Acts 22

Acts 22:1-30

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 21:1-40 - 22:1-29 Acts 21:1-16 The keynote of the remainder of this book is that of bondage. Paul from now is seen as “the prisoner of the Lord.” Speaking to the elders of the Ephesian Church who had gathered to Miletus to hear his farewell message, he had said:

“And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But I hold not my life of any account, as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God.”

He was thus quite conscious that he was moving toward bondage and limitation. He declared the Spirit had borne witness to him that in every city these were the things that now lay before him. We shall find him almost immediately an actual prisoner; and so far as these records are concerned, in that condition of bondage, we shall finally take our leave of him.

Perhaps the main value of this final section of the book may best be expressed in words which Paul himself wrote, long after the history which is here recorded. I believe he was subsequently liberated for a period; and that it was during his second imprisonment that he wrote his final pastoral letters, both to Titus and Timothy. In all likelihood the last writing of this man preserved for us, is the second letter to Timothy, expressing his concern for the Church, and for the witness borne to truth. In the course of that letter he said: “I suffer hardship unto bonds,” and then added, “but the Word of God is not bound.” Whereas that description of his own condition was written in an imprisonment far more full of trial and difficulty and suffering than the one in which we find him in the Acts; nevertheless, the word of triumph that he wrote from the midst of such circumstances, “the Word of God is not bound,” gives us the keynote of these final chapters of the Acts.

In our meditation on this paragraph we shall notice some permanent values of the incidents recorded; but more carefully, observe the central interest of the story, that namely of the apparent conflict in guidance.

Let us first observe the waiting time at Tyre. Here is one of the small matters in which we have greatly gained by the Revision. In the fourth verse of this chapter it is said, “And having found the disciples, we tarried there seven days.” The Authorized Version reads, “And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days.” At first we may be inclined to think that the difference is so slight that there can be no importance attached to the change. Yet look again. The translation in the Authorized Version suggests rather a casual finding of disciples who were there, as though the ship now in port, being emptied of its cargo, and these men having to wait, they had happened quite casually upon disciples. The Revised rendering conveys quite another idea. “Having found the disciples”; and we might convey the thought of the Greek in yet other words, and in a more arresting way thus: “Having by searching for them found the disciples.” When these men came to Tyre there were seven days to wait, and they sought for the disciples.

Henry Ward Beecher once declared that Paul was devoid of the artistic sense, that he travelled through those cities of Asia, packed with things of beauty, and artistic merit and value, and never by a line referred to one of them. I agree with the statement; but I do not agree with the conclusion. I would rather express the truth in the words of Dr. Parker, who when referring to this visit to Tyre said, “There was no scenery to Paul; there was no geography; there was nothing but lost humanity, and the redeeming Cross of Christ.” That is nearer the heart of this matter so far as Paul was concerned.

These travellers, reaching Tyre, sought out the disciples. Do Christian travellers to-day, calling at Tyre, seek out the disciples? Is it not too often the case that when travellers are far away from home, they try and miss the disciples for that occasion, and see and meet every one, and everything else? They sought out the disciples because these men recognized that the little group of disciples in Tyre constituted God’s vantage-ground there for the delivery of His word, for the accomplishment of His purpose.

This is the first occasion that Tyre is mentioned in the record of the Acts. Whence did these disciples of Tyre come? The question cannot be answered dogmatically. There must be in any attempt to answer it, a certain amount of speculation. Mark records how in the early part of the ministry of our Lord, men came to Jesus from Tyre. A little later on He Himself went into the region of Tyre and Sidon, and there the Syrophcenician woman found Him; and He, testing her faith by methods apparently rough, did nevertheless answer the faith with great and generous gift of love and power.

