Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 23-25.

I want to focus on something that the Roman commander of the Jerusalem garrison wrote in his letter to the governor when he sent Paul to the governor in Caesarea: “there was no charge against him which deserved death or imprisonment.”  So, the commander found no basis for imprisoning Paul, yet he sent him as a prisoner to the governor in Caesarea.  There the governor, Felix, had the Jewish leaders come down and make their case against Paul.  Felix found no basis for condemning Paul, but kept him as a prisoner anyway.  When Festus succeeded Felix as governor, he held a hearing on the charges against Paul.  Festus also found no basis in the law for keeping Paul a prisoner, but ruled in a manner which led Paul to believe he had no choice but to appeal to the emperor.  So, we must ask, since none of these men found a legal basis for Paul to be imprisoned, why did they keep him imprisoned?

The commander of the Jerusalem garrison would have claimed that he did so to protect Paul from those plotting to kill him.  Yet, he did not need to send him to Caesarea as a prisoner in order to protect him.   Luke tells us that Felix was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, but Luke also tells us that he wanted to do the Jews a favor when he left the office of governor, so he did not release Paul.  Festus found no basis  in law for keeping Paul a prisoner, but he wanted Paul to go to Jerusalem to face charges.  However, all three men had one thing in common, they feared that if they released Paul that there would be riots in Jerusalem (and perhaps elsewhere).  So, rather than do what they believed was what the law called for and release Paul, they kept him imprisoned.  The Sanhedrin used the threat of riots to manipulate the Roman authorities into punishing those they found inconvenient.  It is not actually accurate to say it was the Sanhedrin which did this.  As we read between the lines in the Gospels and the Book of Acts we see that it was a select group of the most powerful members of the Sanhedrin, including the high priest.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.