NOTES for Act 21:27-22:30

What was the point of that speech which Paul delivered before the Jerusalem crowd? He could hardly expect a sympathetic response after all that had happened. For before him was that very same crowd which had just branded him an apostate and a destroyer of the faith. Was it possible to hope for the conversion of anyone at all among those listening? Reasoning humanly, of course not. But, reasoning humanly, Paul should not have returned to Jerusalem at all. Now he was left only to complete his ministry — and to complete it with a testimony. And he tells everything about himself and his path, hiding nothing from the crowd listening to him. Perhaps for the first time during his apostolic ministry — in such detail and from the very beginning. This is understandable: after all, here in Jerusalem, many knew him not yet as Paul and not as an apostle, but as Shaul, a disciple of Gamaliel. And now he tells about how he went from being Shaul to becoming Paul.

A personal spiritual biography becomes a testimony. And this is not surprising: for the main testimony of a Christian is the testimony about the Kingdom and about Christ, Who brought the Kingdom into the world. And such testimony is worth nothing if the witness himself does not live the life of the Kingdom and does not manifest it to the world. But one is not born a Christian. No one comes into this world as a citizen of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God, according to the word of the Savior, is taken by force, and it can be reached only by applying the corresponding efforts to this end — by traversing the path to Christ and following Christ.

It is about this path that Paul tells. About his own path — for only about one's own path can one tell everything. And then the person who has traversed the path into the Kingdom and become its citizen becomes a living example of the path. A living testimony. A testimony unmatched in its vividness and persuasiveness. A worthy completion of the apostolic ministry and the earthly path of a Christian.