When our Lord was uttering His solemn words of condemnation of the cities in which His mightiest works were done, there was a note of patience and excuse made for Tyre:

“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”

How these disciples came there we know not. I sometimes think that in that long ministry of the first generation of the Christian Church, apostles and evangelists and deacons reaped, even on the human level, a harvest which resulted from the sowing ministry of our Lord Himself. When the travellers came to Csesarea, they met with Philip. Twenty years before this, Philip had been driven from Jerusalem through Saul. Saul was the appointed prosecutor of the Nazarene heresy, “breathing threatening and slaughter.” Stephen was martyred, and the persecution continued until scattered thereby, these people went everywhere, preaching the Word; and amongst those scattered from Jerusalem through the vehement hatred of Saul, was Philip. Philip went down to Samaria, and preached there.

Now twenty years had passed away, and Philip became Paul’s host. Philip had been a pioneer in that larger work for which Paul had been apprehended, and which he had been doing with such conspicuous and marvellous success.

It was Philip who had first preached to the Samaritans, who had first baptized an African, the Ethiopian eunuch. It was to this man there had first come the meaning of the larger issues of things. Even before the reception of Cornelius, even before the apprehension of Saul by the Lord Christ, even before the men of Cyprus and Cyrene had dared to preach in Antioch; Philip had answered the larger meaning of the missionary purpose, and endeavour, and had preached in Samaria; and then had gone away to baptize the Ethiopian eunuch, and receive him into the fellowship of the saints. Now the man who had followed that gleam until it broadened into the light of a great and intensive day, encompassing the whole Gentile world in its outlook, that man is the guest of Philip. How those men looking back together, would see the mosaic of the Divine government revealed! Now at last they sit together in the home of Philip, twenty years after, and look back.

What a great and gracious thing it is to look back! Yet how careful we should be to remember that in the present!

We shall all look back after a little while, and what a thing this looking back will be! Are there not people we knew twenty years ago that we would not care to meet to-day? Is not that how Saul would naturally have felt about Philip; one of the “dear remembered faces” that he had caused to be full of pain? What a transmuting and transforming thing this fellowship with Christ is, that it can bring together the men who twenty years ago were afraid of each other, and fighting each other, and persecuting each other; and can now enable them to talk of the old things, and see in the fire and the persecution the very finger and hand of God. It is a blessed thing to look back, when we have found our way into a true fellowship with this Lord Christ Himself.

Now let us look particularly at the central interest of this passage. Verse four reads (Acts 21:4):

“And having found the disciples, we tarried there seven days; and these said to Paul through the Spirit that he should not set foot in Jerusalem.” In the twelfth verse (Acts 21:12) we read:

“And when we heard these things, both we and they of that place besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.” Notice here that Luke associates himself with those who were at Csesarea; Philip, Agabus, and those travelling in the company. These men all said to Paul, through the Spirit, that he should not set foot in Jerusalem; and later there was the beseeching of Philip, Agabus, Luke, and the whole company, that he should not go. In the previous chapter we read how Paul told the Ephesian elders of the certainty he had about the future:

“I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me,” He declared to these Ephesian elders that he was nevertheless compelled to finish his course, and complete his ministry of testimony to this Gospel of the grace of God. He made no answer at Tyre that is recorded, when they told him that he must not go to Jerusalem; he made no response when Agabus took his girdle and bound himself; but when Luke and the rest joined with him, tried to dissuade him, he said, “What do ye, weeping and breaking my heart?” The word breaking there does not so much suggest suffering, as weakening, bending. Why by your weeping are you attempting to weaken my purpose, breaking, bending, subduing my heart? “for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” The contrast is quite clear. There can be no escape from the fact of the conflict of conviction. The motive in each case was pure. The motive of the apostle was pure.

That we do not call in question. The motive of these disciples in Tyre, of Philip, of Agabus, and of Luke was pure. The inspiration was the same. They were both acting in the light of spiritual interpretation, and under the impulse of great loyalty to the purpose of their Lord. Yet with true motives and identical inspiration, here were convictions diametrically opposed.

In accounting for this there are differing interpretations. There are those who maintain that Paul was wrong, and that all the suffering following was the result of the mistake he made at this point. On the other hand there are those who maintain that these people were wrong in the advice they gave; and that Paul was indeed following the path of loyalty.

