By now, Paul has to feel like he is totally cursed. Everywhere he goes, he tells people the truth, and no one wants to listen to him. He says he is a Pharisee, but the other Pharisees don’t want to hear it. He tells everyone he was going through the purification ceremony, and they scoff. No matter what Paul says or does, he ends up in chains and in prison. Little does he know that he is going to meet and dine with kings, nor that a shipwreck lies in his destiny.

Chapter 25

We pick up the story with Paul still being in a Roman prison, and a new Roman governor, Porcius Festus,  in Caesarea. Festus (not to be confused with Uncle Fester) takes a tour around the towns that are now under his province, and ends up in Jerusalem. There, of course, he runs into everyone’s favorite High Priest. Ananias wastes no time petitioning Festus to turn over Paul. Festus wants to mollify the Jews since it is his first week governing them, so he agrees to hear everyone’s concerns.

Everyone meets up back in the court at Caesarea. The Jews once again bring a list of false, unprovable charges against Paul. Paul again responds that he has broken no laws against the Jews, the Temple nor Caesar. Festus asks if Paul would be willing to stand trial in Jerusalem, not realizing that the Jews there are waiting to ambush and kill Paul. Paul knows this, however, and asks for an appeal to Caesar himself.

A few days later, King Agrippa and his sister Bernice come to Caesarea to welcome Festus to Festus’s new post. While Agrippa was there, Festus decides to spend a couple of days discussing the case of Paul and the Jews. Festus lays out all of the information, and explains to Agrippa that Paul is being held in prison until Festus decides what to do. Agrippa asks to have the case presented in front of him by Paul and Ananias.

Chapter 26
Agrippa ends up only asking Paul to speak. So 90% of this chapter is Paul again reiterating all that he has gone through. The only new nugget here is that Jesus told Paul more than what has been said up to this point. Paul says that Jesus said, “get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the very purpose of appointing you to be a servant and witness of what you have seen and of what I will show you.  I will continue to rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you. You will open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan’s control to God, so that they might receive the forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

Paul’s defense speech starts to turn very metaphysical around here, to the point that it confuses Festus. Festus yells “You’re out of your mind, Paul! Too much education is driving you crazy!” Which sounds like something modern-day fundamentalists would say, now that I think about it.

When Paul wraps up, the king, the governor and Bernice stand up and leave the court. As they are walking through, Agrippa and Festus agree that Paul is blameless. “This man could have been set free if he hadn’t appealed to the emperor.”

So does that mean that something bad is going to happen when Paul does appear before Casesar?

Chapter 27
Luke shifts back into first person voice to tell a thrilling tale of terror on the open sea. Paul and a few other prisoners are loaded onto a boat bound for Rome. However, the weather was horrible, and the ship kept either finding no winds to fill their sails, or getting blown the wrong direction by the winds. They finally make it into Crete, already a few days off schedule. Paul warns the centurion that they’ll never make it to Italy in the current weather, and that they should hole up in Crete.  The ship captain and owner disagree, however, and argue that they can make the voyage. Unfortunately, the centurion believes them, so off they sail.

On the first day, there’s a calm breeze, and the boat is able to sail on a calm sea. Everyone thinks that Paul was over-reacting – or just plain wrong – until a northeaster swept onto the sea. The violent winds sent the shift out of control across the seas. The skies were filled with clouds, and rain, and the sea was so turbulent that it was impossible to tell which way the boat had been turned. The sailors and passengers had no idea where they were, nor did they have enough time to think about a way out.

The storm continued on for two weeks! No one was able to eat, and most of the ship’s cargo and equipment had been thrown overboard. Pretty much everyone on the ship had long since resigned themselves to dying out on  the sea. So when Paul woke up and started saying “Don’t worry, we’re gonna live, an Angel just told me so,” people weren’t exactly jumping with enthusiasm. Everyone assumed that Paul was hallucinating due to hunger or denial.

Paul ended up being right, of course. The storm finally blew itself out, and the ship came up at an unknown beach. The ship was battered, broken, a complete loss. But all of the 276 hands on board were saved.

Chapter 28
The island turns out to be Malta. And that turns out to be excellent news for Paul and the other survivors of the shipwreck. The Maltese people are exceedingly kind and generous, giving the survivors all the food they need, places to live, cures for their wounds and illnesses.

On their initial day there, as everyone was sitting around a big bonfire, a poisonous snake slithered out and dug its fangs into Paul’s hand. Those from Malta thought that this had to be a sign that Paul had done something evil, that it was a sign that Justice was determined to kill Paul one way or another. However, Paul tossed the snake away, and didn’t suffer any side effects from the venom. This changed the minds of the Maltese there: they decided Paul must be a god.

Paul didn’t exactly correct them, either. Aside from saying “I’m not really god” he also heals people throughout the island. This gains favor of everyone on the island, and when Paul and Luke sail on from Malta, they do so with all of the supplies and food they could every wish for.

The voyage continues, with the ships (they end up changing ships a couple of times) coming to rest at a town or harbor from time to time. When Paul and Luke come ashore, they track down and find the local Christian church and spend the night with them. The ship finally drops everyone off in Puteoli, where Paul and Luke stay a week, then walk the rest of the way to Rome.

Paul met with the Roman Jewish leadership, and tried to plead his case with them. Paul told them about how the Jerusalem Jews plotted to have Paul put to death. The Roman Jews said they had not heard anything about this, nor had they received any letters or accusations against Paul from Jerusalem. As far as the Roman Jews were concerned, Paul was blameless.

So after all of the scheming and death threats and persecution and beatings and thrilling rescues and almost being lost at sea, Paul finds himself in Rome, debating scriptures and Jesus with Roman Jews. Paul ended up a free man, and kept his own apartment in Rome where he welcomed anyone who wanted to come to him and learn about Jesus.

