NOTES for Act 25:13-27

Festus's behavior reveals his character to us. We see a man capable of sensing the political climate and ready to remain on good terms with influential people, even when they are formally subject to him, as the Jews were subject to Rome. Festus could easily have disposed of this troublesome case by handing Paul over to his accusers to be killed; indeed, there are countless ways to destroy a person and thus be rid both of him and of a baffling problem. But Festus does not act that way. It is difficult to say whether he accepted Paul's preaching to any degree, but in any event he had not entirely lost his sense of duty and law, and so he treated Paul according to the norms of Roman law.

The human heart very often balances on the boundary between good and evil. Sometimes an apparently good person fails to hold that line and slips into the embrace of evil. But sometimes the opposite also happens...