Today we will continue Paul’s story as he arrives in Jerusalem, and James, the leader of the Jerusalem church advises Paul in a way to avoid provoking the Jews. He tells Paul that there are four men who have taken a vow to purify themselves, and advises Paul to go purify himself with them, so that the zealous Jews would have no reason to doubt Paul followed the law of Moses.
But, as it always seems in Paul’s interactions with his fellow Jews, what followed was not them seeing Paul’s commitment to the law of Moses, but instead them accusing him of bringing a Gentile into the temple. They did this because they saw one of his companions, Trophimus, was a Gentile, and they just assumed he had brought him into the temple, even though Paul was completely innocent. Regardless of Paul’s innocence, the Jews rushed Paul, dragged him out to the temple and planned to kill him.
And now enters the person who will be our card preview today, Claudius Lysias. Lysias was a chiliarch which means commander of 1000, and he was basically the military officer in charge of the troops in Jerusalem. So obviously when he heard that there was an uproar in Jerusalem, he took some of his soldiers to go and check it out. Unable to get a clear idea of why this mob was attacking Paul because of different people in the crowd shouting different things, Lysias went to have Paul moved from the mob and into the barracks. But then Paul asked the commander if he could ask him a question (didn’t give him much choice there did he?), and the commander responded by asking Paul if he spoke Greek, because the commander had it in his mind that Paul was an Egyptian Rebel who had led men in revolt. When Paul revealed that he indeed wasn’t that man, Commander Lysias gave him permission to address the crowd.
Paul recounted his conversion on the way to Damascus to the crowd in his speech, but when Paul mentioned that the Lord would send him to the Gentiles, the crowed would become even more riled up, as they shouted that Paul should be killed.
Lysias had had quite enough of this by this point, and ordered Paul be taken into the barracks and flogged. However, as one of the centurions under Lysias’ command stretched Paul out to be flogged, Paul questioned the centurion if it was legal for him to flog a Roman citizen before he had even been tried. Alarmed, the centurion went and reported Paul’s citizenship to Lysias, who even more alarmed went to Paul to inquire about his citizenship.
Roman citizenship was a very valuable thing to have in the Roman world granting many rights and privileges, and at this point in history was an uncommon and very coveted thing (though at a point in the future, citizenship would be granted to all those who lived in the Empire in 212 AD). Upon the commander’s questioning, Paul revealed that he had been born into citizenship, while Lysias himself had had to pay greatly for his citizenship. Because one could not just buy citizenship, this actually likely referred to Lysias paying bribes to nobles to obtain a citizenship, and his patron may very well have been Emperor Claudius himself, which would mean that he would have taken Claudius’ name. We will never know for sure if this is how Lysias achieved citizenship, but nonetheless he was very alarmed because his binding and attempting to flog a Roman citizen without charging him was highly illegal.
Lysias wanted to know why the Jews were so intent on killing this man, and so he had him put before the Sanhedrin. When Paul addressed the Sanhedrin, the high priest ordered that Paul be struck, to which Paul responded with a scathing insult, calling the man a “whitewashed wall.” However, when he learned that he had insulted the high priest, he apologized, since he didn’t realize that who he had insulted.
Then in a great move, Paul declared to the Sanhedrin that he was only there because he believed in the resurrection of the dead. Now see, the Sanhedrin was composed of the Sadducees, who believed there was no resurrection, and the Pharisees, who believed there was, and this was a matter of sharp dispute between the two. This of course sparked a great argument, that, of course, turned violent. The commander, fearing for Paul’s safety, since he couldn’t well have a Roman citizen killed by a mob under his watch could he, again had troops take Paul into the barracks. Paul during that night was visited by the Lord, who comforted him telling him he would speak the message in Rome.
The danger for Paul in Jerusalem was not over, as the doomed conspirators plotted to kill Paul, as you can read about in the previous preview article. When Lysias learned of this plot, he called for two of the centurions under his command, and told them to have Paul taken down to Caesarea to protect him. He sent Paul with an escort of 470 men to protect him on his way to Governor Felix.
And here we see the last of Commander Claudius Lysias in Acts, as he sends a letter with Paul on his way to Felix. For the most part, this letter was just Lysias explaining the situation to Felix, but curiously, Lysias lies in his letter, claiming that he moved to save Paul because Paul was a Roman citizen, when in fact he had only come to know Paul was a Roman citizen after he had already violated Paul’s rights. As we say goodbye to Lysias’ role in the story, let us look a the card we will use to represent him.
Now we represent Lysias role in the story in Redemption first with his ability to transfer a captured Hero representing his transfer of Paul to Felix to protect Paul from the conspirators. We further represent the fact that, though he didn’t do it because Paul was a Roman citizen like he claimed, Lysias did indeed save Paul from the Jewish mob by imprisoning him. As such, characters discarded in battle while Lysias is there will be saved from discard, and captured instead. Finally, his role as commander is represented by his ability to band to any Roman soldier.
Next time we will move on to Paul’s trials before Governors Felix and Festus, so be sure to check back then.
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