Conclusion
And that, my friends, is how you wrap up a story! Paul’s whole ordeal was masterfully told. I can’t believe just how exciting the last part of the story was, starting from when the Jews from Asia tried to have Paul arrested, right up through Paul finding peace in Rome. That is as good a suspense story as I’ve ever read.

I get the feeling that, in the hands of a lesser author, Paul’s story would’ve been just ordinary. Just one of the dozens of tales told in the Bible. But Luke took the story and crafted it into a piece of art!

That being said, I didn’t care much for a lot of the first half or so of Acts. I didn’t find much to like in Peter, and the whole “And on this day, 500 more people were added to the group of followers of the gospel” thing. Trim out all of that and you have a much better read.

All in all? Acts is a must read, from around Chapter 16 through the end. Surprisingly, Paul is an extremely likable, well-rounded character. His tale is a great one, a tale that deserves to be heard. Or read. Take your pick. 🙂

Up next: Letters, we get letters…

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

OMG, Luke left us hanging off a cliff! At the end of Chapter 21, Paul was given permission to defend himself against the charges leveled by the Jews who want Paul dead. Paul stepped up to the lectern and said:

Chapter 22
Paul stands up among the crowd to deliver a speech stating why he should not be put to death. The speech starts off well, as Paul relates his history, his devotion to the Jewish faith and ancestral law. Paul then tells the tale of Jesus’s appearance and command that Paul should stop persecuting those that believed in Jesus. Paul relates being struck blind, Ananias giving Paul his sight back. Of course, this is all stuff that we read earlier in this chapter. But it’s all new information for the people gathered demanding Paul’s death.

As I said, Paul’s speech was being generally well-received. Until Paul said that Jesus came to him in a vision, and commanded that Paul leave and join the Gentiles far away from Jerusalem.

The gathered folk took a moment to digest this, then realized that they had just been majorly slighted. Paul was saying, in effect, that the Gentiles were preferred! No one was going to stand for that. The mob rebelled, yelling “KILL HIM! HE’S TOO STUPID TO LIVE!!!”

The Roman tribune once again steps in to restore order. He has soldiers bind Paul and lead him into prison. The tribune orders that Paul be beaten until Paul admitted why the church elders were causing such a stir. Before he was beaten, however, Paul asked if this were legal, since he is a natural-born Roman citizen. Of course it wasn’t legal, so the Tribune ordered Paul’s release, and then ordered a meeting with the high priests, the city Council, and Paul.

In the next chapter, of course. All of a sudden, Luke is really fond of cliff-hangers.

Chapter 23
Can i just take a second to say that i had no idea Acts was this intriguing? Over the last couple of chapters, Acts has turned into an awesome suspense novel. And it is about to become even better, as we run into espionage and thrilling rescue, all in this one little chapter.

First, there is the meeting between the Roman Tribune, the high priests and city Council, and Paul. Paul tries to defend himself, but is struck down (literally) by the Pharisee members of the council. Even after Paul points out that he himself is a Pharisee from a long line of Pharisees. (Which again emphasizes just how odd it was that Jesus picked Paul.)

There are Sadducees on the council too, though. The two groups have a few fundamental differences between them. To put it in context, think of the dogmatic differences between Catholics and Protestants. As a Pharisee, Paul well knows what these differences are, and how deeply they run. And how passionate each group would be defending those differences.

Using all of this in his favor, Paul stands up and declares “I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead!” Which is the equivalent of a Protestant standing up in a Catholic church and yelling, “I don’t believe in praying to the Saints!”  In a word, chaos! The Sadducees rise up to attack Paul, but the Pharisees rise up to defend the concept of resurrection. The discussion turns into a debate, then into a shouting contest.

The Pharisees actually escalate this to a boiling point by deciding to stand up for Paul. They say “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” This infuriates the Sadducees, who don’t believe in spirits nor angels, and can’t believe that the Pharisees have changed their minds about killing Paul.

At this point, people just start smacking others. Realizing that he has lost all control – and fearing that Paul is going torn to pieces by the two warring factions, the Tribune once again takes control of matters by force. He has soldiers force their way into the melee, grab Paul and pull him away from the madness to a place of safety.

Wow! Talk about exciting. And there’s even better stuff to come!

The next morning, after everyone had calmed down, a group of 40 Jews (I am assuming that it is a mix of Sadducees and Pharisees, who by this time have realized that Paul played them for fools) formed a conspiracy. They wanted Paul dead, and swore that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. Their plan was fairly straight-forward: They would ask the Tribune to bring Paul back out to the court for more questioning. Once Paul was out in the open, the 40 would come out of hiding, attack Paul and kill him once and for all.

All in all, that is a pretty good plan. Simple enough that nothing should really go wrong, but also very effective. Odds are that the Roman guards wouldn’t be able to stop/arrest/kill all 40 before at least one of the conspirators were able to plunge a knife into Paul’s heart. It seemed a fool-proof plan.

Of course, the conspirators probably shouldn’t have been discussing it out in public. Paul’s nephew happens to be in the right place at the right time and overhears the entire plot. He tells the story to the Tribune. The Tribune realizes that he can’t sit back and let a Roman citizen be killed sets up a platoon consisting of 200 footmen, 70 mounted soldiers and 200 spear soldiers. This party escorts Paul out of the city and to the friendlier confines of Antipatris, and from there to Caesarea. Paul was finally put into custody in Herod’s palace.

The Tribune sends a letter to Governor Felix with Paul, explaining the situation:

From Claudius Lysias to Your Excellency, Governor Felix. Greetings.
This man had been seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I went with the guard and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen.  I wanted to know the exact charge they were making against him, so I had him brought before their Council.

