Part 1

One of the things that strikes me, now that I reflect upon it, is how utterly impossible it would be for Jesus to make any headway with those who didn’t want to hear his case against the Pharisees. When you are in power you always have plausible deniability. And, in this case, being in power might mean only having a choir to preach to. Think about the hopeless situation that Paul was in:

And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

Can you imagine the sinking feeling in Paul’s stomach if he had any thought at all of reaching these people? Everyone around Paul had just witnessed Paul brutalized for simply speaking against the charges brought against him. Everyone saw 1. a man in high position use his office to assault an innocent man (whether Paul was guilty of any charges was irrelevent; he was permitted by law to defend himself from accusations), and 2. The victim of the assault call the man a bad name, accuse him of wrongdoing in the commission of the crime they had all just witnessed, and predict divine retribution. And, as good godly men defending the Gospel they all immediately spoke up against the manifest sin of 2 and ignored 1 altogether. Truly, you can tell who is “in” and who is “out’ by who gets to have their sins, real or imagined, forgiven.

No wonder then that Paul simply began evading the issue, brought up an issue that would divide the group, and went on to appeal to Caesar.