Saturday, August 26: “Strange Gratitude”
Acts 25: 24, 25: “Festus said, ‘King Agrippa, and all you gentlemen here present with us, you see this man about whom all the people of the Jews appealed to me, both at Jerusalem and here, loudly declaring that he ought not to live any longer. But I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death; and since he himself appealed to the Emperor, I decided to send him.”
What had St. Paul done, that the Jews in Jerusalem and Caesarea deemed him unworthy to live? He healed some folks, raised one young man from the dead, and opened the scriptures as no one ever had, revealing the Christ within them which had been hidden for two thousand years. This qualifies one for death? Even the pagan Romans saw the injustice in that. Governor Festus and King Agrippa, the last Herod, proved more righteous than they. Paul’s words may have wounded their religious hypocrisy, but those wounds could have set them free, if only they had received them.
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