Reflections on Acts 26

Acts 26 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Agrippa told Paul, "You may now speak for yourself." Paul stretched out his hand and said:
   
2. King Agrippa, I am glad for this chance to defend myself before you today on all these charges that my own people have brought against me.
   
3. You know a lot about our religious customs and the beliefs that divide us. So I ask you to listen patiently to me.
   
4. All the Jews have known me since I was a child. They know what kind of life I have lived in my own country and in Jerusalem. And if they were willing, they could tell you that I was a Pharisee, a member of a group that is stricter than any other.
   
5. (SEE 26:4)
   
6. Now I am on trial because I believe the promise God made to our people long ago.
   
7. Day and night our twelve tribes have earnestly served God, waiting for his promised blessings. King Agrippa, because of this hope, the Jewish leaders have brought charges against me.
   
8. Why should any of you doubt that God raises the dead to life?
   
9. I once thought that I should do everything I could to oppose Jesus from Nazareth.
   
10. I did this first in Jerusalem, and with the authority of the chief priests I put many of God's people in jail. I even voted for them to be killed.
    
11. I often had them punished in our meeting places, and I tried to make them give up their faith. In fact, I was so angry with them, that I went looking for them in foreign cities.
    
12. King Agrippa, one day I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and permission of the chief priests.
    
13. About noon I saw a light brighter than the sun. It flashed from heaven on me and on everyone traveling with me.
    
14. We all fell to the ground. Then I heard a voice say to me in Aramaic, "Saul, Saul, why are you so cruel to me? It's foolish to fight against me!"
    
15. "Who are you?" I asked. Then the Lord answered, "I am Jesus! I am the one you are so cruel to.
    
16. Now stand up. I have appeared to you, because I have chosen you to be my servant. You are to tell others what you have learned about me and what I will show you later."
    
17. The Lord also said, "I will protect you from the Jews and from the Gentiles that I am sending you to.
    
18. I want you to open their eyes, so that they will turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then their sins will be forgiven, and by faith in me they will become part of God's holy people."
    
19. King Agrippa, I obeyed this vision from heaven.
    
20. First I preached to the people in Damascus, and then I went to Jerusalem and all over Judea. Finally, I went to the Gentiles and said, "Stop sinning and turn to God! Then prove what you have done by the way you live."
    
21. That is why some men grabbed me in the temple and tried to kill me.
    
22. But all this time God has helped me, and I have preached both to the rich and to the poor. I have told them only what the prophets and Moses said would happen.
    
23. I told them how the Messiah would suffer and be the first to be raised from death, so that he could bring light to his own people and to the Gentiles.
    
24. Before Paul finished defending himself, Festus shouted, "Paul, you're crazy! Too much learning has driven you out of your mind."
    
25. But Paul replied, "Honorable Festus, I am not crazy. What I am saying is true, and it makes sense.
    
26. None of these things happened off in a corner somewhere. I am sure that King Agrippa knows what I am talking about. That's why I can speak so plainly to him."
    
27. Then Paul said to Agrippa, "Do you believe what the prophets said? I know you do."
    
28. Agrippa asked Paul, "In such a short time do you think you can talk me into being a Christian?"
    
29. Paul answered, "Whether it takes a short time or a long time, I wish you and everyone else who hears me today would become just like me! Except, of course, for these chains."
    
30. Then King Agrippa, Governor Festus, Bernice, and everyone who was with them got up.
    
31. But before they left, they said, "This man isn't guilty of anything. He doesn't deserve to die or to be put in jail."
    
32. Agrippa told Festus, "Paul could have been set free, if he had not asked to be tried by the Roman Emperor."

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Paul now stood before both Festus, governor of Judea, and King Agrippa. This was not a trial but rather an informal hearing at Agrippa's request so he could hear Paul's defense. Agrippa was a practicing Jew and thus acquainted with the law and with Jewish history. He understood the intricacies of Paul's argument, though he was not willing to accept Jesus as the Messiah.

The central point of Paul's case, as he states it, is seen in verses 6 & 7. He was on trial, not because of some crime he committed or even for breaking Jewish law, but "for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers." Paul agreed with Jewish teaching. He was not contradicting it. He was merely saying that Jewish prophecy had been fulfilled in Jesus. The worse charge that could legitimately be brought against him was incorrect interpretation of scripture, which was not a crime. The Jews argued incessently over interpretations on one topic or another. So what was different about what Paul claims concerning Jesus?

The problem was not with Paul's claims but with the magnitude of the issue at hand. One might argue over the interpretation of a particular law without great consequence one way or the other. They might even argue over belief in the resurrection without there being considerable affect to their practice of Judaism or their way of life regardless of the position they took on the subject. But what one believed concerning the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy in Jesus Christ changed everything for the Jew as it did also for the Gentile, though the change was more dramatic for the Jew. Acceptance of Jesus as Messiah suddenly nullified centuries of tradition. The offering of sacrifices was no longer necessary for Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. The need for a priest to act as mediator with God was no longer necessary for Jesus is now our mediator. The list of traditions nullified could go on and on.

To add to the enormity of the situation was the fact that Jewish leadership had not only rejected Jesus as the Messiah, they had orchestrated His death in an attempt to be rid of Him. The recognition of having killed the One for whom they had anxiously waited for centuries was too horrible to conceive of or to admit. If they could not admit their wrong then they must do away with any who proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah for it was a proclamation of their sin. Agrippa understood the issue but was not willing to accept Jesus as Messiah. As with all other Jews of his day and as with all people in all times, the inability to accept Jesus as Messiah and Savior is not always an inability to believe. As often as not, the rejection of Jesus as Messiah is an unwillingness to accept the life-change that comes with acceptance of Jesus. True acceptance of Jesus is to give our lives to Him and accept the life He gives us. It is not a simple mental assent to the concept of Jesus as Messiah. It involves the giving of one's life to Him in response to our mental accept of Jesus as Messiah and making Him Lord of our lives. This is the part that stops people from acknowledging Jesus as Messiah maybe more than the mental assent. And this may have been Agrippa's problem.