Paul spent two years in Caesarea awaiting trial on unfounded charges because a politician was afraid to offend some of his constituency. What was God doing? Didn’t He know Paul had ministry to perform somewhere else? He was supposed to go to Rome and preach before kings. Instead, he was stuck in a jail cell in Caesarea, Judea, awaiting a verdict on false charges. What was going on here?

Paul had set his sights toward Jerusalem and then Rome, but in Jerusalem, he’d been halted by arrest on bogus charges. He’d been trying to do the right thing, showing the Jewish believers that he had not completely rejected Judaism, but it had backfired, leading to a riot, which to a kangaroo court before the Sanhedrin. An assassination plot made it impossible for the Roman commander to let him go, though the commander was convinced that Paul was innocent of the charges. Thus, a trial before the Roman courts was necessary. It occurred less than a week after Paul’s arrest.

You might have noticed the group gathered for Paul’s trial has shrunk a bit, to include the high priest Ananias, some of the elders and, oh, yeah, they’ve lawyered up. The Asian Jews who are originally brought the charges are not present. Maybe they went home after the holidays or maybe the Jerusalem Jewish leaders had discovered they had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Or maybe they just didn’t wish to be examined by Felix, who had a reputation for depravity. The Roman commander is also absent and there don’t seem to be many, if any, Pharisees present. I think the Sadducees had found them to be uncertain allies when those “resurrection believers” were the subject.

Remember that the Sanhedrin was actively plotting to kill Paul at this point. So, in all honesty, I don’t think they were interested in prosecuting this case under Roman law. That wouldn’t serve their purposes. They wanted Paul turned over to them to mete out their own brand of “justice”. Thus, they brought a Roman lawyer along to help the cause. If his words seem flowery and flattering, it’s because he wanted Felix to conclude that the Roman commander had acted rashly and that the Jews could handle the situation. Essentially, they were offering to take this pest and disturber of the peace off Felix’ hands. After all, it was primarily a religious matter.

Paul’s introduction was very different from that of Tertullus, shorter and truthful. He said he was grateful to stand trial before Felix because Felix had experience and knowledge concerning the issues at stake. In his defense, Paul focused on the issue -- his conduct in Jerusalem. He made not mention of any matters outside of Jerusalem, ignoring any general, unsupported accusations Tertullus made. Paul was on trial only for his conduct in Jerusalem, and so he stuck to the subject.

Paul explained that could not possibly be guilty of the charges, for he had only arrived in Jerusalem 12 days before after an absence of several years. He’d not really had time to do all the evil things of which he was accused. He had, while in Jerusalem, engaged in private matters and made no public appearances or statements. As the charges had no basis, the case should be thrown out.

As for Tertullus’ allegation that Paul was a cult-leader of a sect called the “Nazarines”, Paul openly professed his association with “the Way”, but strongly protested the charge that it was a sect. He insisted his faith and practice were consistent with true Judaism. If you notice the pronouns Paul used, he was very careful to show commonality, including himself with Judaism.

Paul served “the God of our fathers,” not some other “god”. Paul’s faith and practice were based upon the revelation of God to Israel in the “Law and the Prophets”. His hope was in God and in the resurrection of the dead, both the righteous and the wicked. This hope motivated him to maintain a clear conscience, before men and before God. Paul countered the implied charge that he held a deviant religious faith, which prompted him to desecrate the temple, with his profession to hold to the same hope as his opponents. The few Pharisees who might have been present would have nodded at this claim to orthodoxy. Paul would seem to be saying that if there was a “sect”, it was the Sadducees who were deviating from Judaism, not the Jewish Christians.

Refuting the charges against him, Paul walked through the events of those few days in Jerusalem, explaining exactly what he did, and what happened as a result. He’d come home to Jerusalem like all good Jews to bring alms to his own people and to present offerings -- hardly a revolutionary activity. He had spent his time in Jerusalem in the temple involved in a cleansing and purifying ritual for himself and other (Jerusalem) Jews. The uprising was not a result of anything that he had done, but of an overreaction by some Asian Jews. Their absence before Felix spoke loudly in Paul’s defense, Paul implied. What was the basis of the charges without witnesses? Let his accusers tell what laws Paul had broken. They were seeking to have Paul turned over to them, so that they could try him, though they had already attempted a trial which had erupted in another disturbance because Paul had identified with the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin. If the trial of Paul before the Sanhedrin had resulted in a kind of mistrial, and one that caused a small riot, why should he go back to be tried there again?

Remember that I said God had plans for Paul’s two-year sojourn in Caesarea. We’ll never know exactly what all those were, but we do know that Paul met with Felix and his wife, Drusilla. Drusilla was a Jewess with an interesting history. The youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa I, she would have been less than 20 years old during Paul’s imprisonment, but she already had quite a past. She’d been married at least twice before Felix. It seems likely that she was somewhat interested in Paul’s teachings, and meeting with Paul worked with Felix’ plans to illicit a bribe from him. It appears that Felix was also interested in the gospel. We know from Paul’s history that the man did not do politically correct. It is unlikely he toned down the message for his audience of two. Yet think about the marvelous grace that God showed to this couple, allowing them to hear the gospel from Paul as many times as Paul could say it and they could hear it during two years. There is no evidence that Felix or Drusilla came to faith, but they were surely without excuse if they face the judgment of which Paul spoke. They rejected the grace of God and must face the eternal wrath of God, rather than the eternal joy of His salvation. Felix thought he was being shrewd by putting off a decision in Paul’s case, but he also put off the matter of his own guilt and sin.  How sad!

I suspect Paul was tempted at times to tone down what he taught or to give Felix that bribe, but of course, we know he didn’t. He was convinced that God was in control and that he would be released or not regardless of whether he irritated his captors by calling them sinner or refused to pay a bribe. Paul had done nothing wrong to warrant his arrest and he would still do nothing wrong while incarcerated. Paul understood the power of the gospel. It is a two-edged sword. We are drawn to Jesus by His love, but we are also driven to Him by our fear of sin and its eternal consequences. False teachers appeal to the self-indulgence of sinners and represent God as winking at sin (2 Peter), but Christians should never minimize the essential elements of the gospel just to avoid discomfort.

In His sovereignty, God was about to launch Paul into his greatest period of ministry, in which he would write the letter that touch so many Christians for so many generations. I don’t think Paul would have planned his life this way and most of us would not consider jail time to be an effective ministry tool, but maybe we look at ministry wrong. In the midst of this seemingly dangerous situation, God arranged for this ruler and his wife to hear the gospel.

Ministry is doing the right thing when everything around seems wrong. It is living in obedience to God’s commands while standing neck-deep in a world of sin and opposition to our faith because we trust God will keep His promises. Christians are called to be a people in the world, but not of it. We do not need to play by the world’s games in order to live godly lives and to promote the gospel. Paul did it and his circumstances were a lot harder than most of ours.

So what is our excuse?