The Power of a Testimony
Paul gives his most extensive testimony for Festus and Herod Agrippa II
Festus introduces the events of the day (23-27)
23 So, on the next day when Agrippa came together with Bernice amid great pomp, and entered the auditorium accompanied by the commanders and the prominent men of the city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.
24 Festus *said, “King Agrippa, and all you gentlemen here present with us, you see this man about whom all the people of the Jews appealed to me, both at Jerusalem and here, loudly declaring that he ought not to live any longer.
25 “But I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death; and since he himself appealed to the Emperor, I decided to send him.
26 “Yet I have nothing definite about him to write to my lord. Therefore I have brought him before you all and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after the investigation has taken place, I may have something to write.
27 “For it seems absurd to me in sending a prisoner, not to indicate also the charges against him.”
This apparently threatening situation for Paul turns out to be one in which he gives the most complete and public explanation of his calling and his message so far. As in previous contexts, Paul takes charge of the situation in order to give testimony to Christ
What Festus lacked was not charges, but evidence to substantiate them. For lack of this, he should have had the courage to declare Paul innocent and to release him.
Paul makes his defense (1-23)
Paul’s Jewish pedigree (1-11)
1 Agrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense:
2 “In regard to all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that I am about to make my defense before you today;
3 especially because you are an expert in all customs and questions among the Jews; therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.
4 “So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem;
5 since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.
6 “And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers;
7 the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews.
8 “Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?
9 “So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10 “And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them.
11 “And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.
Many Palestinian Jews still alive knew how he had lived as a child, first in Tarsus, then in Jerusalem. More than that, they had known him personally and could testify from their own experience that he had belonged to the strictest party in Judaism, that of the Pharisees (4–5).
Paul goes on to show that Israel’s hope has been realized in the suffering and resurrection of the Messiah (v. 23). This explains why Paul now serves God as ‘a follower of the Way’ (24:14) and continually challenges other Jews to acknowledge the importance of Jesus and what happened to him for the fulfillment of Israel’s destiny.
Paul’s calling and commission (12-23)
12 “While so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,
13 at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.
14 “And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the bHebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
15 “And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
16 ‘But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you;
17 rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,
18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’
19 “So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision,
20 but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.
21 “For this reason some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death.
22 “So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place;
23 athat the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”
A goad was a sharp-pointed stick used to move animals in a particular direction.
Such imagery expresses not only the intense struggle Paul experienced before turning to Christ but also the overwhelming power of the Lord to draw him to himself and transform his situation.
Paul’s plan to exterminate the church was doomed to fail because he was “kicking against” the irresistible purpose of God.’ By implication, the opposition of Jewish and Roman officials to Christianity could not ultimately succeed.
This did not guarantee immunity to suffering. On the contrary, it was part of the vocation of prophets and apostles to endure suffering (cf. 9:16). But it did mean that their testimony would not be silenced until their God-appointed work was done.
Preaching to Jews as well as to Gentiles would be Paul’s way of participating in the inclusive mission of the risen Lord (v.23 note). This would involve rejection and persecution from both groups, but especially from his own people.
So what is said in Acts 26:16–18 ‘not only suggests the continuity of Paul’s mission with the scriptural prophets but also with the mission of Jesus announced in the Nazareth synagogue’.
For conversion includes a radical transfer of allegiance and so of environment. It is both a liberation from the darkness of satanic rule and a liberation into the sphere of God’s marvellous light and power.
When the gospel is faithfully proclaimed in the manner that Paul does, we may expect the risen Lord to bring spiritual enlightenment (to open their eyes) and genuine conversion (to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God), enabling people to share in the benefits of his saving work (so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me).
Challenged to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins and a share in the messianic salvation (v. 18 note), Paul was as serious as John the Baptist in calling for deeds to demonstrate the genuineness of repentance (cf. Lk. 3:8; Acts 20:21). He understood conversion ‘not only in terms of forgiveness and faith, but also in terms of a full ethical transformation’.
This renewed claim that Paul was not an innovator, but a faithful exponent of the Scriptures, also had its parallel in Luther and the other sixteenth-century Reformers. They were accused by the Roman Catholic Church of teaching novelties. But they denied it. ‘We teach no new thing’, Luther claimed, ‘but we repeat and establish old things, which the apostles and all godly teachers have taught before us.’
Further, as the gospel centres on Christ’s atonement, resurrection and proclamation (through his witnesses), the resurrection is seen to be indispensable. Paul kept on referring to it during his trials, not in order to provoke the Pharisees and Sadducees into argument, nor only to show that he was faithful to the Jewish tradition, but because the resurrection of Jesus was the beginning and pledge of the new creation, and so at the very heart of the gospel.
Paul makes a personal appeal for the gospel (24-32)
24 While Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus *said in a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad.”
25 But Paul *said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I utter words of sober truth.
26 “For the king aknows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner.
27 “King Agrippa, do you believe the Prophets? I know that you do.”
28 Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.”
29 And Paul said, “I would wish to God, that whether in a short or long time, not only you, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except for these chains.”
30 The king stood up and the governor and Bernice, and those who were sitting with them,
31 and when they had gone aside, they began talking to one another, saying, “This man is not doing anything worthy of death or imprisonment.”
32 And Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”
The prisoner’s claim that a crucified and rejected Messiah had commissioned him to bring people from every nation to repentance and faith did not strike the governor as being appropriate evidence.
Christianity cannot simply be dismissed as the product of one man’s madness!
Christianity is ‘not an inconspicuous event any longer, but a factor in world history’, and Christians are ‘preparing themselves—Paul is the model!—to step out of their corner into the world of history and culture.
He was sincere, the prisoner Paul. He really believed what he was talking about. He wanted everybody to be like him, including the king—everybody a Christian, but nobody a prisoner.
Paul the passionate evangelist is once more presented as a model for Luke’s readers (cf. 20:18–35). They too must not give up offering the gospel to Jews, individually and collectively, no matter what response they have received in the past. That appeal can begin with the challenge to believe the prophets and to consider whether the events proclaimed in the gospel fulfil what the prophets predicted.
as a faithful bearer of the word of God and as one who endures considerable suffering for the sake of that word, Paul also functions as a model for ministry and mission in the ongoing life of the people of God
Here he gives a theological perspective on how the word changes lives and grows the church. This encourages readers to believe that similar blessings may follow, wherever the word is faithfully proclaimed and personal testimony is given to the Lord’s grace and power.