Friday, August 25
Acts 24:10-21: The opening sentence of Paul’s rebuttal is an exercise in irony that may, without exaggeration, be paraphrased as follows: “Well, there you have it, your Honor, you already know what these Jews are like, so you surely are not impressed by these trumped up accusations.”
In the course of Paul’s argument we learn that only twelve days have elapsed since his arrival in Jerusalem, a sum attained simply by the compound of seven (21:27) and five (24:1).
Explaining that he has come to Jerusalem solely as a pilgrim (“to worship” in 21:11) and to bring aid for the poor (21:17), Paul makes three points by way of “defense” (apologoumai in 21:10): First, no witnesses have testified to the charges brought against him (24:12-13,19). Second, he is, and has always lived as, a loyal, religious Jew. This is a scoring point, which Paul emphasizes by mentioning the Law and prophets (24:14). Because the Sadducees do not accept the prophetic books of the Bible as canonical, Paul is appealing once again to the judgment of the Pharisees. Third, Paul shares in the hope of the resurrection of the dead, a standard doctrine taught by the Pharisees (24:15,21) and which he himself had proclaimed before the Sanhedrin. As in his earlier appearance before that body, Paul is endeavoring to draw attention to an internal doctrinal split among his accusers.
Psalms 141 (Greek & Latin 140): This psalm is a prayer of desolation and loneliness: “With my voice have I cried to the Lord, with my voice have I prayed to the Lord. Before Him will I pour out my prayer; my desolation shall I declare in His presence. Even as my spirit takes its leave of me, You are the knower of my paths. In the way wherein I walk, have they concealed a snare for me. I looked to my right hand and beheld, but no one there acknowledged me. Flight itself fled from me; there was no patron for my soul. I cried to You, O Lord, I said, ‘You are my hope, in the land of the living my inheritance.’ Attend to my entreaty, for I am greatly humbled. Deliver me from my pursuers, for they are mightier than I. From the dungeon free my soul, unto the praising of Your holy name. The righteous shall await me, until You recompense me.”
Following an impulse early found in biblical history, an unknown hand added a note to the title of this psalm, describing it as the prayer offered by David “when he was in the cave.” As, in his younger years, he was being pursued by Saul, David probably concealed himself in several caves, there being no shortage of them in the Judean desert. First Samuel 22 tells of his seeking refuge from Saul in “the cave of Adullam,” and two chapters later there is a dramatic description of David’s concealment from Saul in a cave near Engedi by the Dead Sea. Perhaps these are the scenes that the scribal hand intended. Anyway, it is easy to think of this psalm as inspired by such experiences in the life of David. Or to imagine David praying it later when he was fleeing from Absalom.
Saturday, August 26
Acts 24:22—25:6: Felix hardly knows what to make of all this. Here are all these warring groups among the Jews — Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Herodians. And now this new group they call the Nazarenes. Who can make sense of it all? Who would want to adjudicate all these religious disputes? Feeling that he needs more concrete evidence about this Paul, Felix postpones a decision until Lysias should arrive at Caesarea to give testimony in the matter (24:22), and Paul, meanwhile, may continue to receive visitors freely while in custody. At least this is what Felix says. Since we hear nothing about Lysias ever coming to Caesarea, however, we begin to suspect that a certain amount of foot-dragging has commenced.
In fact, hearing about this collection of money that Paul and his companion had recently brought to the Holy Land, Felix is hoping for a bribe (24:26), a detail in Luke’s story that fits in very well with what we learn about Felix from other writers of the period. Two years pass (57-59/60), and Paul is still in prison. During this time he writes the epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians, and Philemon. He receives many visitors, including Aristarchus, Tychicus, Mark, Jesus Justus, Demas, and Epaphras (Colossians 4:7-14). Luke the physician, who was in Jerusalem at the time of Paul’s arrest, comes to Caesarea to look after his favorite client (cf. Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24; Acts 27:2).
