Scripture: Acts 26
(Selected)
Every
Sunday morning in worship, we take time to offer testimonies as to how God is
working His mighty ways in and through our lives. Many have witnessed to God’s work, and we all
have been blessed by being reminded that our God is an active and powerful God. But are we willing and anxious to be a
witness to the LORD’s working with those who are walking outside of the
faith?
In
Matthew 24:10-14, Jesus tells us
that our witness to His work and words is vitally important – that this is the
means to salvation for many in the world.
It will also be a precursor to the LORD’s return – in verse 14 we
read “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as
a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” It seems that when the word of Jesus is
spread throughout the world, that will signal the time for His return!
And
Jesus also speaks about those who proclaim false testimonies in Matthew 15:19 – that they (their words) are just as evil
as “murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, and slander.” So even though we are called to share Jesus
and His ways with others, we are also cautioned not to fabricate anything!
Today,
in this our 16th lesson from the book of Acts, we consider what the
apostle Paul thought about sharing the word of Jesus throughout the world.
Read Acts 26:4-8
In
today’s passage, we will read of a couple of names that most may not be familiar
with. The first is King Agrippa, also
known as Herod Agrippa II, king of Israel, and a descendent of King Herod the
Great – the one who ruled during the time of Christ’s birth. The second will be Festus, who was the Roman
governor of Judea during this time.
These two men were the most powerful rulers in the region, and we will soon
discover how Paul treated this opportunity to testify regarding Jesus.
King
Agrippa had been invited to be present during Paul’s trial before Festus. He had been given permission to speak before both,
and he starts by establishing his former life as a Pharisee. Agrippa would have known about his past, but
this side of Paul may have been new to him.
So the apostle sets the stage by first speaking about his life as a
faithful Jewish man.
But
then he associates his new found faith in terms of Jewish law – that he is well
founded in all that the nation’s religion, as well as the words of the
prophets, have meant for Israel for ages.
The implication, without actually saying it, is that God’s word has
always been among them – it’s just that only a few have actually been following
it! He isn’t trying to make his Jewishness
more Christian, but rather how Jewish his Christian faith is! The law that their Jehovah God had set down
had never changed – it was only the changes that the Jews had made that had led
them in a different direction.
One
of the struggles that had developed was the promise of resurrection. The Pharisees had held to that belief, but
the Sadducees had lost that understanding.
And he charges his accusers with actually opposing the basis that the LORD
had established thousands of years before.
For many, the promise of resurrection in the last days was still firm –
it’s just that they didn’t see it based in the Messiah, in Jesus.
Paul
was narrowing down the specifics of the differences that had grown up between the
elite of Israel and the followers of Jesus’ Way.
Read Acts 26:9-11
Now
he confesses, as part of his testimony, that once he was walking in the same shoes
that the Jewish legalists wore, but by implication, he is letting the king and
governor know that that way no longer held any truth for him. He now knows the Messiah – the giver of
eternity.
Paul,
through skillful testimony, is explaining that it is Israel who has left the
way of Jehovah and His Messiah, not the followers of Jesus Christ. The truth is that even Christians can find
themselves in this same morass! If we get too
comfortable with our faith, and begin to take it for granted, we, too, can so
easily find ourselves interjecting false thoughts into our semi-dependence
on scripture! I’m sure that you have
heard others say that the Bible has to be updated to be brought into the 21st
century - that this is the only way to reach out to those who find scripture
antiquated and far too simple for their taste.
Some things never change!
Paul
knows that the ancient days, when God set down the ways He wanted His chosen
nation to follow, were still true to form.
But the problem was that as the prophesies of many years previous began
to be revealed, the nation wouldn’t believe.
He shows the fallacy of the way he used to live, and will, as his speech
continues, confirm the truth of Jehovah God that is living through Jesus
Messiah now. He doesn’t deny what had
once been, but shows the unbelievers that what they had become, was not what
the LORD
desired for them.
Read Acts 26:19-22
Between
this, and the previous passage that we read, Paul expands on the fullness of
his testimony through those happenings on the Road to Damascus, as well as that
which he learned in the city itself.
He
confesses his journey away from Jehovah, and then the way he was led back into
the truth of Jesus. This is what a
witness is all about. Consider the
witness that John Newton offers in the first verse of his famous hymn “Amazing
Grace” – “Amazing grace! How sweet
the sound that saved a wretch like me! I
once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.” See the similarity? Newton proclaims God’s saving grace, then
confesses that he once was lost in the darkness of his soul, once was blind to
the truth of his God, but that grace had brought him back to life, and had
restored his vision of the LORD!
Paul
has done the same thing. He confessed
the old; revealed the new that had come to him, and now is sharing what he is
doing with all of the revealed truth that is finally within him. And he lets both the king and governor know
what he now is doing about this new-found faith – he is sharing it with Jew and
Gentile alike. His attitude is exactly
what Jesus’ was – He lifted up both Jews and Gentiles; He taught both men and
women; He loved all people, and treated no one differently than He did anyone
else.
And
he never distinguished between any of the classes - whenever he had the chance,
he shared Jesus with everyone he met - the upper classes and the lower, the
great and the small, the mighty and the weak, the wealthy and the poor, the
exalted and the subjugated – no one was going to miss out on Jesus, if he had
anything to say about it.
So
in Galatians 3:26-29, Paul tells us
that all who believe in Christ belong to Him, and will know the grace and glory
that John Newton wrote about. No longer
Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female – all are one in Christ Jesus. This is also an important aspect of our
testimony – that all are welcome.
Read Acts 26:24-29
Festus
still doesn’t believe, because he doesn’t have that Hebrew background in his
life. But Paul doesn’t give up – not with
the Roman governor, and not with the Jewish king. And in the last verse for today, our apostle
tells us that time doesn’t matter either.
He will proclaim Jesus as long as he possibly can!
