After Paul is arrested in Jerusalem, he tries to offer a defense before the Jews that were gathered. They begin to protest all the more and the commander sends him to be flogged. Paul then reveals his Roman citizenship.

Transcript:

The truth is the truth, but it is not always popular. People love the truth when it backs them up, when it confirms their priors. They despise the truth when it cuts against them. The truth should be loved unconditionally, not only when it fits our narrative. Because we should always be seeking the better narrative, the truer narrative than those stories that we tell ourselves. God's narrative over those of our own making.

More often, however, we fight back. From the end of Acts 21 into chapter 22, we hear Paul's own testimony of how he came to be an apostle of Christ. It's a story told not for its own sake, but because it reveals the truth. It reveals the truth of who Jesus is, and it reveals the truth of regarding God's redemptive purpose here in this world. We learn the true story in Paul's story. And as we'll see, there are fireworks in response. Already, as you'll recall, Paul had been dragged from the temple under the accusation that he had defiled the temple by bringing a Gentile, named Trophimus, into the temple. Now, Paul hadn't done that, but he was accused of doing that. Jews from Asia Minor knew Paul, and they wanted to bring trouble for him, and they started a riot. And they were trying to kill Paul until Roman troops intervened. And so we continue the story from that point in verse 37 of Acts 21.

Now, as has always, already been read, Paul begins speaking to the commander. He says, "May I say something to you?" And Paul says this in Greek, and the commander is impressed. In fact, the commander is surprised because he had supposed that, in fact, Paul was a terrorist. He says in verse 38, "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the wilderness some time ago?" The time in which Paul is living is a very violent time. The Jewish historian Josephus corroborates, in fact, this detail of there being a false prophet who came from Egypt, was not a native Egyptian, but was a Jew who lived in Egypt, in order to try to lead a revolt against the Romans. Now, it failed, but they were trying to get the guy. And meanwhile, also, there is a group in the area known as the Sicarii, which is just kind of a plural term for the daggers, those who use daggers. They're a group of assassins. They went after the Roman authorities and any Jewish sympathizers, killing them in broad daylight. So the commander here thinks that the people are upset because they've found one of these terrorists, or perhaps even, in particular, this, this one fellow who has been causing trouble from, from Egypt.

But the fact that Paul is so fluent in Greek suggests to him that Paul probably isn't this, this fellow. And Paul tells him as much. He says, "I, I'm," he says, "I'm, I'm basically not from there. I'm from, I'm a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, citizen of no ordinary city." Now, Tarsus was a very respectable city. It wasn't any sort of backwater town. It wasn't a seedy kind of place. And so what we find is that the commander's going to give Paul permission to speak here. Why? Because he's probably hoping that Paul will be able to clear this all up, cause the crowd to disperse because they'll realize that he's no troublemaker. He's just this guy from Tarsus, it's all a big mix-up.

And so Paul makes his approach, and as we'll see, he, he addresses his countrymen in the Aramaic language. Now, this is the language that Jesus spoke. It's the language that was commonly spoken by the Jews at this time, even while the scriptures were originally written in Hebrew. Hebrew had fallen somewhat out of, out of common use. And so he's speaking to them in a language that's not familiar to the Roman authorities. They don't understand it. Now, I'm going to read through the speech as a whole so you have a feel for it. It just kind of feels a little artificial to break up a speech. I'm gonna read it as a whole, and then we'll talk about it some.

So Paul says this. "After receiving the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic, 'Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.' When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said, 'I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. About noon, as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" I asked. "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting," he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. "What shall I do, Lord?" I asked. "Get up," the Lord said, "and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do." My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, "Brother Saul, receive your sight." And at that very moment, I was able to see him. Then he said, "The God of our ancestors 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 people of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on his name."

When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking to me. "Quick," he said, "leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me." "Lord," I replied, "these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him." Then the Lord said to me, "Go. I will send you far away to the Gentiles."'"

So, and this is where the speech ends. Not according to Paul's plan, but it ends. In verses, in the first few verses here of Paul's speech, we see that he begins with kind of his bona fides in speaking to his countrymen. He says, "I'm a Jew like you. I'm from Tarsus, but I was raised in Jerusalem. I was raised in this very city." And more than that, he actually studied under a highly respected teacher, a well-known Pharisee named Gamaliel. He studied the law, and he was completely religiously zealous. And he tells them, "I, I was just as zealous as you are today." They're trying to kill him. They're upset because they think that he's defying the law, saying, "I was just like you." In fact, Paul was so zealous, he tells them, that he persecuted the followers of the, of the Way, which is just another way of referring to Christians. Christians are followers of the Way of Jesus Christ.

He was so zealous for trying to defend what he believed to be the truth that he was trying to imprison the Christians, he was trying to kill the Christians. He wanted to go outside of Jerusalem. He wanted to go to Damascus, over in the area of Syria, to go get the Christians there and bring them back to Jerusalem just to punish them, to shut them up. And so he, he got letters to the associates in Damascus, "Go and do this very thing." So the people that he is speaking to, and the authorities in Jerusalem, they know Paul. They know his story. They can say, "Yeah, that's what actually happened. He was in tight with us."

And so in doing this, what Paul is doing is he's, he's setting the stage here of his credibility as a witness. How is it that a man like that, whose great joy in life was to try to kill Christians, then becomes an apostle of Christ, becomes a Christian himself? Well, it takes a very profound intervention. That's what he relates to them. He says, "I was on my way to Damascus." He was on his way to Damascus when he was suddenly struck by this bright light which blinded him. He had this encounter with Christ. Jesus called out to him saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And Jesus identifies himself and, and, and says that, "I'm the one that you're persecuting." Now, what's really interesting here, I always like to point this out, is obviously Jesus has ascended. Paul's not persecuting him in that way, but he is persecuting the Christians who are members of Christ's body.

From this blinding intervention, Paul is just kinda left a bit dumbstruck, and like, "Well, what do I do now?" And Jesus tells him to proceed, to proceed to Damascus 'cause he's gonna get his new mission there. He thought he knew what he was about when he was heading to Damascus...