The Book of
Acts 22
30 verses≈ 5 min4 peopleBSB
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In this chapter
Paul’s Defense to the Crowd
“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you.” When they heard him speak to them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then Paul declared,
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Stylised map · locations approximate
Where it happened
Paul’s story, in three places
Born in Tarsus of Cilicia, raised and taught in Jerusalem, stopped on the road to Damascus. Paul’s defense walks the crowd through his own life, and the map runs from the city of his birth to the city where he set out to arrest believers.
About noon as I was approaching Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’
Paul
‘Who are You, Lord?’
I asked.
Jesus
‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ He replied.
My companions saw the light, but they could not understand the voice of the One speaking to me.
Told three times
Whiteboard
Luke tells the Damascus road three times. Each telling fits its hearers, and Paul’s own tellings add details Acts 9 leaves out, like the noon hour. But the heart never changes: the risen Jesus met His enemy, named Himself, and sent him out as His witness.
Paul
Then I asked, ‘What should I do, Lord?’
Jesus
‘Get up and go into Damascus,’ He told me. ‘There you will be told all that you have been appointed to do.’
Because the brilliance of the light had blinded me, my companions led me by the hand into Damascus.
Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.
Acts 22:16
Reflect
Your own story
Facing a crowd that had just tried to kill him, Paul did not argue a theory. He told what happened to him: who he had been, how the Lord met him, and what he was sent to do. Ananias put it simply: “You will be His witness to everyone of what you have seen and heard.” What have you seen and heard of Jesus that you could tell someone this week?
Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord saying to me, ‘Hurry! Leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept your testimony about Me.’
‘Lord,’ I answered, ‘they know very well that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in You. And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’
Then He said to me, ‘Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
0:36
Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain
Paul the Roman Citizen
The crowd listened to Paul until he made this statement.
Then they lifted up their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!”
As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, the commander ordered that Paul be brought into the barracks. He directed that Paul be flogged and interrogated to determine the reason for this outcry against him.
Question
Quick question
The crowd had listened in silence to Paul’s whole story, right through the light, the voice and his blindness.
What finally set the crowd shouting?
But as they stretched him out to strap him down, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it lawful for you to flog a Roman citizen without a trial?”
On hearing this, the centurion went and reported it to the commander.
The centurion at the barracks
“What are you going to do?” he said. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
The commander (Claudius Lysias)
The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
Paul
“Yes,” he answered.
The commander (Claudius Lysias)
“I paid a high price for my citizenship,” said the commander.
Paul
“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.
“But I was born a citizen,”
Acts 22:28
At once those who were about to interrogate Paul stepped back, and the commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put a Roman citizen in chains.
The next day the commander, wanting to learn the real reason Paul was accused by the Jews, released him and ordered the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul down and had him stand before them.
Pray
Courage and wisdom
In one chapter Paul tells his story boldly to an angry crowd, then calmly uses his legal rights to stop an unjust flogging. Neither was fear and neither was pride. Pray for the courage to speak about Jesus, and for the wisdom to know when to stand on your rights and when to give them up.
You’ve experienced
Acts 22
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A verse to carry with you
You will be His witness to everyone of what you have seen and heard.
Acts 22:15
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