Acts 26:1 - Meaning and Application

Agrippa was the highest-ranking person in the room. He had been given the title of king, though his actual power was no greater than that of the other governors under the emperor. He was not above Festus in rank here, but he was older in office, and so Festus opened the case, and Agrippa spoke for the court by giving Paul permission to answer for himself (Acts 26:1).

Paul stayed silent until that freedom was given to him. The best speakers are not always the quickest to begin speaking. This was a favor the Jews would not have granted him, or would have given only with great reluctance, but Agrippa gave it freely. Paul’s case was so strong that he needed no lawyer like Tertullus to defend him.

Luke also notes Paul’s gesture. He stretched out his hand, showing no fear and full self-control. It also showed that he was serious and wanted their full attention while he defended himself. He did not use his appeal to Caesar as an excuse to say nothing, as if to say, “I will not speak again until I stand before the emperor.” Instead, he gladly used this chance to honor the cause for which he suffered. If we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope in us to everyone who asks, we should be even more ready before rulers and officials (1 Peter 3:15).

In this first part of his speech, Paul shows special respect to Agrippa (Acts 26:2-3). He had already spoken with respect before Felix because Felix had been judge over that nation for many years (Acts 24:10). But Paul’s regard for Agrippa goes further. He is glad to defend himself, even though the Jews have accused him and said many false things about him. He does not act as if being an apostle puts him above civil authority. Government is an ordinance of God, from which all people benefit, so all must be subject to it.

Paul is also glad that he is speaking before King Agrippa, a Jew by religion who had become a proselyte, that is, a Gentile who had joined the Jewish faith. Agrippa understood Jewish customs and questions better than the Roman governors did. Paul says, “I know you are expert in all customs and questions among the Jews.” Agrippa had likely studied Jewish learning carefully. He understood the customs of Jewish religion, what they meant, and that they were never meant to be universal or permanent. He also knew the debates that arose from those customs, where even the Jews did not all agree.

Agrippa was also well acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures, so he was in a better position than others to judge the dispute between Paul and the Jews about whether Jesus is the Messiah. It encourages a preacher to speak to people who are thoughtful and able to tell the difference between things that are true and things that are not. When Paul says, “Judge for yourselves what I say” (1 Corinthians 10:15), he is speaking to wise people.

So Paul asks him to hear him patiently, that is, with forbearance and kindness. Paul planned a long speech, and he asks Agrippa not to grow weary. He also planned a clear and honest speech, and he asks Agrippa not to be offended by it. Paul had reason to think Agrippa might be somewhat influenced by Jewish prejudice against him, since Agrippa was a Jew and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. So he softens the request: “I beg you, hear me patiently.” Surely the least we can expect when we preach Christ is to be heard patiently.

Paul then says that, though he was hated and accused as a traitor, he still held to the good faith in which he had been raised. His religion had always rested on God’s promise to the fathers, and it still did. His life in youth was well known (Acts 26:4-5). He had not been born in his own nation, but he was brought up among them in Jerusalem. Though he had later spent time among the Gentiles, which offended the Jews, he had begun his life in close connection with the Jewish people and in full sympathy with them.

His upbringing was neither foreign nor hidden. It was among his own people in Jerusalem, where both religion and learning flourished. The Jews all knew it, at least those old enough to remember, because Paul had become known early in life. Those who knew him from the start could testify that he was a Pharisee, one of the strictest Jewish groups. He did not merely belong to the Pharisees in name. He lived as a Pharisee, following their rules closely and more carefully than most.

He was also trained by Gamaliel, a famous Jewish teacher, in the school of Hillel, which was more respected for religion than the school of Shammai. If Paul was a Pharisee and lived as one, then he was a learned man, not an ignorant laborer. The Pharisees knew the law well, along with the traditions and explanations built around it. This mattered because some unbelieving Jews had once mocked the apostles for lacking formal schooling and having been fishermen (Acts 4:13). But here God had raised up an apostle who had sat at the feet of their most respected teachers.

Paul was also a moral man, a man of disciplined conduct, not a reckless or immoral young person. If he lived like a Pharisee, he was not a drunkard or a sexually immoral man. As a young Pharisee, he may also not yet have learned the greedy tricks of older Pharisees who devoured widows’ houses. In terms of outward law-keeping, he was blameless. No one could charge him with open sin or disrespect for religion. So he could not be said to have left Judaism because he did not understand it, since he was learned. Nor could he be said to have left it because he disliked it, since he was upright and not drawn to immorality.

He was also orthodox, meaning sound in his beliefs, and not a deist, one who thinks God exists but denies His close rule, or a skeptic, one who doubts the truth, or a man with corrupt ideas that lead to unbelief.

Paul was a Pharisee, not a Sadducee. That mattered because the Pharisees accepted the Old Testament books the Sadducees rejected, and they believed in spirits, the soul’s life after death, the resurrection of the body, and final rewards and punishments. So no one could say that he left his religion because he had no firm beliefs or no respect for God’s revelation.

