Acts 24:10-34 Paul Defends Himself

10The governor motioned for Paul to speak, and he began:


I know that you have judged the people of our nation for many years, and I am glad to defend myself in your court.


11It was no more than twelve days ago that I went to worship in Jerusalem. You can find this out easily enough. 12Never once did the Jews find me arguing with anyone in the temple. I didn't cause trouble in the Jewish meeting places or in the city itself. 13There is no way that they can prove these charges that they are now bringing against me.


14I admit that their leaders think that the Lord's Way which I follow is based on wrong beliefs. But I still worship the same God that my ancestors worshiped. And I believe everything written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets. 15I am just as sure as these people are that God will raise from death everyone who is good or evil. 16And because I am sure, I try my best to have a clear conscience in whatever I do for God or for people. 17After being away for several years, I returned here to bring gifts for the poor people of my nation and to offer sacrifices. 18This is what I was doing when I was found going through a ceremony in the temple. I wasn't with a crowd, and there was no uproar.


19Some Jews from Asia were there at that time, and if they have anything to say against me, they should be here now. 20Or ask the ones who are here. They can tell you that they didn't find me guilty of anything when I was tried by their own council. 21The only charge they can bring against me is what I shouted out in court, when I said, "I am on trial today because I believe that the dead will be raised to life!"


22Felix knew a lot about the Lord's Way. But he brought the trial to an end and said, "I will make my decision after Lysias the commander arrives." 23He then ordered the army officer to keep Paul under guard, but not to lock him up or to stop his friends from helping him.

So...who do we believe...Paul or his accusers? It's not a difficult choice.

Often times we're faced with conflicting testimony and we are forced to make a decision about the facts. It might be two of our children telling opposing stories. We hate to face the fact that we have raised a dishonest child...of which at least one is guilt...so we waffle over the testimony, not wanting to face the truth.

In my job we have something called an Administrative Investigation Board (AIB) that is convened when we have to get to the bottom of something. One of the tools we use is a "believability" assessment. This means we can decide who we believe and our decision is official. I've served on a few of these boards and its not really that difficult to decide who is most believable. With the help of the other board members we can arrive at a high degree of confidence that we have gotten close enough to the truth.

Of course we, as Christians, don't have to depend on other people. We have the Holy Spirit. Some people don't like to sound so pious so they say they have a "gut feeling". Who do we suppose planted that feeling? Could it be the God who dwells there?

We need to be bold when the truth is obvious. Jesus died because Pilate didn't have the moral courage to proclaim the truth he saw (well, not entirely) and we are about to see the same thing happen to Paul.

How many misscarriages of justice are we responsible for simply because we were unwilling to step out on a limb and proclaim the truth the Holy Spirit gave us?

Live boldly out there today...