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Acts 24:1-27

Grace

To see the world around us with God’s eyes.

Readings

Reading deeper…

Jim Reiher, The Book of Acts: A Social Justice Commentary, Chapter 24.

Devotion 1

Wait: Spend some time in silence, asking God to help you see through God’s eyes.

Read: Acts 24:1-9

We pick up the narrative this week as the High Priest Ananias, some elders, and a lawyer named Tertullus have the opportunity to accuse Paul before the governor, Felix. As they begin their case it becomes quickly that this will be a contestation over the nature of “peace.” They praise the governor for the “peace” brought by the Romans, and then proceed to accuse Paul of disturbing this peace by being an agitator and profaning the temple. The author Luke doesn’t take his audience for fools—as we read we can clearly recall that all along it has been Paul’s opponents who have stirred up crowds in opposition to Paul.

It seems that Paul’s Jewish accusers have bought into the Roman idea of “peace”—a peace won and maintained through violence—and they will do what they must to maintain their version of peace against any who might show another way.

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Devotion 2

Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, allowing God’s hope to touch you.

Read: Acts 24:10-23

Now Paul gets the chance to defend himself against his accusers. We can see in Paul’s words that in his understanding, he has made no break away from he faith of Israel. He considers himself to be ““believing everything laid down according to the law or written in the prophets” (v 14). The Way, the self-designation of the community of Jesus-followers, doesn’t consider itself to be outside of Judaism, but is a movement which “they [i.e. opponents of the Way] call a sect” (v 14). The hope which Paul has is one centred in the law and the prophets, a hope for the redeeming justice of God to be made manifest.

What is central to this hope is the resurrection of the dead—a resurrection that Paul experienced as being enacted in Jesus of Nazareth. And here is the sticking point for Paul’s opponents: this Jesus challenged to the core their notions of peace through violence which kept their privilege, as members of the ruling elite upheld by Rome, intact. This Jesus they did away with by labelling him as one who perverts our nation and “stirs up the people” (Lk 23:2, 4), leaving him in the hands of the Roman maintainers of the status quo. And if their notions of peace truly bore the character of the justice of God, then surely that would be the end of it. Right before them now, though, Paul told another story.

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Share: Communion

Pray:

Devotion 3

Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, aware of the ways in which God is active in your neighbourhood.

Read: Acts 24: 24-26

In today’s reading we are given an insight into Paul’s dealings with the governor Felix, who come to Paul together with his Jewish wife Drusilla. We might ask why Felix “became frightened” at his discussion with Paul over justice, self-control and the coming judgment” (v 25).

Luke’s audience would undoubtedly know something of Felix, who was said by the Roman historian Tacitus to have “practiced every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of a king with all the instincts of a slave.”1 Moreover, he had fallen in love with Drusilla, the wife of Azizus, the king of Emesa, and married her 2 in circumstances which would surely have reminded Luke’s readers of John the Baptist’s critique of Herod Antipas (Lk 3:19-20), which eventually cost John his life.

Luke present Felix as frightened by the prospect of the “coming judgment” but still acting, at least partly, out of greed and political expediency.

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 1. Cited in Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 699.

2.  Witherington, Acts, 715.

Devotion 4

Wait: Spend some time in silence, hungering and thirsting for God’s justice.

Listen: Thambi

Read: Acts 24:27

“After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Pocius Festus; and since he wanted to grant the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison” (v 27).

This short sentence is loaded with injustice carried out in the interests of political expediency. Paul, all but acknowledged to be innocent by the Roman powers, languishes in prison while he awaits further trial. He is purposely left in prison as a favour to the Jewish leaders.

Sadly, imprisonment is used all too often for political purposes, even in countries identified as liberal democracies. This is not a new thing. Daniel Smith-Christopher surveyed the use of imprisonment in the Bible and concluded,

“The vast majority of instances of terms for prisons and imprisonment are cases of unjust imprisonment of the righteous, whether individual prophets or a people… Furthermore, most examples, apart from the imprisonment of prophets, are cases of foreign prisons; indeed, even the instances of prophets in prison usually occur during the Exile or as a result of foreign threat.”3

I wonder how much has changed since those times. Whether we look at political prisoners in countries like Myanmar or Iran, asylum seekers in Australia, or indigenous or African-American peoples in Australia and the U.S., we can still find many examples of people being incarcerated for political and ideological reasons.

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 3. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1989. 172-173.

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