NOTES for Act 26:1-32

Paul's speech before Agrippa can also be called his confession. Paul sets out the story of his conversion, which he has already set out more than once before different audiences, but here it sounds in a special way. One can feel Paul's firmness, hardened by persecutions and by the mortal danger he had endured more than once, a danger that still had not passed.

Christ's words came true: "...you will be delivered up to councils and beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, to bear witness before them" (Mark 13:9). These words will come true more than once over the course of millennia, but now they came true in the man who himself had been a persecutor.

Festus's reaction to Paul's speech probably did not surprise the apostle, who wrote to the brothers: "...we preach Christ crucified... folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). Agrippa, however, behaves more properly, preserving his royal dignity. He does not accept Paul's words, but he also does not abuse his position in order to deal with him or crush him morally.

It is hard to imagine what was happening in Agrippa's heart after the apostle's preaching. But in any case, we see that Agrippa does not intend to violate the law and wants justice. What if this showed his heart's response to Paul's preaching?

Today's reading allows us to see more clearly the full paradox of Paul's preaching, as well as of his ministry as a whole. It is no accident that, as he begins his defense, the apostle addresses King Agrippa in particular, knowing that he is familiar with Jewish customs and aware of all the Synagogue's debates and disagreements (vv. 2–3). Indeed, Paul's defense rests entirely on Old Testament tradition (vv. 4–20). For him, apparently, the events of the Gospel become the fulfillment of the promises God gave His people through prophets who lived several centuries before Christ's coming (vv. 6–8). In this, he remains fully a son of his people and a bearer of his tradition. Yet neither prevents him from doing God's will even when, at least outwardly, it conflicts with both religious tradition and national values as they were understood at the time. God sends Paul to the Gentiles, and he goes where he is sent: the mission among the Gentiles becomes the meaning of his life and ministry (vv. 12–20). Here lies the paradox: Paul remains faithful to tradition while outwardly rejecting it, and broadens the boundaries of God's people while seemingly blurring them. Indeed, by opening the Kingdom to everyone, regardless of whether they belong to the Jewish people, the apostle appears at first sight to betray both Judaism and Jewishness. In reality, he transforms both his tradition and his own people in their very nature, making them part of the Kingdom. For neither religion nor nation can exist in the Kingdom in its former form, and Paul's own example showed what each becomes upon sharing in the Kingdom. His words, however, make no impression on the pagan Festus, who takes them for the ravings of a philosopher lost in abstruse speculation (v. 24). But they evidently have an effect on Agrippa, who knows the Jewish tradition (vv. 26–29). In any event, his judges apparently find nothing for which the apostle deserves death or imprisonment (vv. 30–32). Nor is this surprising: pagans entirely unfamiliar with Jewish tradition perceived everything he said as an internal Jewish matter that did not concern them at all; Agrippa, apparently, was not so religious as to imprison, still less execute, someone over religious disagreements. And Paul sets out for Rome.

Different people react very differently to the message about Christ, quite apart from the fact that the message itself may be heard by them in very different ways. For the governor Festus, it is the madness of an innocent Jewish prisoner; for King Agrippa, it is an occasion to reflect on the meaning of his native tradition. For some, Christianity is the enemy of human civilization; for others, it guarantees the preservation of moral foundations or a political system. This does not prevent the apostle Paul from wishing that everyone might become as he is, apart from his chains. Why is this so? How can all the diverse ideologies that people will always associate with Christianity coexist? Evidently, the answer lies in his own “experience of faith,” in his account of meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul himself tells us several times about this encounter in the pages of the New Testament, and even more has been written about it in various commentaries and studies of Paul and his letters. What is far more important for us is to read his account once again and understand what he believed and what he would want from us.

The apostle Paul asks this question of King Agrippa, who is half-believing, like most people now living on earth. Such people think that God, apparently, exists, but their ideas about what He is like, what relationships with Him can be, and what this means for human life are at times very far from true piety.

How precisely Paul formulates his rhetorical question to one of these people, a question that does not demand an immediate answer but makes one think. He does not call God's existence into question, nor does he prove it. More than that, he does not ask King Agrippa's opinion about God's omnipotence; otherwise he would have asked, "Why do you consider it impossible..." No, for God everything is certainly possible. But one can safely regard it as unbelievable that God would do something contrary to His purpose, His will. If death was created by God, if such is His purpose for human destiny, then the resurrection of the dead is completely unbelievable. But Scripture affirms that death is the consequence of the fall (Gen 3), and through the prophets, not by chance does Paul ask Agrippa the question in v. 27, God reveals that He does not desire human death: "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11). And for God it is quite normal to set right what we have distorted, so the resurrection of the dead cannot in any way be considered unbelievable.