I found that, although he was charged with questions about their law, there was no charge against him deserving death or imprisonment.

Since a plot against the man has been reported to me, I am at once sending him to you and have also ordered his accusers to present their charges against him before you.

Chapter 24
Queue the Law & Order “bump-bump” sound, because we are now in the middle of courtroom drama! Ananias has arrived, and has brought a number of other elders and his own personal attorney, Tertullius. Their goal is to convince Governor Felix that Paul should be executed.

Tertullius is very loquacious, and offers a well-reasoned argument before the court:

So as not to detain you any further, I beg you to hear us briefly with your customary graciousness. For we have found this man a perfect pest and an agitator among all Jews throughout the world. He is a ringleader in the sect of the Nazarenes and even tried to profane the temple, but we arrested him.

By examining him for yourself, you will be able to find out from him everything of which we accuse him.

Felix then allows Paul his turn:

You can verify for yourself that I went up to worship in Jerusalem no more than twelve days ago. They never found me debating with anyone in the temple or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or throughout the city, and they cannot prove to you the charges they are now bringing against me.
They found me in the temple doing these things just as I had completed the purification ceremony. No crowd or noisy mob was present.

[..]

These men themselves should tell what wrong they found when I stood before the Council  – unless it is for the one thing I shouted as I stood among them: ‘It is for the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.’

Felix was a very wise man, and examined all of the evidence and facts himself, and then adjourned the case until Tribune Lysias arrived. In the meantime, Paul still had to stay under house guard, but he was no longer a prisoner.

Of course, if you can’t leave the place where you live in, there’s no real difference between being a prisoner or not. And that was the situation Paul was in. Felix would not release Paul, especially since Felix’s wife Drusilla was Jewish. Felix met frequently with Paul and learned a lot about Christianity, but Felix still would not let Paul go.

After two years had passed, it was announced that Porcius Festus would be the new Governor. One would imagine that Felix would release Paul before Felix left office. One would be wrong: Felix left Paul in prison as Felix’s governorship ended.

Up next: Is Paul cursed? Death imminent?

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

The chapters we covered in my last entry mark the change in focus from Peter to Paul in the Acts of the Apostles. The whole second half of Acts mentions Peter only briefly. For the most part, Paul is the star. And interestingly enough, Acts gets a lot more interesting now that Paul is our hero. Who would’ve guessed?

Chapter 17
I meant to mention this in the previous chapter: the disciples have made it into Greece. Since a lot of the New Testament is translated in Greek, I am guessing this means a lot of important stuff is going to happen in Greece.

When I think of ancient Greece, I think of the amazing dialogues given by Plato and Aristotle. I think of speeches and discourse in temples and courtyards. I imagine conversations  and debate between citizens and government officials. It turns out, that is exactly what the disciples found when they got to Greece.

The disciples first went to Thessalonica, because there was a Jewish temple there. Paul spent three Saturdays discussing the scripture with those gathered. Paul and Silas were able to convince people – especially a crowd of devout Greeks, and “wives of prominent men.” Were Greek women ignored in public discourse, and only allowed to be housewives? That’d definitely explain why so many of them were entranced by Paul and Silas.

The Jewish Greeks became jealous of the disciples, of course. They roused up the city rabble and started to riot in the city. They actually attacked and arrested Jason, a man whose only crime was giving Paul and Silas a place to stay. Fortunately, Jason was able to bail himself out. (I am not making this up, check Acts 17:9.)

Jason’s arrest spooked the disciples, so they moved Paul and Silas on to Berea. The people of Berea were much more open to the disciples and the gospel. The Greeks weren’t immediately believing what was said, but instead wanted to read the gospels and compare and contrast them with the scripture.

The Jews from Thessalonica hear about Paul and Silas’s successes in Berea, and start heading towards Berea to try and make more trouble. The disciples have plenty of warning, though, and move Paul on to Athens, leaving Silas and Timothy in Berea.

Paul’s first impression of Athens was horror, as he saw all of the idols in the city. He is so upset that he heads right to the temple to try to save the citizens, instead of following the plan and waiting for Timothy and Silas. Paul ends up causing a stir, as one would expect. However, instead of getting arrested or beaten or stoned, Paul is brought before the Areopagus (a sort of Greek Supreme Courthouse) and given the opportunity to debate.

Paul takes advantage of the grand stage he is given, and delivers an excellent speech. He starts out by complimenting the citizens (“Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way.”) Then he acknowledges their religion and beliefs (“I was walking around and looking closely at the objects you worship.” Paul then proceeds a very unique way of talking about god and Christ. I am going to quote a little bit of this here, because in the end, I really like this speech:

“I even found an altar with this written on it: ‘To an unknown god.’ So I am telling you about the unknown object you worship. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in shrines made by human hands, and he isn’t served by hands as if he needed anything. He himself gives everyone life, breath, and everything…”

I know that, on the one hand, this seems very rude. Paul appears to be telling the Greeks what their religion and beliefs actually are. But putting this into context of the theater and location changes the tone. Paul is crafting an argument and challenging the givens with logic. It’s a time-honored tradition in Greece of the time.

Paul finishes up his speech, stating that Jesus was killed and God rose Jesus from the dead. At this, many in the Areopagus laughed and scoffed, but many pondered his words and asked to hear more at a later date.

Chapter 18
Paul moves on from Athens to Corinth. Which probably rings a bell for you. The upcoming New Testament books I Corinthians and II Corinthians are letters written to church leadership and believers in Corinth. But here in Acts, the Gospel hasn’t been spread there yet. That’s Paul’s job.

