Acts 25:1

Here are two defenses of Paul, one legal and formal, after which Paul appealed to Caesar, and the other formal enough, but without any legal significance. Nevertheless, we shall treat them as two separate defenses. Each is important and significant in its own right. The first of these was before the new governor Festus (Acts 25:1-12); the second was before Festus and his guests King Agrippa and his sister Bernice (Acts 25:23-27). All of the next chapter is taken up with Paul's address in the presence of royalty.

Festus therefore, having come into the province, after three days went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea. (Acts 25:1)

PORCIUS FESTUS TAKES OVER

While it may be true, as Boles said, that "Festus was a better man than Felix, there being a strong contrast here between the honesty and straightforwardness of Festus and the wickedness of Felix,"[1] it is true, nevertheless, that Festus was a worse governor, affording a startling proof that a strong evil ruler is sometimes better than a good weak one. The incompetence of Festus must have been the laughingstock of the whole temple crowd in Jerusalem. He was naive, totally ignorant of the devices of the people he had come to rule, agreeable, gullible, and obsessed with such a desire for popularity that he would gladly have sacrificed an innocent man to enhance his standing with the Sanhedrinists.

It was that latter trait which, at the last, marred Felix's handling of Paul's case. As Howson declared:

Another governor of Judaea opened the prison that he might make himself popular; and Felix from the same motive riveted the chains of an innocent man. Thus the same enmity of the world against the gospel which set Barabbas free left Paul bound.[2]

Festus would fall into the same error as Felix.

Up to Jerusalem ... Although Caesarea was his capital, Festus quite properly understood that Jerusalem, as the largest city of his province and the center of the religious hierarchy of Israel, was of major concern to him; hence the trip so soon after entering into his new dominion.

[1] H. Leo Boles, Commentary on the Acts (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1953), p. 388.

[2] J. S. Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publishers, 1966), p. 614.