PAUL'S DEFENSE BEFORE THE MOB

Acts 22:1-3 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defense, which I make now unto you. (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,) I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.

As the previous chapter ends, we find Paul in chains and being led up the stairway into the castle near the Jewish temple from which he was taken. Due to the tumult raised by the Jewish zealots protesting the preaching of Christ Jesus as the Messiah, Paul was taken into custody by the Roman authorities who supposed him to be an Egyptian criminal and leader of a band of warriors. When asked for his reply to the riotous acts of the Jews against him, Paul replied he was also a Jew, and a citizen of Tarsus, a free city within the Roman Empire, and deserved consideration from his Roman captors, which had taken him and restrained him with chains. He asked for the opportunity to speak unto the people - the Jews that had protested against him. With the authority of the chief captain of the Roman guards, and after the multitude had given him silence, Paul began his defense by speaking to them in the Hebrew tongue. This was the common language in Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside of Judea. Being able to speak fluent Greek, Paul chose to address them in the Hebrew tongue, because, without any doubt, it was the language that all of his accusers could fully understand. Not only for that reason, but when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence.

Paul tells the multitude of Jewish zealots, hear ye my defense, which I make now unto you. He assures the mob that he, too, was a Jew, and that he was born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia. This fact, the Jews in Jerusalem may have taken in a negative way. They could have been prejudiced against Paul since he was not born in Judea. However, he assured them that his Jewish training was equal to, or better than, that of most young Jewish men, by telling them that he was brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel. Paul studied under, and was a disciple of the venerable Gamaliel - a Pharisee, ...a doctor of the law (of Moses), who possessed a high reputation among all the people (See Acts 5:34). Under Gamaliel, Paul was taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. These facts alone should have assured the riotous mob that Paul possessed an equal or a superior knowledge of the Mosaic Law, believed it, obeyed it, and, while under that law, would have never taught against its precepts.

In verses following the lesson text, Paul recites further evidence of his devotion to Jewish law, and the zealous life he led following his formal religious training. With zeal he persecuted this way unto the death. "This way," which Paul was referring to, was the pathway to salvation through Jesus Christ, in which he was currently walking, and of which he had given his life to preaching to both Jew and Gentile. Prior to his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul had persecuted these Christians. He encouraged and participated in riotous actions of Jewish zealots by breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord (Acts 9:1a). In his defense for his erring past, Paul confessed that many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them (Acts 26:10).

Indeed, before accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and Savior of the world, Paul had spent his young Jewish life binding and delivering into prisons both men and women (Vs. 4). In verse 5 Paul tells the mob of angry Jews that the high priest, as well as members of the Sanhedrin, could attest to the fact that he had their authority to go to Damascusand apprehend Christian men and women to be punished for their outspoken faith in Christ Jesus.

In the following verses 6 through 21, Paul relates his conversion - the miraculous meeting with Jesus, the instructions He gave him, his meeting with Ananias, and his baptism for the remission of his sins. It was a few years after these events, and his obedient response to baptism, that Paul went about preaching the gospel message of salvation through Christ Jesus, and, in doing so, came to Jerusalem. Realizing Paul's teaching would be ineffective, due to his persecution of the Church and consenting to the death of Stephen, the Lord warned Paul to leave that city, saying, Depart; for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.