Paul: The Prisoner Who Testified at Jerusalem and at Rome

Who Paul is, and when he lived

Paul is an apostle of the New Testament era, active AD 34 to AD 67 according to Ussher, Annals of the World (1650). His footprint in Scripture is unusually wide: 182 verses across 44 passages in fifteen books, with the great mass of them, 152 verses, in Acts. His first mention is Acts 7:58; the last book to name him is 2 Peter. The letters carry his name at their openings and closings, from Romans 1:1 and 1 Corinthians 1:1 to 2 Timothy 1:1 and Titus 1:1, and Philemon 1:1, 1:9 and 1:19. So we meet him in two ways: as a figure narrated in Acts, and as a name signed to letters, as at 1 Corinthians 16:21, 2 Thessalonians 3:17 and Colossians 4:18.

Before anything else, an honesty about limits. His earliest mentions (Acts 7:58; 8:1; 8:3; 9:1) stand in this dossier as references without text, and so do the long strings of verses through Acts 9 to 22. They are cited here, not retold. What follows are the scenes whose words we actually have.

The spirit, the annoyance and the seizure

A woman with a spirit followed Paul and his company, crying out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!" She kept it up for many days. Then comes a line that no admirer would have invented: "But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, 'I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!' It came out that very hour" (Acts 16:17-19). The deliverance was real and instant; the mood behind it was irritation. Her masters saw their hope of gain gone, seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers (Acts 16:19). See also Acts 16:25, 16:28-29 and 16:36-37.

Hurried out of Beroea, provoked at Athens

When the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes. The brothers immediately sent Paul out as far as the sea, while Silas and Timothy stayed. Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, carrying back a command for Silas and Timothy to come quickly. "Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols" (Acts 17:13-16). He was a man moved by what he saw, and often a man being moved by others for his own safety.

"So you must testify also at Rome"

In Jerusalem a great argument arose, and the commanding officer, fearing that Paul would be torn in pieces, took him by force into the barracks. "The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, 'Cheer up, Paul, for as you have testified about me at Jerusalem, so you must testify also at Rome.'" By day, some of the Jews banded together under a curse, that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul (Acts 23:10-12).

The plot was undone by a boy. "Paul's sister's son heard they were lying in wait, and he came and entered into the barracks and told Paul." Paul summoned a centurion and sent the young man on to the commanding officer, who reported: "Paul, the prisoner, summoned me and asked me to bring this young man to you" (Acts 23:16-18).

At Caesarea, Festus sat on the judgment seat and had Paul brought. The Jews from Jerusalem pressed "many and grievous charges which they could not prove," and Paul answered, "Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all." Festus, "desiring to gain favor with the Jews," offered a trial at Jerusalem. Paul refused it: "I am standing before Caesar's judgment seat, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also know very well" (Acts 25:6-10). Compare his earlier hearings at Acts 24:10, 24:23-24, 24:26-27, 26:1, 26:24-25 and 26:28-29.

The promise of Acts 23:11 lands in Acts 28:15-17. Brothers came to meet him as far as The Market of Appius and The Three Taverns, "When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage." In Rome he was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him, and after three days he told the leaders of the Jews, "I, brothers, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, still was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans."

Where the record is uncomfortable

Scripture does not tidy him. The exorcism at Acts 16:18 is credited to annoyance. He argues with Festus rather than flatters him (Acts 25:10). And his own name became a slogan in a divided church: the dossier lists 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 and 3:4-5 among his passages, alongside 1 Corinthians 3:22, without quoting them, so they stand here as references to read rather than stories to embellish. The same is true of Acts 15:38 and Galatians 5:2.

What we do not know

Scripture does not name his parents. No children are named. No tribe or people is given. The one relative who appears in these quoted texts is his sister's son, and even he is left unnamed (Acts 23:16).

The line to Christ

It runs through the quoted words themselves. The spirit is cast out "in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 16:18); a bystander's cry calls Paul and his company "servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation" (Acts 16:17). And in a barracks cell the Lord stands beside him and defines his whole remaining life as witness: "as you have testified about me at Jerusalem, so you must testify also at Rome" (Acts 23:11). The last book to name him treats his writing as part of the church's inheritance (2 Peter 3:15). Whatever we lack of his family and tribe, this much the text gives: an annoyed, argumentative, escorted, imprisoned man whom Christ told to keep testifying, and who thanked God when brothers came out to meet him on the road (Acts 28:15).