At the end of the two years, Felix is succeeded by Portius Festus, who inherits Paul as a bit of unfinished business. This new procurator, a conscientious man chiefly remembered for his efforts to stamp out the terrorism prevalent in the Middle East during that time (cf. Josephus, Jewish War 2.14.1 [271-272]; Antiquities>/i> 2.8.9-10 [182,185]), must deal with Paul as the first chore of his two years in office (59-61/62). He does so in less than a fortnight. The authorities in Jerusalem, of course, want Paul to be tried there, all along planning that Paul would never reach the city for his trial. The times are treacherous.
Mark 14L66-72: If Simon Peter could deny Jesus, any one of us could do so. Simon, after all, had not believed himself capable of such a thing. “Even if all are made to stumble,” he boasted, “yet I will not be” (Mark 14:29). He was so utterly resolved on the matter that, when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus in the garden, Simon had attacked them with violence. Alas, he was neither the first man nor the last to confuse human excitement with divine strength, nor to mistake the pumping of adrenaline for the infusion of grace.
Within a very short time after he swung his sword at the unsuspecting Malchus (cf. John 18:10), we find Peter backing down embarrassed before the pointing finger of a servant girl. The Holy Spirit took particular care that Christians throughout the ages would never forget that falling away remains a real possibility for any of them.
Tuesday, August 29
Sunday, August 27
Acts 25:7-21: The substance of Paul’s defense (apologoumenou) in this section is that he has violated no law, whether of the Jewish religion or of the Roman Empire (25:8). His accusers, moreover, have not met their burden of proof (25:7). Festus, however, unwilling to offend the Jewish leadership so early in his administration, proposes a compromise: a trial at Jerusalem, over which the governor himself would preside (25:9).
Paul will have none of this compromise. He already stands before an imperial court as a Roman citizen; why should he forego that privilege in
order to expose himself to a Jewish lynch mob? Therefore, he appeals his case to Rome. It is worth noting, in verse 11, Paul’s explicit recognition of the state’s proper authority to use the death penalty, the “right of the sword” (jus gladii), on certain classes of criminals. This position is identical to the one earlier espoused by Paul in Romans 13:1-4.
Accordingly, the Christian Church, even when discouraging recourse to capital punishment in practice (in the Byzantine Empire, for instance), has always recognized, as a matter of clear principle, the state’s God-given, biblically affirmed authority to put certain criminals to death.
The response of Festus, taken with counsel, accedes to Paul’s legal appeal to a higher court (25:12).
After this decision of Festus there follows another scene, Paul’s somewhat unofficial hearing before King Agrippa II and his sister/mistress Berenice. The purpose of this hearing is to help Festus identify the charges for which Paul will be sent to Rome for trial. Thus, Paul, having been tried before a synagogue and a governor, will now appear before a king (cf. Luke 21:12).
Psalm 146 (Greek & Latin 145): This psalm proclaims, “The Lord sets free the prisoners; the Lord enlightens the blind; the Lord straightens up those bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord protects the strangers; He will adopt the orphan and the widow, but the way of sinners He will overthrow.”
This list is not unlike our Lord’s own description of His ministry: “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11:5).
Such are the great messianic signs prophesied in Isaiah: “‘Behold, your God will come with vengeance, / With the recompense of God; / He will come and save you.’ / Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, / And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. / Then the lame shall leap like a deer, / And the tongue of the dumb sing” (35:4–6).
Monday, August 28
Acts 25:22—26:11: There is a sense in which the present speech of Paul is the high point of Luke’s account of his ministry. Containing the third narrative of Paul’s conversion, it will represent a fulfillment of a prophecy contained in the first narrative (9:15), namely, he will now appear before a king. Paul’s apologetics (apologeito in verse 1, apoplogeisthai in verse 2) in this speech is consonant with his legal defense hitherto, but he becomes more explicit about his faith and his conversion.