My conviction is that Paul was right. His conviction was one resulting from the guidance of the Spirit of God. Take this paragraph, and set it in the light of the whole story of that going to Jerusalem, of its first reason, and its deepest intention, of the passion that drove hirn, and we shall find that he was going to Jerusalem to carry a gift that had been gathered among Gentile churches, in order to be helpful to the poor saints in Jerusalem. He was going to Jerusalem with a passionate desire to serve his brethren. Read again those wonderful paragraphs in the Roman letter which amaze us, in that they reveal a height of personal experience, and an intensity of missionary devotion, of which, alas! we know so little:

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that I (have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” Put that high and holy passion behind this determination to tread the way to Jerusalem, in the face of all dangers; and put behind it that which, from the standpoint of his ecclesiastical statesmanship was the master-passion of his life; the desire to bring together the Jews and Gentiles into an experimental consciousness of their oneness in Jesus Christ; and in these we find the inspirations driving this man.

What then did these men and Luke mean when they said to him, “through the Spirit, that he should not set foot in Jerusalem”? We must interpret that declaration of the fourth verse by other declarations. In the previous chapter, in verse twenty-three Paul said that “in every city the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.” In the eleventh verse of this chapter we find Agabus, prophesying in the Spirit, not telling him that he was not to go, but declaring that if he should go, then he would be bound and imprisoned. When these men in Tyre told Paul not to go, their advice was the result of the Spirit’s foretelling that if he went, he would suffer. Taking the whole story into account, we are not warranted in believing that the Spirit declared that he was not to go; but that the Spirit told him that he was going to suffering and to prison. These disciples at Tyre when they heard it, when they were informed by the Spirit, and by spiritual interpretation, of the difficulties that awaited him, urged him not to go.

The Spirit said that bonds awaited Paul, and their advice was really advice to falsify the teaching of the Spirit. I do not think they meant it in that way; they had not thought the situation out. The testimony of the Spirit was that there was waiting for this man bonds, afflictions, and suffering. Now the Spirit could never instruct men to give advice to one which, if followed, would be an attempt to escape the very pathway of suffering that the Spirit indicated was lying ahead of him. I believe then that at this point Paul was true to the deepest facts, and that he was right.

There is great comfort in this chapter for us. Recognizing that such things do occur, understanding the story by our own experience, is there not a test by which we may finally decide which conviction is according to the mind of the Spirit of God? I think that there is. It is the test of motive. The motive of the conviction that took possession of the minds of all these people, Luke included, was a very high motive. It was love for Paul.

Paul’s motive was an infinitely higher motive. It was love for the Lord, and passion for the accomplishment of His purpose. The last and final test for those who are submitted to the Spirit, who are seeking His guidance,; who believe they have the light of His revelation, is always that of motive. There may be motives which in themselves are very high, which become wrong, because there ought to be the infinitely higher motive.

What is the heart, then, of this revelation? Paul never wavered. He felt the pressure and the persuasiveness of their love. “What do ye, weeping and breaking,” bending, “my heart?” He acknowledged in that word that their tears and their entreaties weighed with him, weighed upon him, bent him toward their inclination also. He valued it, and he resisted it. He was conscious of the sweet constraint of their love; but I never see him rising to a higher height than when he consented to put that beneath his feet, in the interest of the call for loyalty to his Lord, and the abandonment of himself to the purposes of his Master.

Notice how the story finishes. Luke says, “When he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.” They recognized at last who was right. In the loyalty of Paul, in his determination, in that masterfulness of purpose that would not be persuaded, even by their tears, there flamed upon them the revelation of the will of the Lord; and Luke says, “We ceased,” and " We took up our baggage,” and went with him. That is a beautiful ending. It is the final proof of a true fellowship. There was the honesty of their persuasion; there was the magnificence of his refusal, and at last there was the fellowship of oneness in the discovery of the will of the Lord.

Thus we see the prisoner of the Lord on his way to those bonds which presently, according to his own writing, turned out for the furtherance of the Gospel.

