Acts 22:1-21 - Homilies By R.a. Redford

Paul's defense of himself to the people.

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES .

1. On the castle stairs.

2. Addressed to a tumultuous mob, full of passionate, murderous feeling, quelled for the moment by Paul's self-control and the captain's influence, showing that they feared Rome, though they feared not God, and had no desire to know the truth.

3. The magic of the Hebrew tongue, that is, the Syriac or Aramaic Hebrew, which touched their national sympathies, and at once laid to rest any suspicions that Paul was a foreigner desecrating the temple.

II. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH . Facts speak for themselves. Once I was blind as you; now I see. The convert relating his experience. Power of such testimonies when simply and faithfully narrated. The evidence that Jesus was the Christ. The reason for Paul's mission to the Gentiles.

III. THE DOOM OF JERUSALEM FORESHADOWED . "They will not receive of thy testimony concerning me." Resistance to the Holy Ghost. Stephen's blood was crying out, and now they would have Paul's. The messenger sent from heaven unto the Gentiles betokened the Divine judgments about to be poured out on Jerusalem, and the blessing taken from them and given to those who would return faithfully the fruits of the vineyard.

IV. THE HOLY BOLDNESS OF THE MAN who could speak thus to an infuriated mob. His confidence in truth, in his own mission, in the works of the Spirit, in the future of the Christian Church; and his fearlessness of man.—R.