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Context No. 792 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 25:22-27: in context

22Agrippa said to Festus, “I also would like to hear the man myself.” “Tomorrow,” he said, “you shall hear him.” 23So on the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp, and they had entered into the place of hearing with the commanding officers and the principal men of the city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in. 24Festus said, “King Agrippa, and all men who are here present with us, you see this man about whom all the multitude of the Jews petitioned me, both at Jerusalem and here, crying that he ought not to live any longer. 25But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and as he himself appealed to the emperor, I determined to send him, 26of whom I have no certain thing to write to my lord. Therefore I have brought him out before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, that, after examination I may have something to write. 27For it seems to me unreasonable, in sending a prisoner, not to also specify the charges against him.”

Paul has been held for two years by governors who keep finding him innocent and keep failing to release him, and he has finally appealed to Caesar. Now King Agrippa, visiting the governor Festus, says he would like to hear this man himself, and the next day Paul is brought in with great pomp, before Agrippa and Bernice and the military officers and the leading men of the city. And Festus, introducing the prisoner, blurts out the absurdity of the whole situation. The Jews clamored that this man should not live, he says, but I found he had done nothing deserving death. He has appealed to the emperor, so I must send him, but here is my problem: I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him. I have brought him before you to examine him, so that I may have something to put in the letter.

It is an innocent man in chains, and the machinery of power grinding on around him with no crime to name. But look at who is in the room. The unjust delay and the appeal and the governor's paperwork problem have quietly assembled a king, a governor, and the leading figures of the province, all seated to hear Paul speak. Years earlier Jesus had told his followers they would be dragged before governors and kings, and that this would be their opportunity to bear witness. What Festus stages as an awkward legal formality, God has arranged as a platform. The dead-end that had held Paul for two years turns out to be the door into the throne room.

Paul's unjust, stalled imprisonment turned out to seat him before kings, exactly where he was meant to speak. What dead-end am I stuck in that God may be quietly turning into a platform I would never have chosen?

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