BOOK
BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com
BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday April 16, 2017
PAUL
DEFENDS HIMSELF AGAINST FALSE CHARGES
Acts
22:1-23
In Acts 22 the Apostle Paul begins to defend
himself against the slanderous charges that had been brought up against him by
the anti-CHRIST Jews who had followed him from the province of Asia, to
Jerusalem. Paul, had been communicating to the Roman commander of the cohort,
who rescued him from peril, in the Greek language, but now, he turns and begins
to speak and address the riotous crowd who tried to kill him, in the Aramaic
tongue.
Most of the crowd was Jewish, and the Jews
in those days communicated mostly in the Aramaic tongue, which was a sort of
blending of the Hebrew and Arabic languages. When they heard Paul speaking in
their own language, a divine hush fell over the crowd, and they were all just
as surprised as the Roman commander was when he heard Paul address him in
Greek. Here Paul demonstrates more than anywhere else in Scripture, his ability
to communicate in many languages (tongues), as he had once declared he could,
in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 14:18-19).
He begins by sharing with the crowd, some
of his pedigree. Here he tells them that he was Jewish like them, and was born into
the tribe of Benjamin in the city of Tarsus, an important seaport in Cilicia at
the mouth of the Cydnus River. Paul was raised and educated in Jerusalem under
the most important teacher in Israel in those days, Gamaliel, who had taught at
the famous School of Hillel, and had died just five years earlier. There, he
learned how to follow the Laws of Moses, and all Jewish customs to the letter,
and he was indeed, a Rabbi, and, a Pharisee.
Paul goes on to share his history of being
a persecutor of Christian Jews, hounding them, throwing them into jails and
prisons, and even overseeing the murder of some (i.e. Stephen-Acts chapter 7).
The High Priest and all the Council members (The Sanhedrin) could attest to
this fact. For they often armed Paul with letters authorizing him to arrest and
bring in Christians, so that they could be prosecuted by the Sanhedrin in
Jerusalem for treason and blaspheme.
Paul then shared his famous “Damascus Road”
experience with the crowd, and how he received his calling from CHRIST to
deliver the message of salvation to the Gentiles. He tells of how he was
blinded by intense light, and had to be led into Damascus by his companions.
There he was confronted by a GODly man named Ananias, a prophet, who lived
there in that ancient city.
The prophet first restored Paul’s sight,
and then, he informed him that GOD had chosen him, an enemy of the Christians,
to deliver the Gospel of salvation to the Gentiles. He told Paul to get up, go
be baptized and have your sins washed away, calling on the name of JESUS.
When Paul returned to Jerusalem he said
that he was instructed by JESUS to leave and go to the Gentiles in far-away
lands, and it is at this point that the crowd, once again, turned on him
shouting, “Kill him!”, and began throwing dust into the air, a gesture of insane
anger that usually led to the death of the person who is the object of its
dissatisfaction.
Paul believed that GOD loves all mankind,
but his audience mistakenly believed that GOD only loved the Jews. In fact,
they even believed that it was blasphemous to teach otherwise. And so, in some
sense Paul could identify with the angry crowd, however, in the divine sense of
Christianity and the desires of GOD, he could not.
PAUL
REVEALS HIS ROMAN CITIZENSHIP
Acts
22:24-30
As the angry crowd worked its way back up
to a fever pitch, the commander, not knowing what Paul had said to them in
Aramaic to rile them up again, took Paul inside the fortress and ordered him to
be whipped, trying to force him to confess his alleged crime. As they were
tying Paul down to lash him, he shouted to one of the officers standing there,
“Isn’t it illegal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried?”
The officer walked over to the commander
and said, “What are you doing? This man is a Roman citizen! And so the
commander went over to Paul and asked if it was true that he was a Roman
citizen. Paul replied, “Yes! I certainly am! The commander, who had to buy his
freedom replied, “I am too, and it cost me plenty!”
Paul, who was born a citizen of Rome, did
not have to purchase his freedom as the commander once had, and so the
commander was terrified at the consequences he could face for his mistreatment
of Paul, a natural born Roman. He quickly ordered his men to cease and desist,
as he was concerned about what would happen to him for even ordering Paul to be
bound and whipped in the first place, without a trial.
The commander did, however, still hold Paul
overnight, mostly for his own safety, and the next day he freed him from his
chains and ordered the Jewish hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, into emergency session
to try Paul, in order to determine his guilt or innocence. Knowing that his
task was just beginning, Paul readied himself for the defense of the Gospel of
CHRIST JESUS, his LORD and SAVIOR, for WHOM he was totally prepared to die for,
when the time came.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
