The Bible Says
Acts 24:10-21 Meaning

In Acts 24:10-21, Paul defends himself against accusations from the Jewish leadership in the court of Felix. Paul was taken to the city of Caesarea on the coast of Israel to stand trial before Felix, the governor of Judea. His accusers were summoned to come and prosecute him at Felix’s judgment seat. Ananias the high priest came, accompanied by some of the elders of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council). Their lawyer, Tertullus, also came, to represent the Jewish leadership’s prosecution against Paul.

Tertullus’s case against Paul consisted of flattering Governor Felix and framing Paul’s crimes as specifically religious and Jewish, so that Paul might be handed back to the Jewish authorities to judge him privately. Paul has been slandered as a deliberate rabble-rouser, that wherever he goes he causes conflict with the Jews.

Now it is Paul’s turn to make his defense:

When the governor had nodded for him to speak, Paul responded:

“Knowing that for many years you have been a judge to this nation, I cheerfully make my defense, (v. 10).

At the governor Felix’s cue, when he had nodded his head for Paul to speak on his own behalf, Paul responded by briefly acknowledging Felix’s tenure as governor: Knowing that for many years you have been a judge to this nation.

This is a brief sign of respect for the governing authorities. Though Felix was by many accounts not a good governor, Paul still believed in respecting the governing authorities, knowing that they acted as extensions of God’s justice to promote peace and punish wrongdoing, and that if they themselves were guilty of injustice, God would deal with them at the ultimate judgment (Romans 13:1-7, Titus 3:1, Isaiah 10:1-3). The Apostle Peter also wrote to believers that they should submit to the government and obey the law of the land (1 Peter 2:13-17).

Paul declares that he cheerfully will make his defense before Felix. He makes his defense cheerfully because Felix has been a judge to the Jewish nation for many years, meaning that Paul has confidence that Felix will rule with understanding rather than naiveté; Felix is not new to this position nor to Judea, so he has knowledge of his subjects, their culture, and will not be easily misled.

Paul summarizes the emptiness of the accusations against him by describing how brief his time in Jerusalem was and how he did nothing of note during his time there:

since you can take note of the fact that no more than twelve days ago I went up to Jerusalem to worship (v. 11)

Paul invites Felix to take note of the fact that he was only in Jerusalem as recently as twelve days ago. It is a fact that Paul went up to Jerusalem less than two weeks ago, no more than twelve days ago, and his business in Jerusalem was not to preach, but to worship. He is already poking a major hole in the accusation against him that he is an enemy of the temple or the Law of Moses. His purpose in Jerusalem was to worship. Specifically, he came to worship during Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks (Acts 20:16).

Paul’s time in Jerusalem was quiet. He did not call attention to himself. The elder of the Jerusalem church, James, brother of Jesus, warned Paul that people were watching him and believed the lie that he preached against the Law and the temple. James and the church elders advised Paul to pay for the temple sacrifices for some men who were under a vow, as a sign of good faith that he was not an enemy of the Law (Acts 21:20-24). Paul agreed to do this.

He continues his defense to Felix:

“Neither in the temple, nor in the synagogues, nor in the city itself did they find me carrying on a discussion with anyone or causing a riot (v. 12).

This is Paul’s strongest and best claim. He did no gospel-preaching while recently in Jerusalem. He did not debate anyone. At no point, in no location-Neither in the temple where Jews went to pray and worship, nor in the synagogues where they went to study scripture in community, nor in the city itself, not in the streets, the market, or at the gates-nowhere in Jerusalem did Paul engage in religious conversation so as to stir up dissension with anyone.

Paul puts the burden of proof on his accusers where it belongs; in no place nor at any time did they find Paul carrying on a discussion with anyone. He was in Jerusalem to worship, during which time he was taking a rest from his calling as a preacher of the gospel. And since he was never carrying on a discussion with anyone, he certainly could not be guilty of causing a riot.

Paul knew that “bonds and afflictions” awaited him in Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit had foretold it to him (Acts 20:22-23). He was not trying to avoid this fate, but was walking face-first into it (Acts 21:13). Nevertheless, he did not provoke it. His intent was to worship and celebrate the Feast of Weeks with his fellow Jews, peacefully refraining from causing any controversy. And yet he was attacked all the same.

Jews from Ephesus recognized him from his years of ministry in the Roman province of Asia (western modern-day Turkey). Paul did nothing to cause a riot, he simply walked through the temple one day. That was the extent of his crimes.

It was ironic that the charge leveled against him was that he was hostile to the temple and tried to desecrate it, when in reality he had been helping pay for temple sacrifices for four specific Jews who had taken a Jewish vow (Acts 21:22-25). Paul was attacked for allegedly defiling the temple when really he was in the midst of respecting and financially supporting it (Acts 21:27-30).