Paul takes a while to actually do some work once he gets to Corinth, however. This is inadvertently aided by the Caesar Claudius, who forced all Jews out of Rome. The displaced Jews settled all through the area, including in Corinth. And it was there that Paul met Aquila and Aquila’s wife Priscilla. Aquila was a tent-maker, which Paul apparently was also. So Paul and Aquila went into business together. Paul would spend the Sabbath in the synagogue trying to convert people, but for the rest of the week, Paul was a tent maker.

This went on until Timothy and Silas finally made their way from Macedonia. Paul decided to give up tent making and become a full-time disciple again. Paul tried teaching in the synagogue again, but the Jews started to insult him. Paul was uncharacteristally thin-skinned at this point, and basically stormed off in a huff. He moved out of Aquila’s house and on to the house of Titius Justus. While he was living with Titius, Jesus appeared to Paul in a dream and told Paul to get back to work. Paul did as his lord asked, and spent the next couple of years teaching in Corinth.

Ah, we have another side story! The Jew’s finally gather large enough numbers to attack and capture Paul. They take him to stand trial in front of Gallio, the proconsul of the area. The Jews present their case, using the “he is blaspheming” argument that had worked well up ’til this point. But Gallio couldn’t care less. He tells the Jews that since they don’t have a real charge against Paul, they need to get the hell out of his court. Gallio didn’t even rise up to the bait when the Jews began beating the synagogue leader.

Ayup, Gallio was awesome. Totally awesome.

The rest of this chapter is just a list of the cities/towns/countries that Paul traveled to next. Nothing to see here.

Chapter 19
I just realized something: this book is now focusing almost exclusively on Paul. There was a subtle change as the baton was passes from Peter to Paul. Somewhere a few chapters ago, Paul set off around the world, and Peter decided to stay in Jerusalem. Since then, Acts has been all about Paul, and Paul’s journey, and Paul’s rapidly expanding congregation. I think that we can safely say by this point that Paul is the actual controlling driver in the church, while Peter is the titular head. Apparently, no one has any problem with that, so I won’t have a problem with it either. It is curious, though, that this change seemed to happen in a short amount of time.

Well, relatively short. Because while Paul’s travels are a whirlwind, we have seen a couple of cases where Paul ends up staying in a place for a while. We saw that in the previous chapter, where Paul settled down and became a tent maker for months. We see it in chapter 19, too. Paul sets up camp in Ephesus, and stays there for three months, teaching at the synagogue on the weekends, and doing…. ???  during the week. Paul then picked up stakes and headed off around the country again, taking a two-year tour through the Mediterranean shores and far into Asia. I guess God changed his mind about withholding the gospel from Asia. No reason is given to explain why this is now all right. But then again, no reason was given for not teaching the gospel in Asia, either. So I guess that is a push.

Another side story here. Did I mention that I adore Luke’s side stories? I did? Good, because I really, really love them. This one revolves around the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest. The sons had heard enough about Paul’s exploits to know that Paul could drive out evil spirits just by saying the name of Jesus. So they clumsily try, yelling “I command you by that Jesus whom Paul preaches!” at a man who was afflicted with an evil spirit. Instead of fleeing, the evil spirit speaks. It says that he knows Jesus and Paul, but does not know these sons of Sceva. The spirit then re-posesses the man’s body and proceeds to beat the crap out of all seven sons, to the point that the sons ran out naked into the street, trying to get away.

There’s also a very sad story here. It’s sad because I know of at least a few modern-day church’s that use Acts 19 as a reason to routinely burn books that they find offensive. People throughout the land were scared because of the mighty acts that Paul and the disciples had performed. They were frightened enough that those who practiced in the occult gathered and started a massive book burning rally. All told, 50,000 silver coins worth of books were gathered and burned. All because the occult members lived in terror of this new religion that was spreading throughout the lands.

I think this was a crime, pure and simple. I am not arguing that everyone should’ve given up and started joining the occult. Nor am I saying that those who truly felt that they wanted to destroy their own books should’ve been forced not to. I do think, however, that there was a peer pressure that built up, and people who probably normally wouldn’t went ahead and burned their books because everyone else was. Maybe peer pressure isn’t the right word. Mass hysteria? Mob mentality? However you want to put it. In the end thousands of books were destroyed, for no good reason.

When Paul made his way to Ephesus, he found that the people of Ephesus were torn. Ephesus was known throughout the empire as the home of the great temple to the goddess Artemis. The Ephesians were concerned that Paul’s religion would turn the people away from worship of Artemis. Ephesian artisans were concerned that their livelihood – crafting shrines to Artemis – would be threatened. In the end, a crowd arose, then turned into a mob. The Ephesian city recorder had to step in and calm the mob before it turned into a full-fledge riot. The crowd did finally disperse, but I get the feeling that this might not be the last we hear of these issues.

Chapter 20
We aren’t going to find out what happens in Ephesus after all. Paul leaves, then heads off on another expedition. Pauls travels through Macedonia, Greece, Syria. Paul is starting to get a Messianic streak, however, and is predicting his forthcoming death. But that is getting the chapter out of order. I think this one will work best if done sequentially. Especially since there is a funny side story in it.

Paul makes his way to Troas. Luke counts himself among those who meet up with Paul. Small details tend to catch my attention in some of these stories. Luke appearing as a character in his own story is one of those. Paul stays in Troas for a week: at the end of the week he keeps everyone in the area up past midnight with his teaching. One young man starts to fall asleep somewhere late into the night (who can blame him: how many people have you seen fall asleep at midnight services for Christmas Eve? There’s only so much of the bible one can hear in the wee hours of the morning before one starts to fall asleep). Unfortunately, the young man was sitting in front of a window. On the third floor of the house where they were gathered. The man fell asleep, then fell backwards out of the window all the way down to the ground. The people gathered said, “Well, he’s dead.” Paul assured them that he wasn’t, though, and kept on teaching while he ate dinner. COLD!!!!