Paul always valued the old promise God made to the fathers, that is, to the patriarchs, the early fathers of Israel. That did not make him righteous before God, and Paul knew it never could. Still, it was useful for his defense before the Jews, and even before Agrippa, because it showed he was not the kind of man they claimed him to be. He counted all his former advantages as loss if they kept him from Christ, yet he mentioned them when they could honor Christ.

At the same time, Paul knew that before his conversion he had not understood the true spiritual meaning of God’s law. He had not yet lived by heart religion, which means inward faith and obedience, and he knew that unless his righteousness exceeded that level, he would never enter heaven. Even so, he could look back with some satisfaction and say that he had not been an atheist, a careless person, or a morally corrupt man. According to the light he had then, he had lived with a clear conscience before God.

His religion now was no longer centered on the ceremonial law as it had been in his youth. He believed the sacrifices and offerings of that law were fulfilled in Christ’s great sacrifice, and he no longer treated ritual cleansings and uncleanness as matters of conscience. He also saw the Levitical priesthood, that is, the priesthood set up under the law of Moses, as honorably replaced by Christ’s priesthood. But on the main truths of his faith, he was just as zealous as ever, and even more so. He was determined to live and die by them.

Paul’s religion rested on the promise God made to the fathers. It was built on divine revelation, which he believed and entrusted his soul to. It was also built on divine grace, grace shown and given through promise. That promise came before the ceremonial law and was made long before the law could set it aside (Galatians 3:17). The two great gospel truths are Christ and heaven, and both are part of that promise. It reaches back to God’s promise to Adam about the seed of the woman, and especially to the promise to Abraham that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed and that God would be God to him and his offspring.

Paul’s religion also consisted in the hope of that promise. He did not place his confidence in food, drink, or outward rituals. Instead, he depended on God’s grace in the covenant, that is, God’s binding promise to save his people. He hoped in Christ as the promised seed, and he expected to be blessed in him. He also hoped for heaven, as shown by the resurrection of the dead (Acts 24:15). He had no confidence in human effort or in anything great from this world. His eye was fixed on a future life, where God’s gifts are greater than anything this world can offer.

Paul also stood with all godly Jews in this hope. His faith was not only based on Scripture, but also supported by the testimony of the church. Though his enemies treated him like a special target, he was not isolated from true Israel. The twelve tribes, meaning the whole body of the Jewish nation, also served God day and night and hoped for the same promise, the promise of what God had prepared for his people. They looked for the Messiah and the life to come, and Paul, as a Christian, looked to the same promise already fulfilled in Christ. If they and he expected to meet in the same heaven, then they should not have treated him as an enemy on the way there.

The Jewish church did not only hope for that promise, it also served God in light of it, through the regular temple worship carried on day and night. Priests, Levites, and the standing representatives of the tribes all took part in that service. Paul says that he now serves God with the same hope, though through the gospel of Christ. Since both he and they were looking to the same promise, they should not have called him a deserter from their church. Christians should draw the same lesson, if they hope in the same Jesus and the same heaven. Even if they differ in worship forms and ceremonies, they should think well of one another and live in holy love.

Paul may mean certain people who stayed with the Jewish church and were very devout in their own way. They served God with deep focus and steady devotion, night and day, like Anna, who never left the temple but served God, the same word is used there, in fasting and prayer night and day (Luke 2:37). In that way, they hoped to receive the promise, and Paul says he hoped they would as well.

Only those who are diligent and steady in God’s service can reasonably hope for eternal life. The hope of that eternal life should push us to be faithful in every act of worship. We should keep doing our work with heaven in view. And we should judge kindly those who sincerely serve God day and night, even if they do not worship in our way.

This was also what Paul was suffering for, the doctrine he preached, which even his opponents should have owned if they understood themselves rightly. He says, “I am on trial because of the hope of the promise made to our fathers.” He held to the promise against the ceremonial law, that is, the outward rituals of the Jewish law, while his persecutors held to the ceremonial law against the promise. “It is for this hope, King Agrippa, that I am accused by the Jews, because I do what I believe I must do because of this promise.”

It is common for people to hate and persecute the true power of religion in others, while they still value the outward form in themselves. Paul’s hope was one they themselves admitted (Acts 24:15), yet they were enraged against him because he lived according to that hope. Still, it was his honor that, when he suffered as a Christian, he suffered for the hope of Israel (Acts 28:20).

This was also what he wanted all who heard him to accept with open hearts, as in Acts 26:8: “Why should it be thought impossible that God raises the dead?” This seems to come in suddenly, but Paul likely said more than is recorded here. He probably explained that the promise made to the fathers was the promise of resurrection and eternal life, and showed that he was on the right path because he believed in Christ, who had risen from the dead. Christ’s resurrection was a pledge, a sure sign in advance, of that resurrection the fathers hoped for.