Legally Paul has nothing to lose, for his appeal to a higher court at Rome has already been granted. He will use the present circumstances as an opportunity, rather, to bear witness to the Gospel, which he treats as the fulfillment of the hope he had always cherished as a loyal Pharisee (verse 5; cf. 24:5; 28:22). That is to say, the hope of the resurrection (verse 8). At this point, Paul begins to move from apologetics to evangelism.
Mark 15:16-21: Jesus’ claim to the Davidic kingship renders the scene of
the mockery supremely ironic. The mocking soldiers do, in fact, bend their knees before the King. Their salutation of him is—as the evangelists and their readers know—theologically correct! Jesus is the same man who just days before, as he entered Jerusalem in triumph, was addressed as David’s son.
The theological significance of this crown of thorns comes from the evangelists’ understanding of it, not the intent of the mocking soldiers. The Gospel writers knew, as do their readers in all ages, that the crown of Jesus was woven from the elements of Adam’s curse: “Both thorns and thistles [the ground] shall bring forth for you” (Genesis 3:18). Jesus, wearing that crown, bears that curse.
According to John (19:5), Jesus still wears the robe and the thorny crown when he appears before the crowd, and he wears them still as that crowd shouts, “Crucify him!” Although the robe is removed after the mockery (Matthew 27:31), no evangelist says that the crown is taken off. Christian art and hymnography commonly portray the crucified Christ as continuing to wear that crown on the cross, under the sign identifying him as “King of the Jews.”
Tuesday, August 28
Joshua 22: After wandering in the Sinai and Negev deserts for most of a generation, the people of Israel had now arrived at a place called Shittim, just east of the Jordan River and only about ten miles from Jericho. Then came a new crisis.
It was a moral crisis, involving some Israelite men of slack discipline with certain Moabite women of relaxed virtue. Fornication was the problem, that term understood both literally and in the figurative sense of their falling prey to the idolatrous worship of the Moabite god, Baal of Peor (Numbers 25:1-3).
The seduction of these Israelites, moreover, was not a mere boy-meets-girl happenstance. It resulted, rather, from a deliberate machination on the part of the Moabites, plotting to weaken the military resolve and moral will of the Israelites. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the scheme had been concocted in the mind of the religious philosopher Balaam, who was at that time in the service of the Moabite king (cf. Revelation 2:14).
Seeing it happen, the young priest Phineas discerned the peril of the hour, for an earlier experience had taught him the hazards of moral compromise. If he was sure of anything at all, Phineas was certain that God’s punishment of sin was invariably decisive and might very well be swift.
Phineas had been hardly more than a child when he saw the divine retribution visited on two of his priestly uncles, Nadab and Abihu, for a single offense in the service of God. Nor had those been insignificant men who were thus punished. On the contrary, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron and his heirs in the priesthood, were men of stature and respect among the people. They had accompanied Moses, their very uncle, as he began his climb of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:1), and had partly shared in his vision of the divine glory (24:9-10). Nonetheless, Nadab and Abihu had been instantly struck dead, devoured by a fire from the divine presence for just one moral lapse (Leviticus 10:1-3). The memory of that swift retribution had seared itself into the memory of young Phineas. He knew by experience that Israel’s Lord was a morally serious God, not some feather of a deity to be brushed away at one’s convenience.
At the time of the Moabite crisis, then, the reaction of Phineas was utterly decisive and equally swift. Responding to the Lord’s decree to punish the offenders (Numbers 25:4-6), he resolutely took the matter in hand and thus put an end to the divine wrath already plaguing the people (25:7-15). For his part in averting the evil, Phineas came to enjoy great respect in Israel. Not long afterwards, for instance, he was the priest chosen to accompany the army advancing against the Midianites (Numbers 31:6). After the Conquest, Phineas inherited land among the Ephraemites (cf. Joshua 24:33) and continued to be consulted by Israel, especially in times of crisis (cf. Judges 20:28). He would be remembered throughout the rest of biblical history, furthermore, as the very model of zeal in God’s service (cf. Psalms 105 [106]:30; 1 Chronicles 9:20; Sirach 45:23).
