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📚Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself”. Then Paul stretched out a hand and answered for himself: 2 “I count myself happy, King Agrippa, because I will answer for myself this day before you concerning everything of which I am accused by the Jews, 3 📚especially because I know you are an expert in all the customs and questions existing among the Jews. Therefore I ask you to hear me patiently. 4 📚“All the Jews know my manner of life from my youth, which in the beginning was spent in my own nation at Jerusalem. 5 📚They knew me from the beginning, if they were willing to testify, that according to the most strict sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. 6 📚And now I stand and am being judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.
7 📚To this promise our twelve tribes, earnestly worshipping day and night, hope to come. For the sake of this hope, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews.
26:7 The hope he refers to is the hope of the resurrection of the righteous – Dan 12:2; John 5:28-29.⚜
8 📚“Why should you think it an incredible thing that God would raise the dead?
26:8 God who made the worlds and put man on the earth can experience no difficulty in raising the dead. Observe again how the teaching of the resurrection was always at the heart of the gospel of Christ as His apostles preached it (Acts 1:3).⚜
9 📚“I indeed thought myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth,
26:9 See Acts 22:3-5; 1 Tim 1:13. When he was persecuting the church Paul actually thought he was doing the right thing and defending the true faith. Compare John 16:2.⚜
10 📚which I also did in Jerusalem. And I imprisoned many of the saints, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. 11 📚And often I punished them in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
26:11 Note on blasphemy at Matt 9:3. This is the only place where Paul is said to have tried to make Christians blaspheme. He does not say he was successful.⚜
12 📚On this work, while I travelled to Damascus with authority and a commission from the chief priests, 13 📚at midday, O king, while on the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who were travelling with me. 14 📚And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
26:14 In the three brief accounts of Paul’s conversion to Christ here (and here only) is there the mention of kicking “against the goads”. In his persecution of the Christians Paul had been like a strong rebellious ox which feels the sharp point of its master’s goad trying to control it. In other words, there must have been some unease in Paul’s mind, some pain in his heart, at what he was doing to Christian men.⚜
15 📚“And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“And he said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 📚But rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the purpose of making you a servant and a witness both of these things which you have seen and of those things I will yet reveal to you, 17 📚delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles to whom I now send you, 18 📚to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
26:18 Paul’s work as an evangelist is clearly seen here. He was Christ’s instrument to bring true enlightenment to people; to bring them out of bondage to Satan (compare John 8:33-35, 44; Eph 2:1-2; 2 Tim 2:26. Note on Satan at 1 Chron 21:1); and to bring forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28; Luke 24:47) and an inheritance among God’s people (Acts 20:32; Eph 1:11; Col 1:12; 1 Pet 1:4). This is the work also of every true evangelist. Notice that sanctification comes by faith in Christ – that is, God sets believers in Christ apart from all others to be His own people.⚜
19 📚“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,
26:19 Paul is emphasizing (as he always did) the fact that his conversion was not due to a process of reasoning or by the persuasive teaching of men, but because of a revelation from heaven (Gal 1:11-12). His whole Christian life was in obedience to that revelation.⚜
20 📚but declared first to those in Damascus, and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the area of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds appropriate to repentance.
26:20 See Acts 9:20-22, 28. See again the emphasis on repentance, the kind of repentance that was proved by a change in life-style. See notes at Matt 3:2, 8; 4:17; Luke 13:2-5. Any preacher who neglects the subject of repentance is not preaching the true gospel of Christ, and there is no lack of such preachers. And are there not many professing Christians in the churches who have never repented and who live lives little different from the people of the world?⚜
21 📚For these causes the Jews seized me in the temple, and attempted to kill me. 22 📚Therefore, having obtained help from God, I continue to this day, witnessing to both small 📖 and great, saying nothing but the things that the prophets and Moses said would come, 23 📚that Christ would suffer, and that he would be the first who would rise from the dead, and would give light 📖 to the people, and to the Gentiles”.
24 📚And as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind. Much learning is driving you insane!”
26:24 Festus was a Roman, and the Romans in general believed in many gods and strange superstitions. Yet Festus thought Paul was crazy for believing in the sober truth of the resurrection of Christ (compare Mark 3:20-21). But he recognized that Paul was a very learned man. Compare Acts 4:13.⚜
25 📚But he said, “I am not insane, most noble Festus, but speak words of truth and sanity.
26:25 What seems crazy to those in spiritual darkness is both true and reasonable to those whom God has brought into the light. The really crazy ones are those who go their own way in this world and do not seek for the true God, or carefully consider God’s revelation of truth in Christ. See Eccl 9:3.⚜
26 📚For the king knows of these things, before whom I also speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, because this thing was not done in a corner.
26:26 Paul, seeing that Festus had no desire to believe, turned to King Agrippa in hope of winning him for Christ.⚜
27 📚King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe”.
28 📚Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost you persuade me to become a Christian”.
26:28 We do not know how sincere Agrippa was. In any case, saying “almost” was not enough for him (or for anyone) to enter God’s kingdom. Almost persuaded is to be still lost in sin.⚜
29 📚And Paul said, “I would to God that not only you, but also all who are listening to me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these bonds”.
26:29 See the heart of this prisoner before the authorities and all others present – he wants them all to become believers in Christ as he was. The truth of 2 Cor 5:13-15 was powerfully at work in him.⚜
30 📚And when he had said this, the king and the governor and Bernice and those who were seated with them, got up, 31 📚and when they had gone aside, they talked among themselves, saying, “This man is doing nothing worthy of death or imprisonment”. 32 📚Then Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free, if he had not appealed to Caesar”.