Acts 26:1-11--Paul's Defense Before Agrippa

Acts 26:1-11
English Standard Version

Paul's Defense Before Agrippa
26 So Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense:

2 “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

4 “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, 7 to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

​9 “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. 11 And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

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One notable difference this time around is that the Jews were not present at this hearing because King Agrippa II represented them as "King of the Jews" like his father King Agrippa I and his grandfather King Herod the Great did.  This is by no means a fair trial as the judge should be biased towards the Jews here, for this is the same family that executed John the Baptist and had a part in turning Jesus over to the Romans for execution.  I don't think it was Festus's intent to give Paul a fair trial, but instead to wash his hands of the responsibility of the charges that needed to be written that might cause an innocent Roman citizen to be put to death.

King Agrippa gives Paul permission to speak for himself and Paul gives his opening remarks, telling mostly of his life before Christ and how he was a zealous Jew, a Pharisee of Pharisees, and the one whom the Sanhedrin entrusted to punish and persecute the followers of the Way (the Christians) not only in Jerusalem and Judea where the Jews had joint authority, but in Galilee and even further away as far as Syria where he was given letters of authority to go into the Jewish synagogues and round up the followers of Jesus the Nazarene who claimed that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead.

Then Paul argued that it is was for this reason--the Resurrection--that he was being persecuted by the Jews, for he now believed that Jesus actually did resurrect from the dead, and he argued that belief was no contrary to what he learned from the Scriptures, but consistent with them, for the Scriptures of the Old Testament also teach of the resurrection of the dead on the last day.  Paul argues that it should not be any harder for God to raise someone from the dead now than it will be for Him to raise them on the last day.  Paul's arguments here lean on King Agrippa having an expert knowledge of the Jewish customs and the Old Testament Scriptures (for his wife was a Jew and his family had been ruling over the Jewish people for quite some time, though his family were Edomites and not Jews).

Paul introduces the fact that since he was so opposed to the gospel and such an enemy of it, which is a matter of public record that Agrippa could investigate if necessary--even the Jews in Jerusalem who were conspicuously absent would have testified to this fact--should tell King Agrippa that something fundamentally changed to take this man from being a headhunter to the Apostle to the Gentiles.  That is the part of the story that Paul will tell next time as he will share the gospel with King Agrippa as he tells of his Damascus Road experience where he came face-to-face with the risen Christ.  How could he deny the Resurrection after seeing Him face-to-face?