Actually, I get the feeling that Paul took a quick look over at the young man, saw that he was still breathing and that people were already going to check on the young man. So Paul decided just to keep trucking along with his sermon. Luke implies as much: “[Paul] bent over him, took him into his arms, and said, ‘Stop being alarmed, for his life is in him.'” Apparently some chose to see this as a miracle. To me, it was just Paul using some basic first aid.
Paul decides that he wants to continue on his way to Jerusalem, even though that will probably mean his death (“in town after town the Holy Spirit assures me that imprisonment and suffering are waiting for me.”) Paul doesn’t follow Jesus’s lead on the whole forgiveness thing, though. Paul states flat out “I am not responsible for the blood of any of you. Paul tells those gathered that they will never see his face again (most aren’t going on the boat to travel back to Jerusalem), and warns that there are going to be major problems ahead for the church. He spends a little more time with the other disciples, saying goodbye to everyone in turn. Luke and the others finally pull Paul away from the congregation and onto the boat.

Chapter 21
Luke and some other unnamed disciples are accompanying Paul on the journey back to Jerusalem. They bump into the disciples that settled in the towns Paul passed through earlier. In every city, the disciples there try to get Paul to abandon this futile journey to Jerusalem. Paul finally rebukes the other disciples, yelling “What do you mean by crying and breaking my heart?” The disciples decide to keep their opinions to themselves after that, even though they still feel that Paul is making a mistake.

Finally, Paul makes his way into Jerusalem. Paul and Luke went directly to see James. James has been busy preparing for Paul’s return, and has come up with a way to save him. James has set up a purification ceremony for Paul, as a way to prove to the Jews and the church heirarchy that Paul was a devout Jew, and had not turned his back on the Law. Paul happily agreed to this, and the seven-day ritual was started.

Unfortunately, on the last day, the trouble-making Jews from Asia arrived in Jerusalem, and found Paul in the temple. The Asiatic Jews went apoplectic, demanding that the Jews of Jerusalem join them in punishing Paul for trying to desecrate the law and the temple. The Jerusalem Jews agree, and the crowd turns into a mob. Again. This time, however, they are able to capture Paul. They try to batter and beat Paul to death. And they would’ve succeeded, if it weren’t for the meddling Roman Tribune. The Tribune, Claudius Lysias, gathered a handful of soldiers and stormed into the temple, arriving just in time to save Paul.

Damn, you know, that was actually a pretty exciting turn of events!
As Paul is being led out of the temple and towards prison (damned jailbird!), Paul asks Lysias to allow Paul to speak to the crowd. The Tribune agrees, so Paul steps up to the podium, waves the crowd to silence, then clears his throat and says….

Says….

???

I’m not trying to be facetious; we don’t know what he says! At least not in this chapter. It’s a cliff-hanger! The chapter ends just as Paul is going to say… something…

Up next: What does Paul say?

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

In our previous post, Peter and Herod had an epic battle of the wills. Herod went crazy and tried his best to kill Peter. Peter does what he is best at, and has god kill Herod. Dead. Worm food. It really, really isn’t a good idea to fuck with Peter!

Chapter 13
Well, after a chapter as fun as Chapter 12, I guess it is not unexpected that we’d get a rather dull chapter. And lord is it ever dull. The disciples continue to spread the word of Jesus Christ throughout the area. Paul strikes a man blind for blasphemy. (One quick note: already, the Christians are punishing people for blasphemy, just like the Pharisees punished Christ for blasphemy. I am just saying, is all.) Paul starts to take Peter’s place as the voice of the new church. And that about wraps this chapter up.

Chapter 14
[sigh] Another dull chapter. The disciples continue to spread the gospel through surrounding towns. In one town, the priest from the Temple of Zeus sacrifices animals to the disciples. Paul tries to talk them out of it, explaining that he and Barnabas are just men, not gods. That doesn’t work so well, though.

The Pharisees and Jews aren’t done with the disciples. The Jews (Luke’s word, not mine) track the disciples to Lystra, where the Jews start trying to win over the crowds. The Jews are able to talk the Lystrans into stoning Paul. Ayup, you read that right, Paul was stoned. He was dragged out of the city and left for dead, but he was just mostly dead. After some rest and recovery time, Paul recoups from the stoning.

Chapter 15
There are practical matters that are starting to rise up within the fledgling church. The first regards the tradition of circumcision. Those of Jewish descent were circumcised per the word of Moses. Gentiles had no such decree, so they didn’t circumcise their children. The various city churches wanted a definitive answer: did a person need to be circumcised to be a Christian? This question was raised all the way up to Peter and the church elders – along with input from some of the Pharisees in Jerusalem. (Don’t ask: I have no idea why any of the Pharisees get to give their opinion.) Peter gives a few arcane reasons, and then delivers the final answer: circumcision is not required, since that will allow the largest number of people to convert. It’s all a numbers game…

One note: the church is setting up a heirarchy. Peter and a group of unnamed elders were at the very top, underneath them were The Twelve, underneath them were the leaders of the various city churches. The Catholic church has codified this heirarchy, proclaiming Peter to be the first Pope. I don’t buy it, but I can see an internal logic to the Catholic’s argument.

There’s also a bit of a split in the church already. Well, specifically within The Twelve. Barnabas and Paul were going to go out on another evangelical mission. Barnabas wanted to take  John with them, but Paul refused, saying that Mark had not done as much work as the others, and wasn’t worthy. After a lot of fighting, they ended up splitting up, with Paul going alone to Silas while Barnabas and Mark headed off to Cyprus.

And so it begins.

