Acts 26:1-23 Apologia There are three things I want us to consider as we study Paul s defense before King Agrippa and Festus, the Governor. They should help us understand the purpose of chapter 26, and all the latter chapters of Acts which are, really, a bit confusingbeginning in chapter 21 with the riot in Jerusalem when Jewish leaders see Paul leaving the temple and think he is a foreigner sneaking into the sanctuary. The entire religious community erupts into an uproar, but when the Roman soldiers come to quiet the mob, they think Paul is a Jewish rebel, and arrest him; they are mystified when he speaks Greek to them, and alarmed when they learn he is a Roman citizen. So, in this final section of Acts, mistaken identity and confusion abound as: a) Paul addresses the mob that wants to kill him; b) and then he is taken into protective custody- where he is held for over two years; c) time and again the chief priests come asking the governor to hand him over; d) but he won the s hoping for a bribe- from one side or the other; e) and in the meantime he enjoys talking and debating with the prisoner; f) eventually a new governor is appointed; g) and Paul has appealed to the judgment of the Emperor. This is the context of chapter 26, Paul in judicial limbo and waiting to go to Rome, while the story of Acts is going nowhere, stuck right here: no more mission
trips for Paul, no more stories of conversion in all the cities and regions of the Empire. Two years until this moment, Paul s speech to the cultured despisers, as some have called it: here are Festus, career politician sent out from the capital, and Agrippa, great-grandson of Herod the Great and personal friend of Claudius the King, and Paul, the Jewish-Christian theologian; in these last chapters of the book of Acts, where the only object is to get him to Rome. This is the first thing for us to understand: that these last chapters home in on the gentileness of Paul s ministry, and they come to a climax in chapter 26. After this speech, immediately he is transferred to Rome. There are a few stylistic items in Luke s telling here that emphasize the non-jewishness of this last part of his great historical saga. These statements in Paul s speech, declaring the gospel also to the Gentiles (verse 20), and how the resurrected Messiah is light both to the people (of Israel) and to the Gentiles (verse 23); these phrases show the outward spread of the good news into all the world. As well, this quote of Jesus that Paul recounts in verse 14, it hurts to kick against the goads is a Greek proverb that Jesus would likely never have spoken. But Luke and Paul are taking liberties in the story, again to emphasize the increasingly non-semitic focus of the gospel.
But here, I think, is how we know best that the gospel has passed irrevocably out of the Jewish and into the Gentile world: at the very start, in verse 1, Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense. Stretched out, and we should understand Luke describing Paul as a classical Greek or Roman orator standing in formal pose and speaking to inform and convince and convert Gentiles. And for this reason, the title of today s sermon is apologia, the Greek word from which we get our English apology, but its literal meaning is verbal defense. After their final rejection of Paul and the message about Jesus, Luke at last has left the Jewish leaders behind, and Paul is on his way to Rome. Here is the second insight to aid our understanding, the definite sense of poignancy in Paul s apologia; look how he recounts his life story, his youth and training, his first encounters with the Jesus people; then his vision of the risen Lord, and his consequent labor for the sake of all people in obedience to God s call. This is Paul looking back at the thirty years since Jesus death and resurrection, and the twenty-five years or more since he beheld Jesus on the Damascus road. This speech is a wrapping up of his life and ministry. This is the ending of his story, all we know about Paul has been told, all his writings we know of have been written; his work is completed and those works have brought him to
this place. They culminate in this moment, and in these words. Can we read Paul s words here at the end and not be moved, even to this day I have the help of God, and so here I stand. This is not a legal defense, but rather the vindication of his life. The reflective nature of Paul s words, as he recalled decades of pain and joy, great accomplishment and also failure, caused me to remember a story, looking back at my life. I had a roommate in college, a truly good guy (who happened to have been dating Farrah Fawcett s cousin at the time!). His father came to visit, and that particular evening I spent a couple of hours with the old man before his son got home from work. And somehow in our conversation, he began quoting Acts 26, almost the whole thing. And in these past few days I ve tried to recall my sense of that night, and comparing it to my reading this week of Paul s speech: listening to a man who understood his life in the humble acceptance of what God had called him to; a man who knew the good and bad of life, its hurts and happinesses; who measured the bitterness and the blessings with both hands- and still holding them out for God to fill them- because in everything, he trusted absolutely. How precious and inspiring to hear his confidence in God s love, this man who could say- along with Paul, every day I have had God s help ; his
assurance (and Paul s!) in the victory of Jesus, why do you consider it unbelievable that God raises the dead? ; and his complete devotion to the Lord who has never let him go, here I stand bearing witness. That is life well lived, and a life without apology; rather it is apologia, an explanation of the deepest meanings and purposes of life, found in the God who gives us light, and the Lord who shows us how to love. God give us grace to see our lives in this manner. In verse 6, Paul alludes to the third point that will help us understand and appreciate his defense: the hope in the promise made to the ancestors of the Jewish nation. He s talking about the coming of the Messiah. In the next verses he goes on to describe how he persecuted those who followed Jesus, and then, the turning point, when Jesus appeared to him. It was there that he realized he had been wrong, and that Jesus was indeed the one God sent. We believe that already, but Paul recognized a twist to it that perhaps we haven t considered. It s this, that the resurrection is both proof that Jesus is Messiah and Lord, and also the sign of the end times, the sign of the New Age, the Messianic Age. So when Paul saw Jesus on the road, he knew that God s promises from the past had come true, knew that the world was instantly different. And he knew from the
writings of the prophets that this change was not just about Jews but for all nations and all people: see how he talks about the Messiah, the first to rise from the dead, rising like the first person in the New World, bringing light to Jews and Gentiles (verse 23). And so, this is the command Paul received, to go out to pagan lands, to open their eyes to truth, to turn them from darkness to light, from evil to God, and to bring them into the new kingdom. The risen Christ meant that the power of God over death had created a new world order that welcomed all people. And so here we are- Gentiles all of us- who believe in Jesus, and by his grace brought into God s kingdom of love. Where we may be certain that God is for us and with us. This new age is reason to rejoice. And it is also a call to discipleship. If we will see our times, our age, with that same sense of urgency Paul felt all those years of ministry- of a whole world of people out there who would find such joy to abide in the peaceable kingdom, and such comfort to know God s presence. Our job is to show them the light that exists where God is.