Conspiracy - Acts 23:11-15

Again saved by the Roman soldiers, Paul is taken back in to the Antonia Fortress, and that night “the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “In his persecuted and straitened, state, Paul needed comfort and assurance from on high. How shall such be given him? The Lord could have sent an angel; he could have spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit to the spirit within Paul; or he could have opened the heavens and let him see again the wonders of eternity.

But this time- thanks to his valiant service, his willingness to suffer even unto death in the Cause of Christ- this time Paul was blessed with the personal ministrations of the Lord of heaven himself. Jesus stood at his side. Without question much was said and much transpired, of which there has been preserved to us only the promise that the Lord’s special apostle would yet bear witness of the Master in Rome.”
This statement by Jesus to Paul gives us insight on the differences of our perspectives. Jesus is telling Paul “hey good news, you’ll also get to go to Rome and give my message!” That wouldn’t be good news for me if I was Paul. Everywhere he’s gone people have tried to torture and kill him, at this point I would probably be hoping for someone to put me out of my misery. But that’s where the perspective is different between us, he probably wasn’t experiencing misery like I might have been. I would have viewed my service to God as a hardship, but Paul must have lived in a state of joy at his service. That’s where the perspective is different, which is probably why Paul has seen the Savior repeatedly and I have not.
The next part is just proof to me that human nature is pretty much the same everywhere there are people because again, we see parallels to the accounts of secret combinations in the Book of Mormon. With Paul safely locked inside the Fortress Antonia with the chief captain of the Roman soldiers personally looking out for him, the options of the Jews who oppose him are limited. So naturally, with few means at their disposal, “certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.”
They must figure that between all of them, they would be able to figure out some way to get close enough to Paul to kill him. And because they are not eating or drinking, the murder of Paul is their main and only focus until he is dead. And I wonder if there is an aspect of them that is trying to say, “we’ll kill Paul or die trying.” I just have to ask myself, how did they think that this was going to end for them? They were trying to kill Paul because he’s disturbing the equilibrium of their power and wealth within society, and even if they hadn’t figured out by now that he was a Roman citizen, having him within the chief captain’s personal custody was a big order to take on.
Their plan is simple, members of the council, which I assume is the Sanhedrin, will ask the chief captain to bring Paul down to the council room for further questioning, and while Paul is en route with the Roman soldiers, they will be waiting and “are ready to kill him.” Again, I have to go back to, how do they think that this is going to work out? Even if it is a small squad of Roman soldiers, Paul will be in their custody and under their protection so any one trying to get to Paul is going to have to go through the Romans first, and assaulting Romans is never going to end well for the perpetrators.