SELF DEFENSE (PART 3)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“After an absence of several years, I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings. I was ceremonially clean when they found me in the temple courts doing this. There was no crowd with me, nor was I involved in any disturbance.”

Acts 24:17-18

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The lawyer representing the Sanhedrin at the Caesarea hearing held before the Roman governor Felix worked hard to paint Paul as a dissident and enemy of God. During his opening statement as prosecutor, he detailed the charges levied against the apostle, charges that portrayed Paul as not only a cult leader and troublemaker who stirred up riots in Israel’s capital city but a wicked enemy of God who willingly and willfully desecrated the holy temple.

If you only heard one side of the story, you would have probably found Paul guilty and would have held a very negative opinion of anyone who followed “the Way” which simply was code for Jesus believer.

This is why Paul’s opportunity to speak and offer up self defense was so important. For he tells Felix and all gathered what really happened and who he truly was. In God’s presence, his words were carefully chosen so to reveal his true character and identity.

Through the first two devotions in this series, Paul has made it clear that he was no different than his accusers. He worshiped the same God as the Jerusalem Jews did and believed “everything that is in accordance with the Law” and “written in the Prophets”. He had the “same hope in God” as his accusers. The only real difference, and it was major, was that Paul chose to believe in Jesus and therefore had sealed his eternal life. The members of the Sanhedrin and most of the populace of Jerusalem rejected Jesus and were destined for damnation.

Paul’s everlasting future was set because of Jesus and this set him free in his earthly life to dedicate himself to help others find their salvation. As we saw in yesterday’s message, Paul always strived to keep his conscience clean before God and he achieved that by faithfully carrying out the will of God’s Son. In other words, Paul set to set himself apart from the ways of the world by carrying out the ways of Jesus.

Friends, anytime that anyone commits themselves to follow Christ and conform their way of living to His, they will stand out and be markedly different from the world they live in. Christians are in the world but far from of it. They can be identified by their self sacrificial attitude and behavior, willing to set self aside for the good of others.

Therefore, Christians do good. Infinite good and this is what Paul wants to drive home as we look at this penultimate devotion of a four devotion set. Look again at the words of the apostle here as he continues to make his defense:

“After an absence of several years, I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings. I was ceremonially clean when they found me in the temple courts doing this. There was no crowd with me, nor was I involved in any disturbance.” Acts 24:17-18

Note here that Paul wasn’t a regular fixture in Jerusalem. He didn’t regularly come into the city to rile up the populace. In this particular instance, he had been absent for several years, long enough that many people would scarcely recognize him if he walked down a Jerusalem street.

So why did he come to Jerusalem in the first place?

Well, earlier in this message of rebuttal against the false charges brought against him, Paul confessed he had come to Jerusalem to worship, hardly something you would think a godless man would do. We learn more in these two verses in our passage today for Paul brought gifts to present to the poor in addition to the offerings he brought to the temple courts. An unclean person would have been seen as a temple desecrator but we see Paul going on record with the fact that he was “ceremonially clean” when “in the temple courts” carrying out the Lord’s business. He wasn’t present in any crowd nor was he engaged in any disturbance. Rather, his full focus was on the Lord and on Him alone.

Through the first three devotions in this series, we have found Paul systematically dismantle the allegations brought against him. He probably could have stopped right here and would have properly defended himself to the point of a quick acquittal by Felix. But as we’ll see tomorrow, Paul had just a little more left to say to close his statement. I hope you’ll come back to read about how he finishes.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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