Paul finishes his defense by firmly asserting that it is impossible for his accusers to demonstrate any wrongdoing:

Nor can they prove to you the charges of which they now accuse me (v. 13).

There is no way for them to prove to Felix the charges of which they now accuse Paul. There is no evidence of Paul trying to “desecrate” the temple (Acts 24:6). It is a simple matter of one man’s word against another.

But Paul will confess to being a preacher of the gospel of Jesus. He is not afraid, nor is he trying to conceal his faith. He goes into further detail about his blameless time spent in Jerusalem, the slander against him and lack of evidence, while also explaining his faith in God and in resurrection from death.

Paul testifies to Felix that he is a believer in Jesus Christ:

“But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets (v. 14).

While Paul denies any wrongdoing, he agrees with his opponents about one thing. Paul says, But this I admit to you, this is true and he does not deny it, that he serves God according to the Way of Jesus Christ. The Way is what Christianity was first called (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 23, 22:4). It meant to follow the Way of Jesus of Nazareth, who taught that He was the only Way to God, righteousness, and eternal life. Paul notes that the Way is what his opponents call a sect.

The Jewish authorities try to belittle the Way by dismissing it as a sect, a small cultic following of a dead man. They had called it the sect of the Nazarenes, which was possibly an additional insult since Nazareth was a city that most looked down upon (John 1:46).

Paul proudly associates himself with this so-called sect. He admits that he does serve the God of our fathers in accordance to the Way of Jesus. Paul is claiming service to the same God that the high priest and elders accuse him of rejecting, the God of our fathers (referring to the fathers/patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). Rather than being an enemy of the Law, or the temple, or Moses (Acts 21:21, 28), Paul is a servant of God according to the Way because he believes it is a fulfillment of the Law.

He explains that the reason he serves God according to the Way is because it is exactly what God promised through His Word: Paul is believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets. He is referring to the Old Testament here; the Law refers to the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and the Prophets contain the remaining books of the Old Testament.

What God said would happen has happened through Jesus the Nazarene. Paul and the other New Testament evangelists and writers frequently quote the Old Testament to demonstrate how Jesus fulfilled God’s promises (Acts 2:25-32, 8:32-35, 13:32-37, Romans 15:12, Hebrews 8:8-12, 1 Peter 2:24).

One of the main threads throughout the Old Testament is God’s promise that He would establish a king from the line of David who would rule Israel forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16), and that His anointed Messiah would suffer and bring salvation to the world (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, 49:6). There are many, many more Old Testament scriptures which Jesus fulfilled.

Because of his belief in the fulfilled promises of the Law and the Prophets, Paul describes how he also believes in resurrection from death: having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked (v. 15).

He notes that these men cherish this hope in God also themselves, which is a generous effort to extend common cause to the same men who want to kill him. The high priest Ananias presumably cherishes the God of our fathers just as Paul does, though, as a Sadducee, he does not have hope in a resurrection. But Paul is a Jew, and a Pharisee at one point. He even claimed himself to be a Pharisee in the present tense during his trial in Jerusalem before the Sanhedrin (Acts 23:6).

It is possible that some of the elders from Jerusalem who have come to Caesarea are Pharisees as well, and that Paul is once again drawing attention to how he has a hope in God for resurrection just as some of these men cherish themselves.

Tertullus the lawyer is probably one of the scribes of the Jewish Law, which means he also believed in a resurrection. It was some of the scribes who turned around and defended Paul at his trial in Jerusalem (Acts 23:9). Paul seems to be ascribing common belief to some of the men prosecuting him before Felix, because they believed in a resurrection. The Sadducees/priests firmly did not believe in resurrection, nor did they believe in angels nor an afterlife (Matthew 22:23, Acts 23:8).

Paul’s hope is that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. This resurrection refers to a life after death. All men will die, but death is not like some infinite unconsciousness or obliteration. Every person’s existence will continue after death. Some people will be raised to everlasting life, others to everlasting separation from God (Daniel 12:2). The righteous are those whom God declares righteous, which can only happen if someone believes in Jesus.

In John 3:14-16, Jesus compared Himself to an image from the Old Testament. When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they were bitten by venomous snakes and were dying. They cried out to God, and God commanded Moses to have Aaron craft a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole. Then, whoever had enough faith in Moses's words to look upon the bronze snake, hoping to be delivered from the snake venom, they would have their life delivered from physical death (Numbers 21:4-9).

In the same way, Jesus was lifted up on a cross to deliver people from spiritual death. Every human is poisoned with the venom of sin that separates us from God. Without help, we will remain separated from God for eternity. But God has given us help in the person of Jesus. If we have enough faith simply to look on Jesus lifted up on the cross, hoping to be delivered from the sin that separates us from Him, then Jesus promises that we will have eternal life. Every sin of every human was nailed to that cross and taken away by Jesus (Colossians 2:14). All we are asked to do is put our trust in Him.