Chapter 16
There is a rather jarring change in the narrative voice in this chapter. For just a few verses, Luke makes himself part of the story (“As soon as he had seen the vision, we immediately looked…”). This was so unexpected that it threw me off track. This is the first time in Acts and through his entire Gospel that Luke has cast himself in the story.

Anyway, the disciples are spreading far and wide proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Interestingly enough, the holy spirit forbids the disciples from teaching in Asia and Bithynia. No reason is given. I thought this was a rather weird sidenote.

Paul and a few other of The Twelve (and Luke, apparently) go to Macedonia per a dream that Paul had. There they run into a merchant named Lydia, who they convert and then accept her offer to “come and stay at my home.”  I am not reading anything into that. Seriously. I’m not!

They also meet a slave girl who is also a fortune teller. Her owners take advantage of the girl’s fortune telling ability to make a lot of money (one presumes by charging suckers to have their fortunes read). When she sees Paul and the others, she begins following them, shouting loudly that the men were servants of God. The girl does this for “many days” until Paul finally loses patience and casts away the spirit of divination.

The girl’s owners are enraged, since the girl can no longer tell the future. Seeing their main source of riches forever ruined, the owners storm forward and grab Paul and Silas. They take Paul and Silas before the city’s magistrates, who rule in favor the slave owners. Paul and Simon are immediately stripped and beaten with sticks, then thrown in prison. Yeesh!

While the disciples were in the jail, a massive earthquake struck. The earthquake was so strong that it opened all of the doors in the jail and shook the chains from the hands of the prisoners. The jailer assumes that the disciples have taken this opportunity to escape, and goes to kill himself with a sword! Paul stops him, and the man is overtaken by Paul’s selfless deed. He immediately has Paul and Silas fed, wounds tended and moved into his own house. While they were there, the man and his whole family were baptised.

As is his wont, Luke adds a small coda to the end of the story. The Magistrates agree to release Paul and Silas, but only if the two sneak out of town. Paul refuses, saying that they should not have to slink out of town, since they are Roman citizens and Romans deserve better. The magistrates are swayed by this, and Paul and Silas are publicly escorted out of town. But the disciples double-back to Lydia’s house for fellowship and encouragement.

Ayup, I really liked the last half of this chapter. Good stuff.

Up next: Peter who? It’s Paul’s ball now

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

Things are still moving along nicely in the Acts of the Apostles. Last week, Peter started killing people for no really good reason, other than to assert his authority. In his defense, almost everyone acted a little bit out-of-character in the previous chapters, including the Twelve disciples, who chose spreading the word of Jesus above helping out the needy. Oh, and Stephen talked himself into death by stoning. Of course, nothing there can rival being turned into worm food, right?

Chapter 9
There are two tales told in Chapter 9. One is important, the other just a sidenote. First up is the tale of Saul. This is probably the tale in Acts that most non-Pentecostals know best. Saul is following the disciples around the country, finding disciples and bringing them back to Jerusalem in chains. He is walking along the road to Damascus when  a bright light flashed around him. Saul does the smart thing and drops to his knees. He looks up, and sees Jesus! Jesus asks why Saul keeps persecuting the disciples and believers. Jesus then strikes Saul blind, and commands that he go into Damascus and wait.

In Damascus, Jesus appears to Ananias in a vision (read: dream). Jesus tells Ananias to go to Straight St. (seriously!), stop in at Judas’s house and ask for Saul. Ananias does so, even though he isn’t all that thrilled to be helping Saul. When Ananias arrives at Judas’s house, he lays hands on Saul, healing Saul and baptizing him in the Holy Spirit in one shot.

Being struck blind and then given sight back again has made a believer out of Saul. Saul heads to the synagogue and starts telling everyone that Jesus truly is the Christ. Of course, no one believes that he is now a believer. The Pharisees know that Saul has gone rogue, however, and plot to kill him. Begrudgingly, the disciples smuggle Saul out of town.

Saul is still feared by the greater number of the church, however. Fortunately, one of the apostles (Barnabas) stands up for Saul, tells the story of Saul and Jesus, and the other members agree and welcome Saul in. Saul then continues teaching and praising Jesus, to the point of arguing with the Hellenistic Jews. That wasn’t the smartest thing Saul could do: once again people start planning to kill. The apostles once again smuggle Saul out of town. And I hope that this time, they told him to stop getting himself into these types of situations.

Lord knows that I would’ve.

The other story is one of Luke’s charming side stories. Peter traveled to Lydda, where he found a man named Aeneas. Aeneas had been paralyzed for 8 years; on hearing this Peter healed the man. People in Lydda and Joppa heard this story, and invited Peter down to Joppa. Tabitha – a disciple – got sick and died while in Joppa. Peter was taken to her, and he raised her from the dead. Or at least that’s the accepted interpretation of the story.

It is possible to view this story in a different light. Tabitha was a disciple, which means that she and Peter probably knew each other. After Tabitha dies and Peter is taken to see her body, Peter commands that everyone leave the room. Once he is alone in the room with her (I’ll quote this one straight from the text): “he turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up!’ She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up.”

To my eyes, this could have been a scam. Tabitha feigns death and waits for Peter to “bring her back to life.” When Peter gets there, he forces everyone to leave him and Tabitha alone. Once they are alone, he has her stand up and pretend to have been resurrected.

I can sense your question already! You want to know why Peter and Tabitha would stage such a complex scheme. But the answer is pretty easy: to make others believe. Whether this was a scheme or a real miracle (you know which I think it was), the net effect was a conversion of many citizens of Joppa.

Chapter 10
This chapter is kind of a mess. A few boring things happen, including a massive acid trip – er, I mean vision – on Peter’s part. In his vision, he sees “heaven open and something like a large linen sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the ground. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals, reptiles, and birds of the air.” Ayup, that’s the kind of trip people would pay good money for.

