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Acts of the Apostles 26
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Chapter 26
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Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘You have leave to speak on your own behalf’. And Paul held up his hand and began his defence:
Paul’s speech before King Agrippa
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‘I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, in that it is before you I am to answer today all the charges made against me by the Jews,
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the more so because you are an expert in matters of custom and controversy among the Jews. So I beg you to listen to me patiently.
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‘My manner of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem, is common knowledge among the Jews.
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They have known me for a long time and could testify, if they would, that I followed the strictest party in our religion and lived as a Pharisee.
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And now it is for my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors that I am on trial,
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the promise that our twelve tribes, constant in worship night and day, hope to attain. For that hope, Sire, I am actually put on trial by Jews!
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Why does it seem incredible to you that God should raise the dead?
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‘As for me, I once thought it was my duty to use every means to oppose the name of Jesus the Nazarene.
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This I did in Jerusalem; I myself threw many of the saints into prison, acting on authority from the chief priests, and when they were sentenced to death I cast my vote against them.
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I often went round the synagogues inflicting penalties, trying in this way to force them to renounce their faith; my fury against them was so extreme that I even pursued them into foreign cities.
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‘On one such expedition I was going to Damascus, armed with full powers and a commission from the chief priests,
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and at midday as I was on my way, your Majesty, I saw a light brighter than the sun come down from heaven. It shone brilliantly round me and my fellow travellers.
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We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you, kicking like this against the goad.”[*a]
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Then I said: Who are you, Lord? And the Lord answered, “I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me.
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But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this reason: to appoint you as my servant and as witness of this vision in which you have seen me, and of others in which I shall appear to you.
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I shall deliver you from the people and from the pagans, to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light,[*b] from the dominion of Satan to God, and receive, through faith in me, forgiveness of their sins and a share in the inheritance of the sanctified.”
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‘After that, King Agrippa, I could not disobey the heavenly vision.
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On the contrary I started preaching, first to the people of Damascus, then to those of Jerusalem and all the countryside of Judaea, and also to the pagans, urging them to repent and turn to God, proving their change of heart by their deeds.
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This was why the Jews laid hands on me in the Temple and tried to do away with me.
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But I was blessed with God’s help, and so I have stood firm to this day, testifying to great and small alike, saying nothing more than what the prophets and Moses himself said would happen:
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that the Christ was to suffer and that, as the first to rise from the dead, he was to proclaim that light now shone for our people and for the pagans too.’
His hearers’ reactions
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He had reached this point in his defence when Festus shouted out, ‘Paul, you are out of your mind; all that learning of yours is driving you mad’.
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‘Festus, your Excellency,’ answered Paul ‘I am not mad: I am speaking nothing but the
sober truth.
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The king understands these matters, and to him I now speak with assurance, confident that nothing of all this is lost on him; after all, these things were not done in a corner.
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King Agrippa, do you believe in the prophets? I know you do.’
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At this Agrippa said to Paul, ‘A little more, and your arguments would make a Christian of me’.
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‘Little or more,’ Paul replied ‘I wish before God that not only you but all who have heard me today would come to be as I am-except for these chains.’
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At this the king rose to his feet, with the governor and Bernice and those who sat there with them.
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When they had retired they talked together and agreed, ‘This man is doing nothing that deserves death or imprisonment’.
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And Agrippa remarked to Festus, ‘The man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar’.
Chapters of Acts of the Apostles
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
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