The wicked are those who have rejected Jesus and have not put their faith in Him, instead trusting in themselves, or the world, or nothing at all. Since they want nothing to do with God, this will determine their eternity and the destination of their resurrection. Usually resurrection refers to something dead becoming alive again, but here it refers more broadly to the fact that all who die, righteous or wicked, will still exist in an eternal state. Death is not the end, as the Sadducees believed.

Paul continues, In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men (v. 16).

When he says In view of this, he is referencing back to the previous statement he made, that he has a hope in God…that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked (v. 15).

In view of this hope of eternity, or because of it, Paul also does his best to maintain always a blameless conscience. Because Paul believes that life does not end at death, and that God will resurrect the righteous and the wicked, this directs how Paul lives his life (John 5:29). If he did not believe in a resurrection, he would probably act as any person might, by not caring whether his conscience is blameless or not. If death is the end-an eternal sleep from which we never wake-then what we do in life while we are awake does not affect this future nothingness. There are no eternal consequences for how we act.

But because Paul’s view is that there will be a resurrection (and by implication, a judgment-Acts 17:30-31), then he logically also believes that his actions before God and before men matter a great deal. Thus, Paul does his best to maintain always a blameless conscience by living harmoniously with his fellow man, especially those he has disagreements with.

The accusation against him is that he is a troublemaker and hostile to the Jewish people, and Paul is claiming that, to the contrary, he lives his life so that he is at peace with everyone else, not an enemy, not as one who sins against his neighbor, nor as one who provides a bad example of following Jesus (Romans 12:18, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).

It was vital to Paul for himself and other believers to test ourselves to make sure we are living out our faith (2 Corinthians 2:13). If we find we have sinned, we can repent and find forgiveness from God every time (1 John 1:9). In one of Paul’s letters to his protégé Timothy, he highlights the intended result of his teaching: “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5).

Paul describes to Felix his recent travels and how he ended up being attacked and taken captive. This serves to explain to Felix exactly what happened so that he can render a judgment, as well as supporting Paul’s claim that he does his best to maintain always a blameless conscience. Paul will explain how he did nothing against the Jewish people:

Now after several years I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings (v. 17).

Paul had been away from Jerusalem for several years, preaching the gospel primarily in Asia (the Roman province in modern-day western Turkey). Specifically, Paul spent most of his time in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia (Acts 19:10). He has not been in Jerusalem for several years. Now, after this time away, he came back to bring alms to his nation and to present offerings. We see Paul’s efforts to raise these alms to help the suffering Jerusalem church in his letter to the Corinthians and the Romans (1 Corinthians 16:1-4, 2 Corinthians 8:1-8, Romans 15:25-28).

Alms is a term for money given specifically to help someone in need. Alms are charity. Paul also identifies Judea as my nation, emphasizing that he is also a Jew and not against his own nation. Rather, he has brought foreign aid to help his nation; he has been raising funds from the Gentiles to relieve the suffering of his Jewish brothers and sisters. Most likely, these alms would help provide food for the Jerusalem believers, similar to the charity Paul had transported to Jerusalem in the past, when the church in Syrian Antioch sent alms (Acts 11:28-30). In his opening defense, Paul makes the point that he a) is supporting the poor in Israel (bring alms), b) is a member of the nation of Israel, and c) is religiously observant (present offerings).

Paul also came to present offerings in the temple during Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks. These offerings may refer to the temple sacrifices he paid for to help the Jewish believers who had taken a temporary vow, and who needed financial aid to help conclude the vow by purchasing sacrificial animals and priest services (Acts 21:23-24, 26). This was further proof that Paul was not hostile to Judaism, nor was he in town to “desecrate the temple” or “stir up dissension” among the Jews (Acts 24:5-6). He was practicing Jewish custom by presenting offerings.

Paul now details the innocent circumstances in which his abusers assaulted him:

in which they found me occupied in the temple, having been purified, without any crowd or uproar. But there were some Jews from Asia-(v. 18).

The context of Paul’s presence in the Jerusalem temple was that he was presenting offerings, in which time he says, they found me. They refers broadly to his accusers, though he will later specify who instigated the attack against him.

Paul was occupied in the temple, having been purified, without any crowd or uproar. His accusers have made him out to be a rabble-rouser and assailant against the temple, but Paul was not in the temple stirring up any crowd or uproar.

He was there anonymously, having been purified, meaning he had cleansed himself in a mikveh, a Jewish baptismal/bath. Every Jew who ascended to the temple would first have to be immersed/purified in the water of a mikveh. They would go down into the bath, dunk themselves under the water, and step out purified for their time in the temple. This shows that Paul had conformed to Jewish norms of religious ritual.

