November 5 Daily Devotional

Acts 21–22

The Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up the people; “and all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers,. they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done. And some cried one thing, some another … and when he could not know the certainty of the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle.”

“And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue … When they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue … they kept the more silence.” He spoke of his youth spent at Tarsus, of sitting at the feet of Gamaliel the great teacher at Jerusalem, of his being a Pharisee, of his former hatred towards the believers and his persecution of the church. He spoke of the vision he had on the way to Damascus, of the voice that spake unto him, of the blindness with which he was smitten and how his sight was restored when Ananias laid his hand on him. He told them that he had been baptized in the name of Jesus, and how in a trance at Jerusalem he saw the Lord, who told him, “Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.”

The Jews listened until he mentioned the Gentiles; then they said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?