Acts 21:17-40 - Acts 22:1-29 On the arrival of Paul in Jerusalem, he was welcomed by the brethren. It is noticeable that no apostle is mentioned. By this time in all probability they were scattered here and there, fulfilling their true mission. To James, and certain elders in oversight of the church in Jerusalem, Paul rehearsed the story of the victories won in the course of his ministry.

Immediately following this account we are told that, while they that heard it glorified God, they spoke not so much of the work accomplished, as of that which was most evidently uppermost in their heart, the immediate peril created by his presence in Jerusalem. Facing the situation as they thought calmly and considerately, they advised a certain course of action. Four men who, while believing in Jesus, were nevertheless under the Nazirite vow, were fulfilling the obligations of that vow, and the elders suggested to Paul that he should associate himself with them, doing what men often did in those days, taking the charges of their vow upon himself, and during the final days of their purification spending the time with them. The elders thought that by such action, he would contradict current reports concerning his attitude toward the Mosaic economy, which were likely to cause grave disturbance in Jerusalem.

Our theme is that of the advice of the elders, and the action of Paul. To understand this we must remind ourselves of the circumstances under which this advice was given a little more particularly.

The time of the apostle’s arrival in Jerusalem was that of the Feast of Pentecost. Jerusalem was then crowded with multitudes of Jews. On the authority of the Roman historians we know that no less than two million Jews were crowded into the city and neighbourhood during these feasts.

In order to thoroughly appreciate the national atmosphere, we need to remember that during the whole of that period the oppression of Rome was being most keenly felt by the Hebrew people. Rebellion was incipient everywhere, on the part of the Jews; and Rome was ready to stamp out all such rebellion. How easy it would have been to have flung down into the midst of the people some fire which would have immediately produced a very definite explosion.

These facts enable us better to understand the attitude of these elders toward Paul. Paul had not been in Jerusalem for long years, but his name was known. He had been the publicly appointed prosecutor of the Nazarene heresy. Twenty years before, he had obtained letters from the high priest, empowering him to hale men and women to prison and to death. In the apprehension of that man by Jesus Himself, all the force of his marvellous personality had been turned into an entirely opposite direction. Jerusalem, and the Jewish people generally, knew his history, and the very fact of his presence was made an occasion for hostility.

Moreover the believing Jews were not friendly toward him. Notice the words in verses twenty and twenty-one:

“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them which have believed; and they are all zealous for the law.” They were believers who were still observing rites and ceremonies, and who were diametrically opposed to Paul’s view that a man in Christ is set free from every other yoke of bondage. We should remember also that Paul was there, bearing to them great gifts, material gifts from Gentile churches, but there does not seem to have been any recognition, any attitude of gratitude or thanksgiving toward him at all.

These must have been sad days for Paul. He would think of the days of Stephen long ago, and of his four previous visits to Jerusalem. He had never been welcome there.

These elders seem to have had no conviction that the zealots of the law were wrong. They did not ask Paul for a concession, but for a vindication which is quite a different matter. They asked him to deny the rumor that he had abandoned rites and ceremonies, by observing these. The principle underlying their appeal was that of policy. Whatever their view, they must surely have known Paul’s attitude. Their request for vindiction before the believing Jews was dishonest.

They knew that he had personally abandoned the observance of rites and ceremonies. These elders in Jerusalem had been in close touch with all his movements, they had read his letters, and certainly at this time the Galatian letter, and the two Corinthian letters were written. At Antioch he had rebuked Peter for dissimulation, and now they asked him to practise dissimulation.

That leads us to consider the consent of Paul; and as in looking at the advice of the elders we observed the purpose and terms of the advice; so here let us consider the purpose of his consent, and the terms of that consent.

