In the Presence of the King

 Ninth Saturday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

Saturday:

2 Samuel 11:1-15

John 6:16-21

Sunday:

OT: 2 Samuel 11:1-15

Psalter: Psalm 14 (UMH 746

Epistle: Ephesians 3:14-21

As we have noted when we have had the same reading two days in a row, we are using the Revised Common Lectionary for Sundays, the lectionary that is used in mainline Protestant churches. It has only Sunday readings. For week days I'm using the lectionary of the United Methodist Order of St. Luke. I'm not including its Sunday readings, but I will note that they are different on Sundays from the RCL.

Today we return again to Acts. Please read Acts 26:1-23. It's another longer than usual reading for us, but there is no good way to break it up. It's a single speech, the last and longest of the speeches is Acts. It is the last of Paul's several trials. Paul is either found innocent or sent to a higher or different jurisdiction in all of them. Paul is never found guilty. In all his defense speeches, but in this one more than any other, Paul shows himself to be a master rhetoritician, a superb defense lawyer. 

I watch a couple of courtroom shows on TV, All Rise and Bull. In Bull the trick is jury selection and computer research to turn up evidence not found by the prosecution. In All Rise there are all sorts of tricks, but it usually involves research to turn up previously unknown evidence. Paul has a different defense trick. He effectively changes the charges he is being tried on to a different charge on which he can persuade the judge that he is not guilty. Paul's speeches set the court agenda, not the judge, not the prosecution.

Festus has not ruled on Paul but sends him to Agrippa, because Agrippa is a Jew and knows Jewish law and customs. One of the several oddities here is that the Jewish prosecutors have set both Roman and Jewish law accusations against Paul. Agrippa is capable of dealing with both, but Paul is brilliant in changing the charge, and changing it to a Jewish charge--advocating for the resurrection of the dead. 

As part of his defense Paul retells the story of his Damascus Road Experience. This is third time we have read the story in Acts. There are discrepancies in all three accounts as to who all saw the light, who all heard the voice, and who all fell to the ground. You all can check those out in Acts 9 and Acts 22. I won't detain us on them here.

A significant discrepancy is some additional words that the voice from heaven says, not found in the Acts 9 and Acts 22 accounts--"It hurts you to kick against the goads." This is actually a quotation from a Greek tragedy, Euripides's The Bacchae (lines 785-786), written around 380 B.C. This line is quoted by several subsequent Greek authors to the point that it has become a common saying.

One other thing to note is that Paul's accusers are not present at this hearing. The charges against Paul have been relayed to Agrippa by Festus. Obviously this makes it easier for Paul to make his case. The event is really a hearing, not a trial. Agrippa is not able to rule on the case, because Paul has appealed to the Emperor. 

Paul testifies that the Messiah whom he preaches  (Paul does not identify Jesus by name) fulfills the OT scriptures. Therefore there is nothing in the case against Paul. Paul avoids mention of the charge of bringing a gentile into the Temple (against Jewish Law) or of causing a riot (against Roman law).

In our next Bible Study we will get Agrippa's response.

God of Paul and of us,

We give you thanks for Paul's brilliant intellect, his mastery of Greco-Roman rhetoric, or both Jewish ahd Roman law and custom and his use of all his intellectual and spiritual gifts to proclaim Jesus. May you raise up for us new apostles to proclaim our faith and move it forward. In Christ's name. Amen.

 

Faithfully,

Christian