Acts 26:1

5. Paul’s Fourth Defence that before Agrippa , Acts 26:1-32 .

1. Agrippa said As highest in rank as well as referee by the procurator, Agrippa is president of the occasion.

A proper understanding of this noble piece of Christian oratory requires the reader to note two things:

1. This is not properly a judicial trial, as said note Acts 25:23.

2. The charge against Paul, and to which he replies is this: He has infringed that Roman law which requires upon pain of death that every man shall adhere to his own national religion. To show himself not guilty of this charge, Paul maintains that his is in fact the true Judaism. He first shows how strict a Jew he originally was, and how persecuting he was of the followers of Jesus, (Acts 26:4-11;) next how he was converted and commissioned (like Moses) by the visible Shekinah, and the audible voice from above, (Acts 26:12-21;) and third, that all this is but the continuity of the Old Testament religion, inasmuch as it, as a whole, is embraced in the prophets and even in Moses, (Acts 26:22-29;) and this true identity, we may say by the way, of Christianity with true and primitive Mosaism is the gist of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The whole tone of Paul’s mind in the speech appears buoyant and elastic, exhibiting both in his artistic argument, his rounded periods, and in his prompt and masterly replies, a temperament and character raised by the occasion to the height of its demand.

Speak for thyself To show that he may be reported to Cesar as innocent of all wrong.