Paul's trial - Acts 26:22-23 -

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/221630829118

 

"To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles. (Acts 26:22-23)"

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Paul, a Pharisee, went to Damascus to arrest Christians, met the resurrected Jesus, and became a Christian. Paul announced Jesus as the promised Messiah at the Jewish synagogues in the Gentile countries, and preached the gospel of God to the Gentiles as well. When this Paul came to Jerusalem and entered the temple, a few Jews who had seen Paul in a foreign country accused him as a destroyer of Jewish traditions, so the Jewish people tried to harm Paul. There was a commotion, but the Roman army intervened and separated Paul safe from them. Paul had to be tried by Felix for this incident. The accused was Paul, the accusers were the Jewish leaders, such as the high priests, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The Jews demanded that Paul be put to death, but Paul defended himself, saying that he had only witnessed the resurrection of the dead, which was one of traditional Jewish ideas, and that he had preached it to the people. Felix tried to release Paul because he perceived that it was a matter of Judaism. But Jews' plot to kill Paul was known to Felix, and Paul insisted that he should stand before the emperor, that is, that he should be tried by the emperor. So Felix allowed it. Paul had Roman citizenship, and Roman citizens had the right to be judged directly by the emperor.

 

 

Festus came as Felix's successor, and he, along with King Agrippa, arranged a place to hear the arguments of the defendant and the plaintiff (the accusers) of the incident, because he must know what the case was about before he transferred the case to the Roman emperor. Paul clearly testified in front of the successor governor Festus, King Agrippa, the high priests, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, that Jesus was the Christ promised by God, that he (Jesus) suffered, died, and was resurrected.

 

 

Of course, later Paul went to Rome and defended himself to the emperor why he was accused by Jewish leaders and why he was innocent. In the mean time, Paul naturally might have a chance to testify in detail to the emperor about God and his son Jesus.

 

 

The Jews accused Paul to the governor to kill him, but in the meantime, Paul got an opportunity to teach the kernel of the gospel to the highest-ranking officials of Judea and Rome.

 

 

It was an incident in which the sincerity of God, who didn't exclude even the emperor of Rome from the opportunity to hear the gospel, stood out.