
Acts 22:22-23:10
22:22-24 | The Roman soldiers rescued Paul from the crowd but commanded that he should be examined under scourging to determine why the Jews were intent on killing him.
22:25-30 | Paul immediately played his trump card: Roman law provided justice for all its citizens, which meant a trial before being punished.
23:1 | Typical of Paul, he spoke the truth without boasting. Even before he became a Christian, he lived in all good conscience before God, persecuting Christians because he thought it was what God wanted.
23:2 | This act of cruelty toward Paul was not out of character for Ananias, a man who completely abused his power. Some years later he would be assassinated by his own people.
23:3-4 | Paul’s words were accurate: the high priest was out of order. Jesus also had an encounter with the high priest on the night before He was crucified, when He was struck in a degrading way. He challenged the high priest to “bear witness of the evil” of which He was accused; the high priest could produce no evidence (John 18:19-23).
23:6-9 | The Sanhedrin was composed of both Pharisees and Sadducees, and the two groups did not agree on the resurrection from the dead. As the target of both parties, Paul knew he would not receive a fair hearing, so he made it known that he was a second-generation Pharisee on trial for believing in the resurrection of Jesus. In doing so, he caused a dispute in which the Pharisees began to defend his belief against the anti-Resurrection Sadducees.
23:10 | Three times in a matter of hours, Paul’s life was threatened. Now he found himself under guard in a Roman barracks.