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ACTs Intro C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C27 C28
26 So then Agrippa told Paul, “Okay, you can give your side now then.”
So Paul gestured with his hand and began:
2 “Concerning all the charges which have been brought against me by the Jews, King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate 3 because you’re an expert on Jewish customs and issues, so I ask you to listen to me patiently.
4 “All the Jews know about my early life, from my upbringing in my own country and then in Yerushalem. 5 They also know, and could even testify to you if they would admit it, that I followed our religious laws very closely as a member of the Pharisees party. 6 Yet now I stand judged for believing in the same hope as our ancestors—that hope promised by our God 7 who we twelve tribes diligently serve day and night in order to obtain—the hope, your majesty, for which I’m being indicted. 8 So why do you all find it unbelievable that God can raise the dead?
9 “I too originally thought it necessary to do many things to oppose the cause of this Yeshua from Nazareth. 10 So in Yerushalem I worked to have many of these innocent believers locked up in prison with the authority of the chief priests, or if they were to be killed, I would add my vote against them. 11 And in all the Jewish meeting halls, when I found believers I punished them and forced them to curse God and treated them with extreme anger, even travelling to further away towns.
12 “So it was one time travelling to Damascus carrying permission letters from the chief priests 13 that in the middle of the day, your majesty, I saw a bright light from the sky—even brighter than the sun—and it shone on me and my companions. 14 All of us fell down to the ground and I heard a voice speaking to me in Hebrew saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Life will be difficult for you if you resist me.’
15 ‘Who are you, master?’, I asked.
“And the master responded, ‘I am Yeshua, the one you’re persecuting. 16 Now get up, because I let you see me in order to appoint you as my servant and my witness—to tell the people what you’ve seen and what you will be shown. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the non-Jews that I’m sending you out to, 18 to open their minds and for them to turn back from darkness to light and from Satan’s power to God, so that they can be forgiven for their sins and receive an inheritance among the ones who’ve been made guiltless by their faith in me.’
19 “So then, King Agrippa, I couldn’t disobey that vision 20 so I preached first to those in Damascus and then in Yerushalem and all of Yudea, and then in the towns of the non-Jews. I preached about turning from their sins and turning back to God, and then actually living like people who had repented. 21 It was because of these things that the Jews grabbed me in the temple and tried to do me in. 22 So it is that with God’s help until this very day I have stood testifying to commoners and leaders, teaching nothing other than what Mosheh and the prophets had already written that would happen—23 that the messiah would come and suffer and as the first of the dead to come back to life, he is going to be proclaiming light to both Jews and non-Jews.”
24 Then speaking about Paul’s defence, Governor Festus said, “Paul, you’re stark, raving mad! All your education has turned you into an idiot.”
25 But Paul said, “I haven’t gone mad, most excellent Festus, but I’m speaking the truth in all seriousness. 26 The king knows what I’m talking about and that’s why I’m speaking boldly, because none of these things were done in a corner and I’m sure that none of it has escaped his notice. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe what the prophets wrote? Yes, I’m sure you do.”
28 But Agrippa answered Paul, “Do you think you can talk me into becoming a follower of the messiah in just that short time?”
29 “I hope to God”, said Paul, “whether it takes a short time or a long time, that both you and the others listening today will become just like me except for these chains.”
30 Then the king and the governor both stood, along with Bernice and the others sitting with them 31 and as they left they were saying to each other, “That man hasn’t done anything deserving of death or imprisonment.”
32 “Yes, he could have been set free,” replied Agrippa, “if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar.”
As the book of Acts attests, Paul was no stranger to imprisonment, and he catalogued his incarcerations among his many credentials of suffering that affirmed his legitimacy as an apostle to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:4-5). The first mention of Paul being imprisoned is when he and Silas were arrested in Philippi after exorcising a spirit of divination from a slave girl (Acts 16). Paul’s actions angered the girl’s owners, since the men were no longer able to make money off of the girl’s fortune telling abilities. Later in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul notes that he had already suffered multiple imprisonments (2 Corinthians 11:23), making it clear that not all of Paul’s imprisonments and other sufferings were recorded in Scripture. The next imprisonment explicitly mentioned in Scripture is when Paul was arrested in the Temple in Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey (Acts 21:27-34). Soon after this Paul was sent to Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, where he remained in prison for two years (Acts 23-26; see “Paul Is Transferred to Caesarea” map). This may be where Paul penned the letters commonly known as the Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon). At the end of this time Paul appealed his case to Caesar and was sent to Rome, where he spent another two years under house arrest awaiting his trial before Caesar (Acts 28:16-31). If Paul did not write his Prison Epistles while he was at Caesarea, then it is likely that he wrote them from Rome during this time. The next time we hear of Paul being imprisoned is likely several years later in his second letter to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:8-17; 2:9; 4:9-21). Though it is not certain, the tone of Paul’s writing during this time of imprisonment, which seems markedly more somber than the optimistic outlook he seems to have about his incarceration during the writing of the Prison Epistles (e.g., Philippians 1:21-26; Philemon 1:22), suggests that this incarceration was not the same as his house arrest. If so, then it is possible that between his first and second incarcerations in Rome Paul fulfilled his intention to travel to Spain to continue spreading the gospel (Romans 15:22-28). Just prior to his second incarceration in Rome, Paul had informed Titus that he planned to spend the winter in Nicopolis northwest of Achaia and asked him to meet him there (Titus 3:12). Perhaps it was around this time or soon after that he was arrested once again and brought to Rome. Paul’s ultimate fate is not noted in Scripture, but tradition (Clement, Dionysius, Eusebius, and Tertullian) attests that this final imprisonment of Paul took place at what is now called Mamertine Prison. During Paul’s time this was the only prison in Rome and was called simply “the Prison,” and it was not typically used for long term incarceration but rather for holding those awaiting imminent execution. There, during the reign of Nero, Paul met his earthly death by the sword and was received into eternal life by his loving Savior, whom he had served so long.
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