The Showdown - Acts 23:1-10

As a Roman citizen, Paul is granted by the chief captain of the Roman guard a relatively protected audience with the Jewish leadership that is accusing him. His initial statement to those gathered around to hear him is similar to what other prophets have said to their people, such as King Benjamin. Paul states, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” He’s saying that even though they disagree with him, he’s done the best that he could with what he’s been given and he has no regrets or reason to be afraid of God’s judgment. This might stand in contrast to how his accusers would feel facing God and knowing that they fought against Him for power and money.

The high priest is Ananias, who is not the same Ananias who is mentioned in previous accounts in the New Testament, must have been a popular name back then. Apparently Paul’s self-assurance that he was clean before God was so offensive to Ananias that he “commanded them that stood by him to smite (Paul) on the mouth.” This IM points out that “this violated Jewish law, which protected accused persons from being punished until found guilty.” This also is a throw back to how the Savior was treated in his own trial, similarly beaten before any conviction had been handed down.
Paul calls Ananias out on his disregard for the law saying, “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?” The whited wall comment is cross referenced many times with the Savior’s comments to the Jewish leadership about their outwardly appearing respect for the law, but their secret contempt and abandonment of it. The Savior had said, among other things, “ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Calling out the chief priest for breaking the law did not go over well for Paul as you can imagine, but not for the reason that we would think. When asked, “revilest thou God’s high priest?” by someone standing by, Paul is surprised and acknowledges that “I wist not brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.” Paul didn’t know that Ananias was the high priest, probably because he had been gone from Jerusalem for so many years. But to his credit, once he is informed of his mistake, Paul quotes the law and confesses that he was wrong. This is an interesting action on his part, and it goes back to the whole, “even if you don’t follow the law, I will” concept that Jesus so embodied.
Here is where it gets interesting though, Paul realizes that both the Pharisees and the Sadducees are there, so he cleverly gets the focus off of himself and declares that he himself is a Pharisee and “of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.” This puts everyone in a tough spot, because if the Pharisees continue to denounce one of their own in front of the Sadducees, they are discrediting themselves. But could they really side with Paul to maintain the legitimacy of the doctrine of the resurrection? That seems pretty out there. I wonder who was harder on Paul, the Pharisees how probably consider him a traitor, or the Sadducees who disagree with him on almost all fronts.
In a most entertaining turn of events, now that Paul has reaffirmed his Pharisaic allegiance, “the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit of an agnel hath spoken to him, let us now fight against God.” It is the ultimate irony that suddenly they care about God’s will now that they can’t win the argument without contradicting themselves. Makes me wonder if they ever really cared about God’s will at all.
The situation again gets heated and for his own safety, the chief captain “fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him to the castle.” Paul has to be pulled out of the room by Roman soldiers to keep him from being murdered. This protection probably wouldn’t have been afforded to him if he had not been a Roman citizen. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and honestly, if Paul hadn’t been a Roman citizen, the Roman leadership wouldn’t have cared about his message enough to keep passing him up the chain of command. Interesting foresight that God had in setting up Paul’s circumstances to enable him to be a fantastically effective missionary.