Just because a man is accused, we don’t throw him out to the dogs. We make sure the accused has a chance to face his accusers and defend himself of the charges. Acts 25:16 (The Message)
The apostle Paul had been out of the country, traveling to many places, planting churches for those who believed in Jesus Christ. He decided to come back to Jerusalem for the Pentecost and, when he was in the Temple, he ran into a group of people who really didn’t like him. They started yelling and shoving and making a nuisance of themselves. It got so bad the police were called in to break it up. Paul’s name came up as being the bad guy, so he was hauled off to jail.
The ruling Jewish council went to the governor to let him know that Paul was a trouble-maker that needed to be silenced; but Felix couldn’t find that Paul had actually committed a crime. In trying to get to the bottom of the problem and remain in political favor, Felix kept Paul in jail for two years.
The interesting thing about this situation is that the Roman stance of allowing an accused person to meet his accusers and to defend himself, allowed Paul to remain alive for many more years. The Jews kept accusing Paul of saying many things, mostly “arguments about religion and a dead man named Jesus….” Festus looked into the case and also “decided that [Paul] had committed no crime.” Paul asked to be tried by Caesar and that’s how Paul ended up in Rome.
Have you ever noticed, in looking back at your life and trying to find the path that led you to where you are today, that there are places where it may have become tortuously complicated? While you thought you were going from A to B to C, somehow between B and C, you may have entered a maze that lands you at W! We may have started out to become teachers with the idea that we would start a family and become stay-at-home moms, raising several children, and creating a typical Norman Rockwell family. Then, somehow the family doesn’t materialize, and we end up working in a hospital lab or a pension administration company; and we’re not just too sure how we ended up there.
Paul was just minding his own business, sharing his beliefs with others and the next thing he knew, he was spreading the word of Jesus Christ to government officials and eventually to Caesar himself! That life path took some organization from someone who knew what was going on and how to work the system. We can plot and plan and try to organize our days; but I get the feeling that, if God wants something done, it will get done. It’s likely that we’ll end up scratching our heads and trying to figure out what it was that we did to bring us here!
Becky Gillette is a former teacher, newspaper reporter, and preacher who seeks to take an original approach to life’s lessons. She has recently published her first book, Jessie’s Corner: Something To Think About, which is now available for purchase. Based on several lesser-known scriptures from the Bible, this is a collection of articles which she wrote for a weekly newspaper.