Directly we turn from the advice of these men which was that of policy and of dishonesty withal, to the consent of Paul, and begin to look at the purpose of his consent, we have moved on to an entirely different level. I put that emphatically, because I hold that Paul made the greatest mistake of his ministry on this occasion. Yet we have to recognize the fact that the reason of his consent was not that of expediency merely, not that of policy, but that of devotion. The reason of his consent was his desire to win his brethren. The reason of his consent here is most perfectly declared in his matchless words in the Roman letter:

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh; who are Israelites, whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the convenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, Who is over all, God blessed forevermore.” This was not the action of a man politic, expedient, and attempting to manipulate circumstances to prevent a breach of the peace, or a riot in Jerusalem. It was not the action of a man trying to save his own life. It was the action of a man who passionately and earnestly desired to do anything, if by the doing of it he might deliver the message to his brethren, and win them. Look at the action in itself. It was the doing of that which was of no value to him. It was consent to an appearance, contrary to conviction. Yet was he justified?

What was the issue? The issue was the failure of the purpose of the elders. They sought to maintain peace. Peace was not maintained. What they did, provoked the very riot they fain would have obviated. Again, and here the language needs to be more tender, and the sympathy far greater the issue was the failure of the purpose of Paul. He sought by that accommodation, contrary to his own conviction, to gain an opportunity of testimony to his brethren, and he lost his opportunity. His brethren were not won, and the last word of the paragraph is the same cry hurled after him that was hurled after his Master, “Away with him.”

The teaching of this incident is that love must ever be loyal to truth. To sacrifice a principle for a moment in the hope of gaining an opportunity to establish it afterwards, is always to fail. We never win an opportunity that way. It is in our moments of highest spiritual exaltation that we need to be most watchful against the possibility of compromise. Men who would never compromise in order to save their own lives, are in danger of compromising in the hope that they may help others. If it is a stern word, if it is a hard word, it is a word of infinite love, it is the word of eternal truth; that by compromise we never establish a principle. Even though we hope to gain an opportunity by the doing of it, we lose it.

That is the last word of this story, but there is something else to follow. We shall see how when men fail, even from high motives, the Lord appears, and gently restores them. The apostle was rescued by arrest, and was carried by soldiers up the stairs leading into the castle.

There are three matters of supreme interest in this story; first, the man; secondly, the mob; and thirdly, the Mother Church. Let us consider them in the reverse order, glancing first at the infuriated and angry multitude of people surrounding this man; and finally, at the man as a prisoner, to the end of the history in this book.

Twenty years had passed away since the formation of the Church, and the arresting fact here is that the church in Jerusalem is not seen. Paul was alone, and would have been beaten brutally to death by an infuriated mob, had he not been rescued by the Roman power. When once the seventh chapter of this book of the Acts has been passed, where the record of the first things in Jerusalem come to an end, whenever the Church emerges in her representative capacity, she is seen attempting compromise, pursuing the policy of accommodation. It was a little difficult for her to receive the testimony of Peter concerning the work in the house of Cornelius. She was suspicious of the movement in Samaria. With difficulty there was wrested from her the granting of the charter of freedom to the Gentiles.

She pursued a policy of accommodation, receiving into her fellowship those who had made no break with Judaism. James declared to Paul, who had come up bearing with him gifts from the Gentile churches, with the love of his Lord burning in his heart, that there were multitudes of believing Jews, all of whom were observing the rites and ceremonies of Judaism. This was in itself a yery remarkable admission and confession. It may of course be said that these men had attempted thus to secure safety. It was undoubtedly the easier path to admit to the fellowship of the Church men who confessed Christ, and really believed in Him, who nevertheless compromised with Judaism, by still observing its rites and ceremonies; but that policy of accommodation, policy of compromise, had weakened the Church.

The issue is revealed in this page. The Church had no influence in Jerusalem. In this tragic hour, when this man, bearing in his body the stigmata of Jesus, ought to have been welcomed with open heart and arms by the Church; he stood alone in the midst of the pitiless scorn and brutality of an angry mob, and had to be protected by Roman power. The Church had neither power nor protest. She had lost both by her policy of accommodation.

Now look at the mob. The word is admittedly not a very elegant one, but no other suits the occasion. Yet can we feel in our hearts anything of anger in the presence of that mob? Ought we not rather to feel the infinite sadness of the fact that any measure of conviction that came to that city had been weakened by the failure of the witnesses? That city had passed under the spell of the power of Christ on the day of Pentecost, even though they had rejected Him in the days of His flesh. One wonders whether the whole city would not have been in a different attitude and demeanour if there had been no compromise on the part of the Church.