Paul had not violated any Jewish law or norm. He was in the temple quietly to conclude his sponsorship of the vows of other Jews (Acts 21:26-27).

Paul notes that it was specifically some Jews from Asia who turned his peaceful presence in the temple into a controversy. He then, as an aside, makes the point that these Jews from Asia who attacked him should have come down to Caesarea to make their case against him:

who ought to have been present before you and to make accusation, if they should have anything against me (v. 19).

This is another solid argument in his own defense. There in Caesarea, in the court of Felix, the men accusing Paul were Ananias the high priest, Tertullus the attorney, and some unnamed Jewish elders (Acts 24:1). Based on this text and Acts 21-22, none of these men were present for the attack on Paul’s life in the temple courtyard, when Paul allegedly tried to “desecrate the temple” by bringing a Gentile into its inner rooms.

The Jews from Asia were the men who accused Paul of desecrating the temple and subsequently rallied a mob to try to beat Paul to death (Acts 21:27-30). But these Jews from Asia are not present in Caesarea to give testimony, though they ought to have been present before Felix to make accusation.

Instead, it is the high priest and his lawyer who have come to make accusation about something they did not witness. This would be what our modern legal system refers to as “hearsay.” Paul is making the point that there are first-hand witnesses and they are not present at the hearing. Therefore, this entire proceeding is legally flawed.

The person who actually witnessed the crime has to give testimony themselves if they want their claim to be taken seriously. Paul reasonably points out that if the Jews from Asia had anything against him, they ought to be in Caesarea to accuse Paul, not the high priest or these other elders who were not there when Paul was attacked. That it is the political leaders at the hearing, rather than the actual witnesses, demonstrates that this is actually a political assassination attempt.

And if the high priest and his team should have anything against Paul, they ought to speak from their own experience. The only thing Paul can imagine they would hold against him is his belief in the resurrection:

“Or else let these men themselves tell what misdeed they found when I stood before the Council, other than for this one statement which I shouted out while standing among them, ‘For the resurrection of the dead I am on trial before you today'” (vs. 20-21).

Paul says Or else, otherwise, since these men (Ananias, etc.), weren’t present for the crime they accuse him of, let these men tell what misdeed they found against him. Their only experience with Paul was when he stood before the Council in Acts 23, when the Romans brought Paul to be examined by the Sanhedrin (the elite Jewish Council of priests and rabbis).

If Ananias or the elders have any misdeed to accuse Paul of, they should speak from personal experience and bear witness, rather than spread rumor based on other men’s accusations, men who aren’t even present for the trial in Caesarea.

Paul introduces the only misdeed they might hold against him, one which was not a misdeed at all. If they can tell Felix of any other crimes they found when he stood trial before them, Paul would like to hear it. The one controversy Paul caused before the Council was when he made this one statement which he shouted out while standing among them. It was when Paul realized the high priest was against him and would rule unfairly that Paul shouted out a divisive statement:

‘For the resurrection of the dead I am on trial before you today'” (v. 21).

Paul shouted out this statement because 1) it was true; it was the foundation of faith in Christ, that He resurrected from the dead and would judge the dead when they are resurrected, both the righteous and the wicked (Acts 17:30-31, John 5:28-29), and 2) because Paul knew it would incite debate within the Council itself.

Paul’s motivation for shouting this statement before the Sanhedrin is not explicitly stated. It seems he started the debate in part for his own self-preservation, but Paul never shied away from sharing the gospel when able (Acts 26:29). He possibly shouted his faith also to sway Pharisees on the Council toward the truth of Jesus’s resurrection.

After he declared that he was on trial simply for believing in resurrection, the Pharisees took Paul’s side, since they too believed in a future resurrection, even if most of them had rejected Jesus as Messiah (while a few believed in Him, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea). The Sadducees (the priests) did not believe in angels, miracles, or resurrections. Thus, a debate erupted once Paul reminded the Council that he was a Pharisee and believed in something the Pharisees also believed in.

Some of the scribes even entertained the possibility that Paul had received a message from God. If the situation had not turned life-threatening, Paul may have been able to lead some of the Council members to faith in Jesus. But the Romans extracted Paul from the situation “by force” because they feared he would be torn apart by some of the members of the Council (Acts 23:10).

Paul’s defense of himself to Felix concludes. Paul has sufficiently argued that there is no substance or credibility to anything that he is being accused of, and those who have come to prosecute him were not even present for his alleged offense in the temple. He has once again turned the focus of his trial toward his faith in the resurrection of Jesus and the eternal judgment of humankind, as foretold in the Jewish scriptures.