If we knew only of Phineas’s decisive action at the time of the Moabite trouble, it might be easy to think of him solely as an energetic, resolute, executive sort of man, but this would be an incomplete perspective. Phineas was also a thoughtful person, able to consider a delicate question in its fully nuanced complexities.
This latter trait of his character was revealed in the crisis later created by the construction of an altar to the east of the Jordan River by the Israelites who lived in that region (Joshua 22:10). Regarded as a rival altar outside of the strict confines of the Holy Land, this construction proved so provocative to the rest of Israel that there arose the real danger of civil war (22:12). Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the decision was made to establish an eleven-member committee of inquiry to investigate the matter. Phineas was the head of that committee (22:13-14).
Probing into the construction of that altar, Phineas’s committee concluded that it was not intended to be used as such, but would serve merely as a monument to remind all the Israelites of their solidarity in the worship of their one God. Civil war was thus averted, and Phineas, once so swift unto bloodshed, was thus in large measure responsible for preventing it (22:21-34).
Wednesday, August 30
Acts 26:24—27:12: Faced by a pagan unfamiliar with belief in the resurrection, Paul turns to Agrippa for a more sympathetic hearing. However, when Paul, answering what seems to be something of a jest on the king’s part, invites him to become a Christian, the king becomes uncomfortable, and the hearing is abruptly ended.
Festus, now confident that he can send Paul to Rome with precise instructions to the legal system there, hands him over to guards for the journey. This trip to Rome, which will fill the two final chapters of the book, is the point to which the literary tension of the Acts of the Apostles has been building. This is the journey that matches the Aeneid of Vergil, for Rome is the goal of both books. Paul’s going to Rome is a matter of his destiny (cf. 19:21). Accordingly, Luke’s inclusion of so many nautical details obliges the reader to slow down and savor the significance of the event.
In this final voyage Paul will be accompanied by Aristarchus and Luke (verses 2-3), who had helped him bring the alms to Jerusalem over two years earlier (20:4,6), and who have been with him at Caesarea since that time (Colossians 4:10,14; Philemon 24).
They board a ship whose homeport is Adramyttium, just south of Troas, or Troy, from where Aeneas had set sail for Rome. Luke’s inclusion of this detail is thus significant. Leaving Phoenicia, they cruise along the east and north sides of Cyprus, against strong head winds (verse 4), and then go north to Asia Minor. The ship is obviously returning to its home port. At the city of Myra, on the south coast of Asia Minor, they change to an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy. It was perhaps a grain cargo ship, so many of which brought wheat to Rome at a fraction of the cost of transporting grain overland to Rome from elsewhere in Italy. Still fighting contrary winds, they make their way to Salmone on the northeastern tip of Crete, a port well known to ancient navigators (cf. Strabo, Geography 10.3.20; Pliny, Natural History 4.58.71).
The “Fair Havens” they reach on the south coast of Crete is still known by that name in Greek, Kali Limenes. In verse 9 Luke informs us that the Feast of the Atonement, or Yom Kippur, had already passed. If, as we are justified in suspecting, this was the year 59, then the Day of Atonement was October 5. That is to say, they were approaching the winter season when sailing on the Mediterranean was considered unsafe (November 11 to February 8 [Pliny] or March 10 [Josephus]). Phoenix, where they hope to winter, lies some forty miles further west on the south side of Crete (verse 12).
Thursday, August 31
Acts 27:13-26: When a light wind begins to blow westward, the ship’s crew decides it is just what is needed to take the ship those forty miles west to Phoenix. They weigh anchor and continue the journey, hugging the south coast of Crete. Not long after commencing this maneuver, however, the ship is hit by a “typhoon wind” (anemos typhonikos), a nor’easter blowing down from over Crete and sending the ship out to sea in a southwesterly direction. There is nothing to do but let her ride the storm.
