Acts 26

Acts 26:6

And accordingly now I am accused for asserting the resurrection of the dead, which as it is a doctrine acknowledged by the Pharisees, so is it the fundamental promise made of old,

Acts 26:7

And generally depended on by the Jews, and in intuition thereof it is that they spend their time in piety and obedience to God: and yet for the believing and expecting this I am accused by these Jews.

Acts 26:8

This being by me asserted to be founded in the resurrection of Christ, that is the thing that is most disbelieved, God’s having raised Christ from the dead. And why should that be judged so incredible?

Acts 26:9

I confess I was once of opinion that I was obliged to persecute this profession and doctrine of Christ. c was a principal actor, ch. vii. 56, and approver of the sentence, ch. viii. 1.

Acts 26:11

And in other cities beside Jerusalem I brought them into their courts, and used all rigid means to make them deny Christ; and was so fierce against them, that I forced them to fly to heathen cities, and then pursued them thither. d sanhedrim, ch. ix. 2.

Acts 26:14

Ch. ix. 3, 4. * for thou art chosen by me to be a preacher of the gospel, which thou hast persecuted, and to proclaim unto others what thou hast now and shalt hereafter see;

Acts 26:17

Making a special choice of thee out of all the Jews and Gentiles, and now giving thee commission to go and preach the gospel to them: see ch. ix. 15.

Acts 26:18

To shew them their duty; to turn them from all their idolatrous sinful, to all gracious godly courses; from being the slaves of the devil, to be the servants of God; thereby to have their sins forgiven, and by believing in me to have an inheritance, a future eternal blissful portion, among the saints of God.

Acts 26:19

Upon this vision so glorious, and these words of Christ from heaven, I could not but yield:

Acts 26:20

But preached at Damascus first, then at Jerusalem, then through all Judæa, and even among the Gentiles, the doctrine of repentance and amendment, and necessity of bringing forth all fruits of new life in an eminent manner, which indeed is the sum of the gospel of Christ.

Acts 26:21

And for this it was that I had like to have been killed by the Jews as I was in the temple.

Acts 26:22

But God rescued me, and accordingly I go on to do this, preaching nothing in effect but what is perfectly agreeable to the writings of Moses and the prophets:

Acts 26:23

That Christ should be put to death, and that by his rising again from death, both the Jews and Gentiles should be brought to believe on him.

thou talkest distractedly; sure thy learning and high opinion of it hath put thee out of thy wits.

what I say is perfectly true, and hath nothing of excess or transportation in it.

Acts 26:26

Agrippa, I am confident, knows it to be so, and therefore I fear not his censure; (see note [a] John vii.) for these things, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, were things of very public cognizance, and cannot be unknown to him that was a Jew born.

Acts 26:31

[a] nothing worthy of death or—] The truth of this speech of king Agrippa and his company, that Paul had done nothing worthy of death or bonds, depends on the consideration of the time wherein it was spoken. For the Roman magistrates judging by the Roman laws, that which was not against any law of the emperors was not cognoscible or punishable (especially by death or imprisonment, deprivation of life or liberty) by them. Thus when Paul is accused by the Jews, and brought before the proconsul of Achaia, Gallio, c. 18, he tells them plainly, that “he will not be a judge of such matters,” which the Roman law, then in Claudius’s reign, had said nothing of. For though, c. 18. 2, an edict had been by Claudius toward the end of his reign set out against the Jews, to banish them out of Italy, &c., and by that the Christian Jews, as Jews, not as Christians, fell under that interdict, and so did Priscilla and Aquila there, (and John the apostle, banished into Patmos, in Claudius’s reign, saith Epiphanius, Hier. ἀλόγ.) yet as to the difference betwixt Jews and Christians, there referred to by Gallio, (in proportion to the accusation brought against him by the Jews, περὶ λόγου, of a word, as whether Jesus were the Messias or no, περὶ ὀνομάτων, of names, as whether the name Christian or disciple, &c. were unlawful, as those discriminated them from incredulous Jews, περὶ νόμου τοῦ καθ’ ὑμᾶς, concerning the law in force among the Jews, about conversing with the uncircumcised, &c.) there was then no law set out by the emperors at Rome, and therefore no rule for the proconsul to go