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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Acts 22:22 - 22:28
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Paul and the Chief Captain.
Paul asserts his citizenship:
v. 22. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live.
v. 23. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air,
v. 24. the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging, that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.
v. 25. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?
v. 26. When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest; for this man is a Roman.
v. 27. Then the chief captain came and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.
v. 28. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. and Paul said, But I was free-born.
Paul's simple declaration of fact that he was called by the Lord by a direct revelation to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles threw the fanatical Jews into a perfect frenzy of fury. Up to this point in his speech they listened to him, but now they acted like men bereft of their senses. They lifted up their voices in angry shrieks, saying that such a man should promptly be destroyed from the face of the earth, since it was no longer proper to let him live, that he was not fit to live. This yelling they kept up, incidentally tossing their garments, their mantles, about in a fit of uncontrollable rage, and throwing dust up into the air. In their actions baffled fury and extreme contempt are combined to produce such an exhibition as only a mob deprived of its victim is able to present. The tribune now commanded Paul to be taken into the barracks, directing at the same time that the question should be put to him, that a hearing of his side of the matter should be made with torture, while the scourge was applied to him. This terrible method was resorted to by the Romans in the case of prisoners, especially of the lower class, in order to force a confession from their lips, if suitable evidence was not at hand. Thus the tribune wanted to find out why it was that the people shouted at him in that way. But as they had stretched him forward by bending his back over the whipping-post and were getting ready to fasten him with straps, Paul asked the centurion that was standing by and superintending the ghastly work whether it was permitted to scourge a Roman citizen without a proper trial. The question, as humbly as it was put, was not without its irony and reproach for the proceeding adopted in his case. In great consternation the centurion made a report to his superior officer, the commander of the garrison: What are you going to do? This man is a Roman citizen. This information brought the chiliarch in a great hurry. He asked Paul directly whether he were a Roman citizen, and Paul answered in the affirmative. With some doubt in his voice, the tribune then told Paul that he had acquired his Roman citizenship by the outlay of a considerable sum of money, thus confessing to an act of bribery. For citizenship in Rome was properly obtained either by being conferred by the Roman senate for meritorious conduct, or it was inherited from a father who was a Roman citizen, or it was the birthright of him that was born in a free city. And therefore Paul, in this case, could state with justifiable pride that he had been born a Roman citizen. It is altogether right and to be approved if Christians under circumstances make use of their rights as citizens.