The Letter

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

THE LETTER

Acts 23:25-30

25 He wrote a letter as follows:

26 Claudius Lysias,

To His Excellency, Governor Felix:

Greetings.

27 This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen. 28 I wanted to know why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their Sanhedrin. 29 I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment. 30 When I was informed of a plot to be carried out against the man, I sent him to you at once. I also ordered his accusers to present to you their case against him.

NIV

It is obvious by any account that Paul was not guilty of breaking the law of God. However, the Jews did not care about the truth, they were acting out because they were offended due to their own interpretation of the law. They created something of their own out of the law God intended for them to realize they were going to need the Messiah to bring them to righteousness before God. This is what Paul was preaching. He first brought the good news the Messiah came in the person of Jesus Christ, and it is through faith in him, through accepting him as the Messiah, that the Jew would find peace with God, and stand righteous before him. Because they could not accept this truth God told Paul to go to the Gentiles, they will accept this truth and come to faith in Jesus Christ. For a Jew to love a Gentile would be blasphemy to them, as they hated anyone who wasn’t a full Jew. This is why there were some of those Jews who did believe followed where Paul went and taught the gentiles, they must first become a Jew, by the circumcision of the flesh. Nevertheless, the whole point is the Jews hated Paul, mainly because he showed them the errors in their thinking. Once again this is about the truth or tradition. Yet, here Paul was in the protective custody of the commander of the Roman garrison at Jerusalem. By the confession of the commander in his letter to Governor Felix, who was the Roman governor, or procurator, over the Judea. We do notice how the commander makes himself look good in his letter to Felix. We wonder if the commander’s actions were about actually keeping the peace in Jerusalem motivated by his allegiance to Rome, or more out of his opportunity to lift himself up in the sight of Rome. This is where we might learn some lessons. Whatever way in which we serve the Lord, or the church in the name of the Lord, do we do that out of our allegiance to Jesus, or do we have any sense at all of wanting to look good in front of the Pastor. That is lifting ourselves up in any way whatsoever. This could be the difference between pure humility in our service to the Lord or being boastful about all we do, or how much we know, enumerating every one of our activities, and knowledge, whenever we have the opportunity, We know pastors in our denomination are required to submit an activity or ministry report annually to our region headquarters, but even that should be done in pure humility for we only serve because of our call, and Jesus taught that humility is the key to serving, as he washed the feet of his disciples. There is a difference between humility and boldness, for Paul was indeed bold, but he was also humble before the Lord and before men. The question is what kind of letter would be written about us.