Politics might be the farthest thing from your mind right now? After all it’s a new year – a new church year, that is. For our final lesson in our study Politics we go down the rabbit hole how of slander, assassination, and bribery.
Let’s consider the Apostle Paul. The messy part of his stay in prison started with a small army of Roman troops – two centurions – escorting him to Caesarea. That was fine and good. There was a pack of Jewish assassins who were planning on killing Paul. On horse back surrounded by Roman troops was the safest place for him to be. But the government isn’t always a friend to the church. Felix held the Apostle Paul in jail for more than two years waiting on him to offer a bribe that never came. Paul used this time wisely. It was during this time that he was able to write the churches. Much of the New Testament comes from the pen of the Apostle Paul.
At the end of Felix’ reign a man by the name of Festus took over. He wanted to make the local authorities happy and knew nothing of the Apostle Paul so he was inclined to send Paul back to Jerusalem to stand trial. There was no malice in this decision, but Paul would have been in the same perilous position on the way back to Jerusalem with no small army to defend him. So instead of taking that risk he appealed to Caesar. This was the right of every Roman citizen, to stand trial before the emperor, however, this was normally a bad idea. The Roman emperors were not always kind and loving to their subjects – to put it mildly. Paul was willing to take that risk for the sake of the Gospel. The book of Acts does not record how Paul’s story ended. Legend has it that he continued on to modern day Spain spreading the gospel of Jesus as he went.
You can find all of the Bible classes in our Politics series HERE.
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.