Presently, some twenty-seven miles due south of Phoenix, the very port they had hoped to reach before the storm came, the ship runs under the lee of the island of Cauda (modern Gozzo). The reference to the ship’s dinghy in verse 16 indicates the old custom of towing such craft in order to save deck space. They now take the dinghy on board, lest it become lost at sea. A momentary relief from the storm, as the ship sits under the lee of Cauda, enables the sailors to undergird the ship’s hull with cables, to make the vessel’s planking tighter against the waves. To impede the ship’s wild movement in the storm, the kedge anchor is dropped, because the ship has been drifting south so fast that the crew fears running onto the reef shoals of the African coast at Syrtis (west of Cyrene; cf. Pliny, Natural History 5.4.27). To make the ship ride higher in the water and reduce the chances of her being swamped, the crew jettisons some of the cargo (verse 18), and on the next day they do the same with the ship’s rigging (verse 19).
The situation is clearly desperate. With no way to see the stars, navigation has become impossible, and soon they have no idea where they are or in which direction they are headed. With no sunlight, even the most basic sense of direction will be lost. (Indeed, as we shall presently find the ship in the Adriatic Sea, quite a bit further north, it is clear that a radical wind change takes place during all this darkness and confusion.) Finally, Paul speaks up again. Though he foretells the loss of the ship, he reassures the crew and passengers of their survival. The reason for this certainty, he says, is his own destiny to arrive at Rome. Once again, we touch here the theme of Rome as the goal of this entire story. It is a matter of destiny—dei—“it must be” (verses 24,26; cf. 19:21; 23:11).
Friday, September 1
Acts 27:27-38: Still drifting in the darkness, the men on the ship do not know where they are or in which direction they are drifting. Still afraid of crashing in darkness on the shoals of Africa, they will only afterwards learn that the direction of the wind has unexpectedly shifted toward the north, driving them up to the southern reaches of the Adriatic Sea. The storm lasts two weeks.
At midnight on the fourteenth day, still unable to see or navigate, they think they hear breakers pounding on a shore to the west and realize that they may be coming to land. This impression is confirmed when they take repeated soundings of their depth. Not knowing where they are, but fearing that the ship may crash onto rocks that they cannot see, some panicking sailors rather imprudently plot to escape in the ship’s dinghy, which they lower off the bow. At Paul’s warning, however, the centurion orders the boat cut loose to float away into the night.
Meanwhile the crew, to prevent the ship’s continuing progress toward the unknown land, drop four poop anchors from the stern to hold it back. The situation during the rest of the night is tense, and no one has eaten very much during the past two weeks of storm. Finally it begins to grow light, and Paul suggests that breakfast would be a capital idea. Accordingly, he says grace. Everyone takes heart and begins to eat. Afterwards they throw the rest of the ship’s cargo overboard in order to make the ship ride higher in the waves as it approaches land.
Mark 15:42-47: Joseph of Arimathea is variously portrayed by the four inspired writers. Mark (15:43) and Luke (23:51) describe him as someone who “was waiting for the kingdom of God,” an expression which, taken without context, might indicate no more than that Joseph was a devout Jew.
Luke adds that Joseph, though a member of the Sanhedrin, had not consented to its plot against Jesus. Matthew (27:57) and John (19:38) are more explicit about Joseph’s faith, both of them calling him a “disciple”—that is, a Christian—though John observes that he was so “secretly, for fear of the Jews.”
In their slightly differing descriptions, the evangelists may have been
portraying Joseph of Arimathea at somewhat different stages of his “spiritual pilgrimage,” to use the customary expression. If this is the case,
then it appears that the death of Jesus, the very hour of His apparent
failure and defeat, was the occasion Joseph chose for getting really serious in his commitment, going public about his Christian discipleship.
He approached Pontius Pilate—“boldly,” says Mark—and asked for the
body of Jesus.