Cornelius the Christian Centurion has summoned Peter for a meal. Peter goes, and finds himself surrounded by a mix of people, including Jews and Gentiles. Both groups ask why it is okay for the others to be there. Peter says that all men are equal in the eyes of Jesus, and everyone is baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Gentiles have already been baptized by water, of course, so the Jews decide that they were going to be, too. And we end up with one big happy Christian dinner party.

Chapter 11
For no apparent reason, the first half of Chapter 11 recaps Chapter 10. It is agreed within the church that Gentiles and Jews will be welcome, and should be “saved” everywhere the disciples go. This included Antioch, where another large group of people were converted.  Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch, and they stayed there for a year. Oh, Luke is nice enough to mark a very important event: “It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” Luke even gives a general time anchor: this occurred around the time of a severe famine during the reign of Claudius. I am guessing that many theologians and historians have this date nailed down pretty accurately.

Chapter 12
I mentioned back in one of the Gospels that there are some Biblical stories that are meant to be made into movies. Or at least are very modern in their themes and tones. Chapter 12 practically defines that type of story. It’s a story of murder, capture, escape and revenge. And worms! Forget not the worms. [shudder]

Herod has flipped out and is ordering that all Christians be arrested. Once they were captured, Herod commanded that the Christians be tortured, and some (for example John’s brother James) killed. All in all, it was a bad time. You know how everyone remembers that the Roman’s hated Christians? That can all be blamed on Herod. Herod is barely recognizable as the man who found Jesus guiltless and wouldn’t hand him over for execution.

In the midst of all this persecution, Peter is arrested. Herod’s plan is to turn over Peter to the Pharisees and their followers for execution the day after Passover. Herod didn’t know, however, that Peter was praying for deliverance, and that God was listening to that prayer. And that God had an Angel Strike Force to send to the rescue.

The night before Peter’s handover, the Romans bound him in chains, set two guards on each side of Peter’s bed, and two guards at the door. I’ll give it to Herod and the Romans: they were extremely proficient when it came to guarding prisoners. For most prisoners, this would’ve been more than enough to guarantee there were no chance for escape. But most prisoners didn’t have angels!

An angel (of the Lord) appears. The angel shines light into the cell, and saw it was definitely Peter. The angel wakes Peter up, releases him from his chains, disguises Peter and leads him out of the cell and out into the city. The angel then disappears, leaving Peter to try and figure out what just happened, and what his next step should be.

Like any escapee in any action movie, Peter’s next logical step is to find somewhere to hide. Fortunately, John’s mother lived close by, and had regular prayer meetings. So Peter ran there, figuring that he’d have sympathetic people who would help keep him safe. Peter knocked on the door, and heard Rhoda walking over to the door to answer it. Peter called out to her, and in a perfect bit of comedic action, Rhoda ran back into the house! She was so excited at hearing Peter’s voice that she totally forgot to open the door!

Poor Peter was locked outside the door, and he knew that the Roman guards had to be searching for him by know. Peter knocked on the door, then started pounding on it, trying to get someone – anyone – to let him off the damned street!

In the meantime, Rhoda had told everyone inside the house that Peter was at the gate. No one believed her, since they all thought Peter was dead by now. One even tells Rhoda, “Bah, you’re out of your mind, if it’s anything, it’s his angel out there.” Rhoda finally convinces one or two of the gathered, and they go to the door and let Peter in.

Of course, by this time Peter is feeling out of time. So Peter tells those who let him in the gate the story of the angel helping him escape, commands that James and the brothers be told this story also, and then leaves the house to find somewhere else to hide. Presumably, somewhere where he won’t have to pound on a gate for 10 minutes before someone opens up for him.

In the morning, Peter’s escape causes mayhem. Herod is so incensed that he orders the execution of the soldiers and guards who were supposed to be watching Peter.

Luke then takes a massive digression and tells the tale of the end of Herod. This side story is weird, since it comes at the tail end of a very exciting series of events. This shouldn’t be a surprise: as his Gospel evinced, Luke felt that some side stories were just as important as the major storylines. Hence Luke recalling the story of Simon the priest at the beginning of his Gospel. And the tale of the end of Herod here.

Herod starts a war with Tyre and Sidon. The Christians are able to convert one of Herod’s servants, Blastus, and have him entreat Herod on their behalf. Herod heard the arguments, and decided to side with the people of Tyre and Sidon. Herod put on his best royal robes and sat down to make a speech. And it must’ve been a great speech, because people declared that the speech was from a god. Herod accepted this praise as his own, which was a major mistake. The angel of the lord appeared before Herod sand struck him down for keeping the glory for himself. As Herod was dying, worms started crawling on him and eating him.

WORMS!!!

Up next: Why *wouldn’t* Jesus want a Pharisee as the head of his church?

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

In the previous entry, I started into the wacky world that is the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts, we find Peter making the power play to become the de facto head of the church. Peter showed that he wasn’t above twisting facts or re-interpreting scripture to make his points. Also, the Holy Spirit burns a babel fish into the ears of the gathered Christians, allowing them to speak and hear other languages. Or something like that. It sounds a bit nutty to me.

Chapter 5
Holy shit, Peter starts killing people! And believers, to boot! Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold their land, and put most of the money at “the apostles’ feet.” However, Peter became enraged that Ananias didn’t hand over all of the money. Which seems unreasonable to me: It was Ananias’s property, why couldn’t he keep some of the money? Peter sees it differently, however, saing that Satan is making Ananias lie to the Holy Spirit. Ananias then falls down dead, apparently from hearing Peter’s words. As you’d expect, most of the people present freak out.