The arresting fact as we look at this crowd of Jews is that of their frenzy. It is an Oriental picture, perfectly natural; the tearing of garments, the flinging of dust into the air, as the result of the emotion that seized them. They were silent enough at first; they listened to all the earlier parts of that wonderful address characterized by so fine a courtesy and so definite a testimony. The occasion of this sudden outburst was the one word-“Gentiles. We cannot read that address of Paul, and believe that he had finished where he ended. It is most certain that he was going on, but he said “Gentiles,” and in a moment the frenzy of the crowd was manifested.

It was an expression of prejudice and of pride; prejudice which resulted from a false view of themselves in the economy of God. Their outcry against Paul was perfectly consistent. It was the carrying out in the case of Paul, of all their actions when his Master had stood in their midst. There is something better than consistency. This was ignorant consistency, or consistency in ignorance, or a consistency that was the outcome of ignorance. They had taken a false view of themselves, and they would be true to that at all costs.

The view was that they were God’s peculiar and elect people, in the sense that He had chosen that nation to bestow His love upon it, to the forgetfulness of other nations. They believed that God had no care for those Gentile nations, except that of governing them and smashing them if they stood in the way of the Jew. That was their outlook, that was their mistake, that was their prejudice.

The issue was blindness to the Divine activity. In the address of Paul the one thing that he sought to show these people was that all his action was in line with the Divine. The outcome was not only blindness to the Divine activity, it was consequently injustice to Paul; and not only blindness to the Divine activity and injustice to Paul, but ultimately suicide to the nation itself.

What was Paul’s motive as he asked that he might speak? It is revealed in his first word: “Brethren and fathers, hear ye the defence which I now make unto you.” The defence which Paul desired was not personal. He was not defending himself.

He had gone to the Gentiles resolutely. To the Gentiles he had preached the fullness of the Christian salvation. He had declared to the Gentiles, and by argument with the Christian Jew had maintained, that if any man superadded anything to faith as being necessary for salvation, that man was anathema, denying the very Gospel of the Son of God. When he came to Jerusalem James had said to him that this attitude was known, and that he had better take up the appearance of loyalty to the law by entering into the temple with these men. He was not now defending himself for doing that. He was defending the method of his ministry which had stirred up the very opposition in the midst of which he stood. That hour and that address was the hour of his decisive and final break with Judaism.

This defence was a vindication of the ways of God. These words indicate the movement of the address. He began, “I am a Jew,” that is, he was one of the people of God, one of that nation to which they belonged; certainly created by God for the accomplishment of certain purposes. Ananias, himself a devout Jew, had said to him in the days of his enlightenment, “God,” the God of the nation to which they belonged, “hath appointed thee … to see the Righteous One.” Take that phrase, “the Righteous One.” Where did it come from? Why did he not say, To see the Messiah, to see Jesus? It was a peculiar phrase, chosen with singular aptness by Ananias, and now quoted by Paul in his defence before the Jews.

It will be found in the great prophecy of the doubting prophet, Habakkuk, as the revelation of the central principle of Israel’s life, and the hope thereof. The swelled soul, behold, it is puffed up, but “My righteous One shall live by faith.” While this was the declaration of a principle, it was also the prophecy of the embodiment of that principle in a Person. Ananias had said to this Jew in the moment of his enlightenment, that God had appointed him also to see this One referred to in the heart of the prophecies with which he was familiar; looked for from the centre of the law under which he had lived. Paul now quoted it. I am a Jew, I belong to your nation, and the God Whom you worship has given me the vision of the Lord, of the One for Whom you wait, and for Whom you hope. I have seen the Righteous One.

So far they were prepared to follow him. Now he said, that the God Who had apprehended him by the vision of that Righteous One, and by His voice; that God, the God of their nation, sent him to the Gentiles. At that moment their frenzy broke out.

