sister in the faith; or we see someone as having the wrong doctrinal or theological views and we judge them harshly. If Paul was willing to treat those wanting to kill him on theological grounds as still family members because of heritage, we ought to be able to respect others who come against or who differ from us. 

Our second point, how can we share when something changes for us? I’m pretty sure I’ve preached before about there being times when loyalty and sticking to our word is allowed to change. When we talk about Christian conversion, a person acknowledging the Holy Spirit’s conviction and testimony, them giving their life to Christ, I hope that Christians would be willing to see the necessity that those who don’t believe or who once didn’t believe in God, would feel that freedom to make such a change if they come to faith. That would mean, just as it does for all of us, being completely different from who we once were in our sinful nature. Having experienced the grace of Christ, a major change has happened—the old has gone, the new has come.  

How do we share that with people, though? That’s essentially what Paul was doing. If you look at his testimony, there are three parts to it. In verses 2 through 5, he told them who he used to be—this was the Saul that they might have loved and wanted back. In verses 6 through 16 he talks about his conversion—if you’re wondering why he is who he is now, this is it. Then verses 17 through 21 is the aftermath—the call God had given to him following his conversion.  

I want us to zero in on verses 14 and 15 and then 21. “‘Then [Ananias] said: “The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.”’” Then we get to what sparks the crowd’s shouting again, “‘Then the Lord said to me, “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”’” The reason Paul or Saul was not the person they remembered or grew up with or had heard about back in the day is because God alone had worked in his heart, his mind, and in his presence. This was his story, his testimony, and he was sticking to it. He would not have been a Christian, he would not be going to the Gentiles, those unclean people, unless God had done something dramatic to him. To know God’s will, to see the Righteous One, to hear God’s words, is either utter blasphemy or the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for Paul. 

I think we can agree, it’s the latter there. Our calling as Christians is to live testifying to the truth. I’ve gotten to hear some of your stories about how you came to Christ, and most are like my story—there’s nothing too dramatic. You were raised in a church, by godly parents, perhaps you drifted away sort of ignorantly or questioned the faith, but then early in adulthood, God caused it to become important, vital, and necessary for you. The truth you have is that God has been at work over time.  

Others of you and other Christians who you may have come into contact with, though, have had a dramatic, Paul-like conversion. That doesn’t make them any more or less Christian, more or less loved by God. There are simply some who have had a 180-degree transition from wild, promiscuous, self-satisfying living to submission to God. If that’s your story, the concept of the flesh being put to death is something you’ve experienced in a radical way. Those kinds of testimonies give hope that others who come to God later in life and who have never lived for his glory can come around. What if there were some in the crowd who heard Paul speaking this day and realized the powerful love of God and the call of God being bigger than just the Jews.  

We can’t talk about loving Christ without having experienced his love first, but also as we give ourselves more over to God, we realize and learn and grow to appreciate who he is. This week in our Sunday School At-Home, on Thursday, the Praise day, you’ll have an opportunity to sing one of the old classic hymns, “Trust and Obey.” The first verse and the beginning of the second go, “When we walk with the Lord in the light of his Word, what a glory he sheds on our way! While we do his good will he abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. But we never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay…” If you’re growing and maturing in your faith, if you’ve deepened in your understanding of something about God and Scripture, give glory to God for the way he’s revealing his truth to you. If it is from God, though, don’t be afraid to share it with others, testify to the truth, giving credit where credit is due. 

That brings us to our final point: Do you have a defense ready? I’m not talking a strict legal defense to hold up perfectly in court or in a debate. I’m also not talking about when someone says it feels like you’re being defensive, meaning you’re not listening and trying to hammer home a point. In verse 1, when Paul says “…Listen now to my defense,” the Greek root word is apologia. You can probably hear our English word, “apology,” and an apology in this case is apologizing for something done wrong, but an explanation of what Paul stood on. 

Maybe you know where this is going. The same root is found in 1 Peter 3:15, translated in the NIV as “answer.” This is what we find there in verses 13 through 17, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” 

Paul’s purpose throughout Acts 22 was not to belittle the Jewish crowds. It was not to be spiteful towards them. It was not to mock them, showing that he had salvation and they didn’t. It was not to be proud in his own self. No, Paul was prepared to give an answer for his hope, gently, respectfully, being willing to suffer. His freedom and comfort were not the most important things to him. What mattered is that these people might have heard how God can change a person’s life—the God that these people thought they knew and fully comprehended, and yet they were missing the point of grace in Jesus Christ. They were missing that he does not exclude the rest of the world from having the opportunity to be chosen and welcomed into his kingdom. 

Having a defense ready doesn’t necessarily mean that you must have a statement drafted that you know or could read word for word explaining your faith and every facet of your belief. You should be able to communicate to a believer or a non-believer what is essential to salvation. If we would truly love them and would treat them as we want to be treated—all of us want the hope of the gospel—then we should be able to testify about what Jesus has done, who God is, and what our need as well as our gratitude involve. Perhaps we’re afraid of living up to someone else’s standards, and yet God has given you enough of his truth for you to believe. He’s given you the Holy Spirit to testify what is necessary for salvation. One of the incredible things we have to remember is that with this call to give a defense, being willing, we must remember that for those who are to be drawn toward Christ, the Holy Spirit will be working in them as well.  

Brothers and sisters, I regularly call you by those terms not because of a heritage, but because of an inheritance of being in Christ. I call you that because despite differences we may hold, despite differences of opinion about current events or politics, despite differences of theological focus, it is the receiving of the cleansing blood of Christ that has united us. It is his blood and Spirit that unite all who believe. Our defense of faith and salvation is not based in our works or the goodness of our living, our success rate at rejecting evil—our defense is in the sacrifice of Jesus. I call you brothers and sisters because if faith is the most important thing, then it’s you, it me, it’s one another who know each other best. Let us continue to shape and encourage, to sharpen and push one another on in the development of our trust, obedience, and ultimately our love of God. Amen.