Acts 23:10-27

10 The captain was more concerned that a Roman citizen should not be injured than to get their report, and so sends his soldiers to rescue him a second time from their clutches. It was well that he was again taken into the custody of the Romans, for the Jews would soon have torn him to pieces.

11 After such experiences we may well imagine that the future looked black to the persecuted saint. Now, if ever, he might yield to discouraging forebodings. At just such periods in the apostle's ministry he received divine help in the form of a vision to comfort and encourage him. In Corinth, when Jewish opposition threatened to wreck his testimony, the Lord spoke to him "Fear not! " And the reason was that God had a purpose to fulfil which demanded his continuance (Act_18:9). Again, in the midst of the storm on his journey to Rome, he is again assured, "Fear not, Paul" (Act_27:24). So now, he receives the definite and cheering assurance that it is the purpose of God that he should fulfill his wish to see Rome. Besides, the Lord commends his testimony in Jerusalem, which was such a failure seemingly. This word of approval should deter us from criticising any of the apostle's acts, for they undoubtedly were in line with God's purpose, and that, rather than our own provincial standard of right and wrong, is the true test of conduct. Results are not the test of a true ministry. Paul at Jerusalem was as great a failure as Noah, Elijah and Jeremiah. But for this commendation, Paul would seem to be out of the will of God.

12 In contrast with this serene assurance is the malignant activity of the Jews, who seem to have recovered from their temporary occupation with their own differences. The apostle now becomes the object of a plot to assassinate him. Thus the Roman citadel becomes his fortress rather than his prison. If the conspirators had been true to their oath, more than forty of them would have died of self inflicted famine, but the Talmud assures us that they could be absolved. What a conscienceless load of crime was cloaked under the religious zeal of these pious Jews!

16 Paul's family was influential in the Hebrew world. His nephew was in a position to learn the secret plans of the Jewish leaders.

18 Roman citizens, while awaiting trial were kept in custody in several ways: accordrng to circumstances and the rank of the prisoner. Public custody consisted in being thrust into the common jails and confined in dungeons of the worst kind. They were kept in chains or kept in stocks as in the case of Paul and Silas at Philippi. Free custody was simply a guarantee on the part of some person of high rank that the person would appear for trial. Military custody consisted in putting the person in charge of a soldier who was responsible for the prisoner with his own life. It was usual to chain the prisoner's right hand to the soldier's left. Sometimes, however the military custody was relaxed to the extent of merely putting the prisoner under the observation of a soldier, without chains. The soldiers, of course, relieved one another in military custody. There seems to be no doubt that Paul's imprisonment was a mild form of military custody, with liberty of access for his friends and relatives.

23 The Roman provinces were divided into armed and unarmed, the former being under the authority of the emperor, the latter under the senate. Roughly speaking, the garrisoned provinces were on the frontiers, or where the country had not been fully subjugated. Tacitus and.Josephus tell us that the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth legions were stationed in Caesarea, Ptolemais, or Jerusalem a few years after this. They were largely recruited in the province where they were located. The Jews were, however, exempt from military duty, so that the soldiers in Judea were drawn from the Syrian and Greek population. A legion consisted of more than six thousand infantry, perhaps as many auxiliaries, besides a regiment of cavalry. Such was the force at the captain's command from which he drew the detachment which conveyed Paul to Caesarea, the seat of the governor of the province.

26 Claudius Lysias was a diplomat and did not stop at a simple lie to gain credit for himself for having protected a Roman citizen from the Jews.