Chapter 23

Paul begins to speak, and Ananias, the high priest, has him struck violently.  Paul asks how it is that he is to be judged by the law if the man doing it has had him beaten against the law?  Paul doesn't seem to realize that this is the High Priest.  Paul notices that both Sadducees and Pharisees are present, and declares himself a Pharisee to divide and conquer.  This works, somehow, and the contention gets so high that the Tribune is afraid they're going to tear Paul apart.  The Tribune gets Paul out of there.  Then that night, back in the barracks, this verse:

11 The following night the Lord stood by him and said, "Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome." [Act 23:11 ESV]

The quotes are in red in my ESV.  These words indicate that what Paul is doing is in harmony with God's plans for him.  This is how Paul will get to Rome.  However, it could be that this is all things working together for good, though Paul shouldn't really have been in Jerusalem in the first place.  Why would he be warned by so many not to go if he was indeed supposed to go!?

2021 - Here too it just seems to me that Paul is resorting to "worldly" tactics to keep himself alive.  This Roman Tribune is his savior in these repeated confrontations.  Paul's testimony in Jerusalem - as much as they let him get out - was that the voice that spoke from heaven was Jesus of Nazareth.  The Jews believed only God could speak from heaven like this.  So Paul had said to the Jews that Jesus was God incarnate.  This is the testimony, and this is why the Jews were so infuriated.  So...perhaps Paul was making a few mistakes along the way - one being that he never should have posed as a keeper of the Law, another being his appeal to the Tribune as a Roman citizen, and now playing Pharisee against Sadducee to prevent them agreeing that he should die  - but his testimony is true, unaltered, uncompromised, and infuriating to the Jewish establishment.  This was the High Priest and his cronies.  These were not Jewish Elders from the Jerusalem Church. 

2022 - Jesus had told his disciples not to plan ahead what they would say when persecuted by civil authorities.  He had told them he would give them the words they needed.  Perhaps Paul was just heeding that injunction.  Perhaps God was indeed putting words in his mouth each time he was brought before a decision making body.  I find it interesting that up until Paul starts for Jerusalem, he was the one making the decisions.  That is to say, he would pray, and go as the Spirit led.  We see this over and over in his decision making.  But once the tribune arrests Paul outside the temple, all decisions about his future are in the hands of men...and mostly in the hands of Gentiles/Romans/unbelievers.  So this is a sea change in what we have seen before.  We have to believe that Paul ignored the warnings of so many because God was telling him, as an apostle, that he had to go to Jerusalem.  To this point, Paul has always heeded the Spirit's guidance.  He has to know that the prophecies warning him about Jerusalem were testimony to others that he was hearing directly from God.  He was an example of going into the lions den, despite warnings, if that is indeed what God is telling you to do.  And if we go that far, we must also assume that Paul's words - and the sequence of events that resulted from his words - were also part of God's plan to get him to Rome.  I mean...the council the tribune takes him to has to be made up of some very intelligent - though unbelieving - men.  Yet they fall for this "trick" Paul uses to put them at odds with each other, and they all leave sense behind and are apparently about to attack each other also in their zeal to do something about Paul.  Surely they would have recognized what Paul was doing and laughed at him for his tactics...unless God blinded them to his real intent...and indirectly to His own intent.

Forty Jews vow not to eat or drink until they have killed Paul.  Such evil intent.  Such unquenchable error.  In the name of religion.  They plot with the high priest and the council - all conspiring to kill Paul.  But the plot is revealed to the Tribune by Paul's nephew.  The Tribune organizes a large party of soldiers - two hundred with spears, seventy mounted - to move Paul out of Jerusalem and to Governor Felix in Caesarea.  He sends a letter with the group.

So Paul is taken to Caesarea, and Felix agrees to give him a hearing when his accusers arrive.

2022 - This verse:

26 "Claudius Lysias, to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. [Act 23:26 ESV].  this begins a "transcript" of the letter from a Roman tribune, who's name we finally learn, to the Roman governor in Ceasarea.  I think Ceasarea is in a different Roman "state" than Jerusalem.  Jerusalem in is Judea, Ceasarea is near the border between Samaria and Galilee.  This would seem definitely to be a different jurisdiction...although Rome could have appointed Felix governor over all three states.  How though, did Luke get hold of the actual letter that was sent?  He pretty much quotes it word for word.