Book of Common Prayer

Roman fair-mindedness

³⁰ Next day the colonel, determined to get to the bottom of Paul’s accusation by the Jews, released him and ordered the assembly of the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin. Then he took Paul down and placed him in front of them.

Paul again attempts defence

23 ^1-3 Paul looked steadily at the Sanhedrin and spoke to them, “men and brothers, I have lived my life with a perfectly clear conscience before God up to the present day—” Then Ananias the High Priest ordered those who were standing near to strike him in the mouth. At this Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you white-washed wall! How dare you sit there judging me by the Law and give orders for me to be struck, which is clean contrary to the Law?”

⁴ Those who stood by said, “Do you mean to insult God’s High Priest?”

⁵ But Paul said, “My brothers, I did not know that he was the High Priest, for it is written: ‘You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.’”

Paul seizes his opportunity

⁶ Then Paul, realising that part of the council were Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, raised his voice and said to them, “I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees. It is for my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial!”

^7-9a At these words an immediate tension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the meeting was divided. For the Sadducees claim that there is no resurrection and that there is neither angel nor spirit, while the Pharisees believe in all three. A great uproar ensued and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party jumped to their feet and protested violently.

^9b “We find nothing wrong with this man! Suppose some angel or spirit has really spoken to him?”

¹⁰ As the tension mounted the colonel began to fear that Paul would be torn to pieces between them. He therefore ordered his soldiers to come down and rescue him from them and bring him back to the barracks.

God’s direct encouragement to Paul

¹¹ That night the Lord stood by Paul, and said, “Take heart!—for as you have witnessed boldly for me in Jerusalem so you must give your witness to me in Rome.”

The need for thorough-going sincerity

^39-40 Then he gave them an illustration—“Can one blind man be guide to another blind man? Surely they will both fall into the ditch together. A disciple is not above his teacher, but when he is fully trained he will be like his teacher.”

^41-42 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and fail to notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when you cannot see the plank in your own? You fraud, take the plank out of your own eye first and then you can see clearly enough to remove your brother’s speck.”

^43-45 “It is impossible for a good tree to produce bad fruit—as impossible as it is for a bad tree to produce good fruit. Do not men know what a tree is by its fruit? You cannot pick figs from briars, or gather a bunch of grapes from a blackberry bush! A good man produces good things from the good stored up in his heart, and a bad man produce evil things from his own stores of evil. For a man’s words will always express what has been treasured in his heart.”

⁴⁶ “And what is the point of calling me, ‘Lord, Lord’, without doing what I tell you to do?”

^47-49 “Let me show you what the man who comes to me, hears what I have to say, and puts it into practice, is really like. He is like a man building a house, who dug down to rock-bottom and laid the foundation of his house upon it. Then when the flood came and flood-water swept down upon that house, it could not shift it because it was properly built. But the man who hears me and does nothing about it is like a man who built his house with its foundation upon the soft earth. When the flood-water swept down upon it, it collapsed and the whole house crashed down in ruins.”