Acts 22:17-21 – Paul’s conclusion to his defense

Continuing with his defense to the Jews, Paul recollected the time he returned to Jerusalem after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. Although Acts 9:26-30 made reference to this visit, it didn’t tell us about the trance that he experienced while praying. Here Paul tells us what actually happened in that experience. He was in the temple and while in a trance then, the Lord warned him of the threats on his life. He was told to make haste and leave Jerusalem for the Jews would not accept his testimony. Perhaps Paul was indicating that his visits to the temple were respectfully conducted and he went there to pray. And he was not in the temple to defile it as they had purported.

Here we are told that Paul, when warned by the Lord, remonstrated with Him. He argued that what he did against Christians in Jerusalem was a well-known fact. He recounted how he went from synagogue to synagogue to arrest Christians to put them behind bars and had them beaten. He even recounted how he also took part and gave consent to Stephen’s martyrdom. He witnessed the spilling of his blood and looked after the coats of those who pelted and killed Stephen with the stones.

In the account in Acts 9, when the news, that the hostile Hellenistic Jews wanted to put Paul to death, came to the knowledge of the brethren, it was they who brought Paul to Caesarea and sent him to Tarsus. In this account in Acts 22, we learned that the intention of the hostile Jews to kill Paul was revealed to him by the Lord in the trance. Knowing that the Jews would not listen to Him, the Lord told him to leave Jerusalem and sent him on his mission to reach the Gentiles. There is no contradiction in the two accounts. It merely tells us that God’s will and man’s action can coincide. 

Paul brought this up to the Jews in his defense was to show that his mission to the Gentiles, and his rejection at Jerusalem, were for the same reason. He was merely answering the call of Christ in his life. He was actually telling the Jews that he did not leave Judaism to go to the Gentiles. But that his going to the Gentiles was to keep pace with the direction of the God of Judaism.

Paul’s going to the Gentiles was an indication of the graciousness of God. He was obeying God’s call on his life. It was God’s initiative. This account shows us that fulfilling God’s call upon our lives and our desire to be faithful to it, may not necessarily mean that we will be trouble free. Others may be baffled and we may be misunderstood. Whatever the case, we need to know that we and the church are constantly subjected to God’s new initiative, and we should not let our usual way of doing things deafen us to God’s call into His new initiative.