Just Like Them

 ACTS IN 90 DAYS

A reading for Thursday, September 24, 2020: Acts 26:1-11.

"I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee."

One of the gifts Paul always brought to any discussion of faith was his experience. He knew Judaism from the inside. He spoke Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. He was a Roman citizen, a trader in the marketplace, and a trained Rabbi from the school of Gamaliel. He was a Pharisee, and even considered a zealot for the law persecuting Christians for their lack of faith. Paul had been around...

So when he begins to testify, he starts by explaining that he is no outsider. He is not a threat because he is different. He is a threat, primarily because he is just like his accusers. There is no difference, he tells Agrippa, between his history and heritage and that of the council bringing the charges. 

And yet Paul has been transformed! Thanks be to God.