What lay behind the desire on Paul’s part to speak to the people? Surely it was a great and passionate craving to persuade his brethren after the flesh. Why else did he ask to speak to this infuriated mob? There was burning within him that passion that grows, that unceasing pain that desired to be anathema from Christ for his brethren’s sake, that they might yet come to an understanding of the truth.

Observe then the method of the apostle; his central loyalty to this purpose and appointment of God. He argued, not for the sake of his apostleship and right, but because it was part of God’s right and method. This man sanctified all the means of his education and life to the purposes to which he was called and pledged. If he would speak to this Greek captain, he used the Greek tongue. If he spoke to the mob, he spoke in the Hebrew tongue. If this captain, seeking to find out more than he could in the ordinary way, ordered his examination by scourging, he appealed to his Roman citizenship.

Some may say, Ought he not to have suffered? No, martyrdom is only of value when it cannot be avoided. A cheap martyrdom never produces any great result. All the facts and forces of his wonderful personality were manifest.

Mark his argument. He set up claims on the Jews by reason of his birth and his education. He appealed to them with a fine courtesy. Is there anything more remarkable than his recognition of their zeal, and his admiration of it? There he stood, confronting those dark angry faces, hushed into silence for a moment by the fine art that made him employ the Hebrew tongue. Yet as he looked upon them he recognized their zeal, and could have quoted from his own letter, “I bear you witness that you have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”

Then follow the line of his appeal. First, his claim of sincerity. He also had been zealous for God. Had he not persecuted unto the death men who held the views for which he was now being persecuted? How had come the change in him? There was no abandonment of sincerity.

There was no turning away from the God of their fathers. Thus he gave to those listening men, as his most powerful argument, his own definite personal experience. He told them that this Christ appeared to him, called him, and arrested him; and he said to them in effect: What could I do, but abandon my prejudice, and trample underfoot my pride, and yield myself entirely to Him? Then having claimed his sincerity through the whole process, he sought to bring them to see that in the line of that sincerity he was compelled to obey the commission of the One Whom he recognized as his Lord, Who had sent him to the Gentiles; but of that they would hear nothing.

In the application of the teaching of this passage let us begin with that furious mob. We learn first the danger of prejudice. The test of conviction is the temper it produces. Frenzy in defence is always a condemnation of the thing defended. That is a great principle. Test it by all these New Testament pictures, and it will be found that those who were set for the defence of the Gospel were always quiet, calm, sure, never possessed by panic, never descending to anything in the nature of unfairness or abuse of those from whom they differed. It is a lie that demands frenzy in defence, even though the frenzied man may not know that it is a lie.

Then we turn to the Mother Church, and in doing so we see the need of a clear line of severance between the Church and all that contradicts her claims. The line of demarcation ought to be marked, and drawn with a fine distinction and courtesy; but it must be done. There is a toleration which is treachery. There is a peace which issues in paralysis. There are hours when the Church must say No, to those who ask communion with her, in the doing of her work, upon the basis of compromise. Such standing aloof may produce ostracism and persecution; but it will maintain power and influence.

If the Church of God in the cities of to-day were aloof from the , maxims of the age, separated from the materialistic philosophies of the schools, bearing her witness alone to the all-sufficiency of Christ, and the perfection of His salvation, even though persecuted and ostracized and bruised: it would be to her that men would look in the hour of their heart-break and sorrow and national need. The reason why men do not look to the Church to-day is that she has destroyed her own influence by compromise.

Finally we look at the man, and in doing so are brought face to face again with the true motive, and the true methods of all endeavour. The one motive must be that of a passion for the accomplishment of the Divine purpose. What was it that sustained this man through all these experiences? It was his conviction that God had willed and was planning, and that His way must be discovered and followed. That is the central motive of all true Christian work.

The methods are those first, of the use of all our powers by their consecration to that one purpose. Let the Greek speak his Greek language when it is necessary. Let the Hebrew borrow the language of the Hebrew, and speak in the speech of the Hebrew. Let the Roman citizen use his Roman citizenship for purposes of the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

The last thing we learn is that more powerful than all argument is the experience of one man, arrested by Christ, and changed by that experience.