Three hours later, Sapphira comes to the place. She doesn’t know that her husband is dead, and doesn’t realize that Peter has a homocidal street. Peter asks her if she and Ananias planned to keep some of the proceeds from the land sale, and she says yes. Peter tells her that her husband is dead, and that she is, too. Sapphira then drops dead. This scares the hell out of everyone in the church, and everyone who heard the story afterwards. And rightly it should!

The disciples continue to preach that Jesus was the Messiah, and the Pharisees follow through on their threat to arrest them. The disciples spend a night in jail, but then the Angel of the Lord breaks them out. Unfortunately, he then tells the disciples they must go back to the temple and start teaching again. When you break out of prison, it’s hard to make a clean getway if you then go directly back to the scene of the crime.

The Pharisees are surprised to see the disciples at the temple, but immediately take the opportunity to arrest them again. Annas asks Peter why Peter would ignore the threat to stop proclaiming Jesus the Christ. Peter again pulls out the “we must obey god rather than men” which was funny the first time, but not so much the second time. Peter accuses the Pharisees of killing the Christ, which sent the Pharisees into a homocidal rage. Kinda like Peter was earlier.

Fortunately, there was a wise Pharisee in the group. Gamaliel was a teacher of the law and was widely respected among the Pharisees. Gamaliel points out that most everyone who has come into Isreal proclaiming that they were “important” and gathering followers to themselves ended up dying. For example, Theudas and Judas the Galilean both amassed a large number of followers, but their followers dispersed once the leader died. Gamaliel suggests that this will happen to Peter and John, too, as long as the Pharisees leave them alone. So the disciples are released and allowed to go forward and preach as they see fit.

One bit of this chapter really annoys me. Acts 5:41: “They left the Council, rejoicing to have been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name.”

Chapter 6
Acts is a very strange book. Or the events it recounts are very strange. Or a combination of the two. By Chapter 6, the disciples had become a very numerous organization, which was ruled by the Twelve. The Twelve made decisions for the group, such as choosing to leave only seven  disciples (none from the Twelve) to help feed widows while the rest of the disciples continued to gather worshippers into the flock.

One question immediately comes to mind: why are the Twelve putting their group ahead of the needy? Jesus was very straight-forward about priorities: being servants to the poor and hungry was his top priority. One would assum that any church based off his teachings would be, too. But the Twelve decided that the widows were only worth seven disciples. Already I am seeing the Disciples make major changes from what Jesus taught.

Stephen was also gaining power and fame as a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. People started coming from far away to debate with Stephen, but they couldn’t match his Holy Spirit-granted wisdom. Instead of trying to find another way to outsmart him, the losers instead bring many to bear false witness against Stephen. They pull out the same lie, that Jesus promised to destroy the temple, but attribute those words to Stephen.

Chapter 7
Stephen is allowed to testify in his own behalf, and he decides to show off. In 50 verses, Luke recounts Stephen recounting most of the Old Testament, from Abraham seeing God to Solomon building his Temple. Stephen apparently said all of this so he could start a scathing diatribe against the Pharisees. He accuses the Pharisees ancestors of killing all of the old Prophets who propheised the coming of the Christ, as well as killing the Christ himself.

The Pharisees were pissed off so much that they started “grinding their teeth at him.” Which doesn’t seem too bad, when you think of it. “Grinding your teeth” might’ve meant something different back then? Stephen looked toward heaven and declared that the saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. This was too much for the Pharisees. They rushed Stephen, took him out of town and stoned him to death.

Chapter 8
We are introduced to a few new and interesting characters here. First up is Saul, a man who delights in persecuting followers of Christ. Saul was very pleased that Stephen was stoned to death. Saul did such a good job at capturing and imprisoning new Christian converts that the disciples ended up scattering across the map.

Philip heads down to Samaria. Philip heals many people and casts out many demons, which is enough to win a lot of converts.

While Philip was in Samaria, he came across a man named Simon. Simon was a master of the dark arts. Or at least was strong in arcane practices. Simon had declared himself great, and the people in Smaria proclaimed Simon the Power of God. But when the people – and Simon – heard what Philip said about Jesus, they believed and asked to be baptised.

Once they hear about the successful conversions in Samaria, Peter and John decided to hone in on the action. They come into town and started putting their hands on the believers, allowing the believers to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. Simon saw this, and decided he wanted to be in on the Holy spirit, too. So he offers to buy this from Peter and John.

Peter curses Simon, but fortunately doesn’t kill Simon. Instead, Peter demands that Simon pray for forgiveness and truly repentof the wickedness of not knowing how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Couldn’t Peter have just said, “Sorry, Simon, that’s not how it works. The way you get baptised with the Spirit is….”

The disciples are finally through with Samaria, so they pack up and join a convoy on the road from Gaza. There they come across the path of a eunuch. I am pretty sure this is the first time we’ve run into a eunuch in the New Testament. I thought being a eunuch had run its course in the Old Testament? The eunuch is actually a Big Deal in Ethiopia: he serves as Queen Candace’s treasurer. Literally, he is in charge of her treasure. Anyway, the eunuch (who Luke uncharacteristicly does not name) is sitting back in his chariot reading Isaiah. Which make sense, since he didn’t have any Dan Brown or Stephen King novels to pass the time.

The Holy Spirit tells Philip to go to the chariot and make friends with the eunuch. Philip asks the eunuch if he needs help understanding what Isaiah is saying, and offers his help when the eunuch admits he can’t make hide nor hair of Isaiah 53:7. The eunuch asks whether the prophet is speaking of himself: Philip assured the eunuch that the prophet speaks of Jesus Christ. The eunuch immediately stops the chariot and has Philip baptise him. Score another conversion for Phillip. At this rate, Phillip is going to outdistance Peter!

Up next: WORMS!!!!!

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.