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BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday May 14, 2017
PAUL BEFORE
THE HIGH COUNCIL
Acts
23:1-11
The Sanhedrin, the ruling religious council
of Israel, was made up of a group of seventy men, some were Pharisees, and some
were of the group known as the Sadducees. These two groups, though they formed
one governing body, were vehemently opposed to each other in certain doctrine. For
example, in addition to embracing the Law of Moses, the Pharisees also believed
in following their own “Oral Law”. The Sadducees, on the other hand, only
accepted the written Law of Moses, which is the Ten Commandments, and the
“Penteteuch”, the first five books of the bible.
Like with the governing body here in the
United States, the Congress (Democrats and Republicans), there were also other
differences that kept these wayward Church leaders separated and opposed to
each other. The Pharisees believed in “predestination”, while the Sadducees
believed in the “free-will” of man. The Sadducees did not believe in spirits
and angels, while the Pharisees did. However, the biggest disagreement between
these two groups is that the Pharisees believed in the “Resurrection”, and the
Sadducees said “No way!!
Here in Acts 23, as Paul begins his defense
of himself before the religious hierarchy of Israel, he exhibits a certain
boldness and defiance, in his demeanor and speech that was probably not going
to bode well for him during these proceedings. In verse 1 we see Paul looking
these powerful Church leaders right in the eyes, and began to address them
improperly by referring to them as if they were only his peers.
Here, Paul opens up by referring to the
council as his “Brothers”, instead of referring to them in the politically
correct way in which they were accustomed to being addressed, which is “Rulers
of the people and elders of Israel!” It would have the same negative impact of
disrespect in today’s courts if we stood before the Judge and referred to him
as “man” instead of “Your Honor”. That is why Ananias, the High Priest, ordered
the person closest to Paul to “slap him in the mouth”.
In this passage, verses 1-11, a quick
thinking Paul exposes to the court, his knowledge of Jewish law, because, after
all, Paul himself was a former practicing Pharisee (one of their peers). First
of all, Paul tells the High Priest that “GOD will slap him!” reminding his
honor of the Jewish law that states, “He who strikes the cheek of an Israelite,
strikes, as it were, the glory of GOD”. Paul then further rebukes the head of
the council by calling him, a “whitewashed wall”, which was a well known
reference that referred to a priest who had rendered himself “ceremonially
unclean” by his touching of the tomb of the dead.
In those days, tombs that actually
contained dead bodies were “whitewashed” in order to keep the priests from accidentally,
or unwittingly touching them, and thereby, temporarily rendering themselves
unfit for service in the temple. However, here Paul is actually telling Ananias,
the High Priest that he is unfit to be a priest, because, by ignoring Jewish
Law, he was not conducting himself in the way that a true leader of the Church
of GOD should.
In verse 4, we see that those standing next
to Paul questioned him about the way he had spoken to Ananias. Paul then offers
up what can only be considered as a half-hearted apology when he says, in verse
5, that, “I’m sorry, brothers, I didn’t realize he was the High Priest. For the
Scriptures say, “Do not speak evil of anyone who rules over you”.
In reality Paul knew exactly who Ananias
was, and he also knew of his reputation of being a traitor, and a puppet for
the Roman government. He was also well-known as being a glutton and a thief,
who robbed from the poor among his people. Even the “Jewish Talmud”, a
collection of books and commentaries on Scripture, compiled by Jewish Rabbis
from around A.D. 250 to A.D. 500, ridicules Ananias for his greed, brutality,
and deception.
Realizing that many members of the
Sanhedrin were Sadducees, Paul stakes his claim on the fact that he himself was
once a Pharisee, as well as all of his ancestors, and he was a believer in the
Resurrection. He knew full well that such a comment by him would likely set the
council up for a fight amongst themselves, and it certainly did. In fact Paul’s
statement divided the council, and they began to engage in their favorite
argument, the question of whether or not there would be a resurrection of the
dead.
The Pharisees, of course, sided with Paul.
In fact, at this point, they declared that they could see nothing wrong with
Paul at all. The fighting grew more and more fierce and the men actually begin
tugging at Paul from both sides. It became so intense that the Roman commander
had to step in to keep Paul from being literally torn apart. The Roman soldiers
secured Paul and rushed him back to the fortress for safe keeping. Over night the
LORD came to Paul to encourage him, telling him that, “Just as you have told
the people here in Jerusalem about ME, so you must do the same by preaching the
Good News (The Gospel) in Rome”.
THE PLOT TO
KILL PAUL
Acts 23:12-22
The following morning a group of over forty
antichrist Jews got together and bound themselves together in pledge with a
“cherem”. They vowed that they would not eat or drink until they had killed
Paul. When invoking a cherem, one is asking GOD to curse him if he fails to
complete his vow. Here we can see that this “religiously confused” group of men
believed that, by killing Paul, a man who preached CHRIST, they were actually
doing GOD a favor. They now regarded Paul’s murder as “justifiable under GOD”,
and they honestly felt that Paul was a danger to the GODly morals and
principals of Israel.
And so now the men, who were determined to
exact justice in Israel, went to evoke the help of the Church (the leading
priests), to assist them in completing their mission. They asked the high
council to deceive the Roman commander by telling him to bring Paul back to
them for further examination before the council, and while they are in route,
they would siege Paul from them, and slay him.
Fortunately, Paul’s nephew heard of their
little scheme and went to the fortress and informed him of their planned
ambush. Paul then told the officers on duty what the Jews were plotting, and he
asked them to take the young man to speak with their commander. The commander
listened to everything the young man had to say, and then began to set his own
plan into motion. He told Paul’s nephew not to tell anyone else about what he
had heard.
PAUL SENT
TO CAESAREA
Acts
23:23-35
Perhaps the strongest commitment that the
Roman Empire had to its citizens was that, she would always vigorously protect
them from the harm of outsiders. The commander took this threat against Paul
very serious because Paul had already proven to him that he indeed was a Roman
citizen. And so he was obligated by the law of the Roman Empire to protect Paul
from hurt and harm at all costs. The commander quickly moved to get Paul to
safety in Caesarea, which at that time was the capital of the province where
Jerusalem was located.
The fact that the commander assigned such a
large number of soldiers to this detail (200 men), and, by their plan to depart
for Caesarea at nine o’clock at night, speaks volumes about how determined he
was to protect his Roman prisoner, Paul, from danger. And perhaps more
importantly to him, he needed to protect his own self, and, his job as
commander, which would both be in jeopardy if he let anything happened to a
prisoner in his custody.
When the detail left for Caesarea, the plan
was for the foot soldiers to take Paul as far as Antipatris, which was the most
dangerous part of the journey, and was about 35 miles from Jerusalem. The foot
soldiers would then return to their fortress in Jerusalem, and the horse
soldiers would take Paul the remaining 25 miles to Caesarea, where he would
stand trial before the governor of Judea, Felix. When Paul arrived at Caesarea he
met briefly with Felix, and then was placed in a holding cell in Herod’s
headquarters until morning.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
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