Assignment for 9:12 to 9.26.09, Act 23: 12 -35

[Irving]

Assignment 9:20 to
9:26.09
Acts 23:12 -
23:35
Preface:
The morning after the Roman commander rescued Paul from the chaotic
and violent Sanhedrin, 40 Jews conspired to kill Paul. Their plan
was to ask the commander to have Paul brought back to the Sanhedrin
for more discussion. They would ambush Paul and his soldier escort and
kill Paul. However, the son of Paul’s sister got wind of the
assassination plot and told Paul, who, in turn asked the centurion in
charge of the guard detail to take the son to the commander. When that
Roman officer heard of the plot he quickly organized a 60-mile journey
to Caesarea for Paul under a guard detachment of 200 soldiers, 70
horsemen and 200 spear men, leaving at 9:00 p.m. Paul was provided
mounts for the journey. The commander wrote a letter to Felix, the
Roman governor in Caesarea, asking him to hear the case against Paul.
When Felix read the letter he asked where Paul was from, and hearing
it was from Cilicia, the province in which Tarsus was located, he
agreed to hear the case, when Paul’s accusers arrived from Jerusalem.
If Paul had come from a closer province he might have turned Paul over
to another Roman official to hear the case. So we come today to the
trial before Felix, which is recorded in chapter 24.

verse 12: The morning after Paul’s being taken, for his safety, to
the Antonio Fortress (the name of the Garrison adjacent to the
Temple), a number of Jews each made an oath not to eat or drink until
they had killed Paul.

verse 13: More than 40 individuals were involved in this plot.

verse 14: Their plot required the cooperation of the chief priest and
and the elders. The plotters made their plot known to these leaders
and told them that they had taken the oath to show them that they
meant business.

verse 15: The forty plotters detailed to the leaders just what was
expected of them, namely, that they petition the commander to bring
Paul back to the Sanhedrin so that they could question him further and
gain more accurate information about his case. The plotters explained
that they would intercept Paul and his escorts as they came back to
the Temple.
Remember, this was not a long trip, but only a walk down the stairs
from the Antonio Fortress to the Temple. It appears that the forty
assassins were planning to do their deed on the stairs.

verse 16: Again we see the protective hand of God. The son of Paul’
sister visited Paul in the barracks of the Garrison and told him of
the plot, of which he had heard. How he gained this information we
are not told. It might have been widely circulated among the Jews and
withheld from the Romans or, Paul’s nephew might have been
eavesdropping somehow. At any rate, the knowledge of the plot changed
everything.

verses 17 and 18: Paul made immediate use of the new information by
asking one of the centurions in charge of the guards to take Paul’s
nephew to the commander, whose mane was Lysias. The centurion did so.

verse 19: The commander, Lysias, drew Paul’s nephew aside, apparently
suspecting that the young man had something to say that should remain
confidential.

verse 20. The nephew of Paul provides Lysias with the details of the
Jewish plot, and adjures him not to grant the request of the Jewish
leaders to bring Paul out for another hearing, explaining that the
assassins would be lying in wait for him in the short space between
garrison and Temple.

verse 21 & 22: Lysias impressed upon the young man that the fact that
the plot had been revealed to him must remain a closely held secret
and that, therefore, he should keep his mouth shut. The plotters must
be convinced that Paul was going to be delivered so that the commander
could execute a plan of his own while they waited for the next day’s
developments.

verse 23 & 24: The scope of the commander’s plan is astounding, in
terms both of number of soldiers as well as horses and equipment. He
wasn’t going to take any chances. It even included mounts (plural) for
Paul so that he would have fresh horses to ride all of the way to
Felix, the current Palestinian governor, to whom the commander would
send him.

verses 26-30: The commander writes a detailed letter to Felix in
which he states, fully, the background of the case and why he is
sending Paul to the governor. He lists the following facts: (a) Paul
had been seized by the Jews and they had plotted to kill him, (b) He,
Lysias, had rescued him because he had learned that Paul was a Roman
citizen, (c) He, Lysias had wanted to know more about the basis for
the Jews accusations against Paul, so he had brought Paul in front of
the Sanhedrin a second time, (d) Further, he had learned that the
charges against Paul were related to Jewish (certainly not Roman)
law, (e) It was the commander’s judgment that whatever Paul was guilty
of under Jewish law was not sufficient to warrant either death or
imprisonment. (f) the final act of the Jews that moved the commander
to send Paul to the governor was his being informed of the plot to
kill him.(g) the commander also directed the Jewish leaders –
presumably well after Paul and his guards were well on their way to
Caesarea, where Felix the governor held court - to go there as well to
present their case. Sympathetic as he was to Paul’s circumstances, he
was not about to place himself in a position to be criticized by the
Jewish leaders to his superiors for bypassing established protocols in
the complicated relationship between the Jewish leaders and Rome. So
they were to have their day also with Felix.

verses 31 & 32: Upon reaching, by night, Antipatris, a military post
about 30 miles along the way from Jerusalem to Caesarea, ( halfway)
the two hundred soldiers and two hundred spear men, undoubtedly in
accordance with the commander’s plan, returned to their barracks at
the garrison, and Paul went on with the cavalry of seventy horsemen.
Probably, their swift action during the night put them well out of the
range of the assassins at this point in their journey.

verse 32: The cavalry delivered both Paul and the commander’s letter
to Governor Felix.

verse 34 & 35: Upon reading the letter, Felix asked Paul where he was
from. When he learned that Paul was from Tarsus, a Roman city in
Cilicia, he told Paul that he would hear his case as soon as his
accusers arrived. It is likely that because Paul was from a distant
province of the Empire, it would not be convenient to have another
nearby provincial governor hear the case, so he would hear it. We
might concllude that he would have perferred not to. He placed Paul
under guard until the time of his trial.

Study Questions for Acts 23: 11-35

1. What risks did commander Lysias take in assigning so many
resources to accompany Paul to Caesarea to insure his safety?

2. What dilemma did Roman officials face in jurisprudence in Paul’s
case?

3. List the ways Paul acted wisely in this encounter with the
Sanhedrin.

4. What is your judgment of the competence of Lysias as a
commander?

5. List the ways in which God’s direction is evident in the events of
these verses.