Paul longed to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, so that by it he might reach the resurrection of the dead (Philippians 3:10-11). Many of his listeners were Gentiles, probably most of them, and Festus especially. We can imagine that when they heard so much about Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection from the dead that the twelve tribes hoped for, some mocked, as the Athenians did, or smiled and whispered that it sounded absurd. That likely led Paul to reason with them in this way: “What, is it thought impossible for you that God should raise the dead?” Or it may be read as a question of surprise. If it seems amazing to you, should it seem amazing to me, says the Lord of hosts (Zechariah 8:6). If it is beyond nature’s power, it is still not beyond the power of the God of nature.

There is no good reason to think it impossible that God should raise the dead. We are not asked to believe anything that is truly impossible or self-contradictory. There are enough reasons to trust all the teachings of the Christian faith, especially this one about the resurrection of the dead. Does God not have infinite, all-powerful strength, so that nothing is impossible for him? Did he not make the world at the beginning out of nothing by speaking a word? Did he not first form our bodies from clay and breathe life into them? And cannot that same power form them again from their own dust and give them life once more? We even see a kind of rising again in nature, when spring returns. If the sun can wake dead-looking plants, why should it seem strange to us that God can raise dead bodies?

Paul then admits that when he was still a Pharisee, a member of the strict Jewish party, he was a bitter enemy of Christians and Christianity, and thought he was right to be so until Christ changed him in a wonderful way. He mentions this, first, to show that becoming a Christian and a preacher was not the result of any earlier leaning in that direction. He did not talk himself into Christianity through a slow chain of arguments. Instead, he was brought from strong prejudice to full assurance at once, by a supernatural power. That made his conversion a convincing proof of Christianity, not only to him but to others as well.

He may also be offering some excuse for his persecutors, as Christ did when he said, “They do not know what they are doing.” Paul himself once thought he was doing what he ought to do when he persecuted Christ’s disciples, and he kindly assumes they may be making the same mistake. He thought he should do many things, everything in his power, against the name of Jesus of Nazareth, against his teaching, honor, and cause. That name harmed no one, but because it did not fit his idea of the Messiah’s kingdom, he set himself against it. He thought he was serving God by persecuting those who called on the name of Jesus Christ.

This shows how possible it is for people to be sure they are right and yet plainly wrong. It is also possible for people to think they are doing their duty while they are willfully continuing in great sin. Those who hated their brothers, cast them out, and then said, “Let the Lord be honored,” did exactly that (Isaiah 66:5). Under the cover of religion, the most cruel and shameful acts have often been not only defended, but praised and treated as holy (John 16:2).

Paul also describes the fierceness of his actions (Acts 26:10-11). There is no force more dangerous than a conscience that has been misled. When Paul thought it was his duty to do everything against Christ’s name, he spared no effort or expense. He says this with the pain of someone who truly repents: “I was a blasphemer and a persecutor” (1 Timothy 1:13). He filled prisons with Christians, as if they were the worst criminals, hoping not only to frighten them but also to make them hated by the people.

Many of the saints he shut up in prison, both men and women (Acts 8:3). In that work he made himself the servant of the chief priests. They gave him authority, as an inferior officer, to carry out their orders, and he was proud to be a man with power for such a purpose.

He also took the lead in voting for Christians to be put to death, even when no one asked for his opinion. This included Stephen, whose death Saul approved (Acts 8:1), so Saul made himself a partner in the crime. Perhaps, because of his strong zeal and young age, he had a place in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, and there he voted for Christians to be condemned. Or, after they were condemned, he approved and praised what had been done, which also made him guilty after the fact, as if he had served as judge or juror.

He also helped punish them in the synagogues, where they were beaten as people who had broken synagogue rules. He had a part in punishing many people, and it seems the same people may have been punished by him more than once, as Paul himself later was five times (2 Corinthians 11:24). He did not only punish them for their faith. He also took pride in overpowering their consciences and forced them to deny their faith by making them suffer. He says, “I made them blaspheme Christ,” meaning he forced them to call Christ a deceiver and admit that they had been wrong to trust him. Nothing will weigh more heavily on persecutors than forcing people’s consciences, no matter how much they may now boast about the followers they have made through violence.

His anger against Christians and the Christian faith grew so strong that Jerusalem was too small a place for it. Being extremely enraged against them, he pursued them even into foreign cities. He was furious to see how much they had to say for themselves, even after everything he did against them, and furious to see them grow larger because of their suffering. His rage was extreme. It had no limits, and he was as much a trouble to himself as he was to them, because his inward frustration was so great that he could not succeed, and his anger burned against them all the same. Persecutors are madmen, and some are wildly so. Paul was angry that people in other cities were not as hostile to Christians, so he pushed himself into places where he had no business and persecuted Christians even there. Nothing is more restless than malice, especially when it claims to act from conscience. This was Paul’s character and way of life at the beginning, so no one could assume he was a Christian because of upbringing or habit, or because he hoped for advancement. Every outward sign was against the idea that he would become a Christian.