BEING A WITNESS FOR CHRIST

Acts 22:15 ... "You will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard."

      In Acts 22:1-21 Luke records the speech Paul made on the flight of stairs that led from inside the Temple compound up into the adjoining Roman fortress. Moments before, Paul had been mobbed by angry Jews who assumed he had brought a Gentile into the Temple. He would likely have been killed by them had not the watchful Romans saw the trouble and rushed down with a squadron of troops to rescue him. When he got up the stairs, Paul asked permission from the captain to address the crowd. Surprisingly, the agitated people became quiet and allowed Paul to speak until he mentioned the word "Gentile" (v.21); then they again flew into a rage.

      While they listened, Paul recounted to them the event of his conversion to Christ at Damascus. After seeing Jesus in the sky above the road on the approach to the city, he heard His command to "arise and go on into Damascus" where he would "be told of all that has been appointed for you to do," (v.10). Later, a man named Ananias,"a man who was devout by the standard of the Law," came to Paul with the Lord's instructions about what was appointed for him to do. First, of course, there was the necessity of obeying the gospel. Ananias said to him, "Why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name," (v.16). Now that he was a Christian, Paul was ordained by the Lord to be the primary instrument by which His gospel of salvation was to be carried to the Gentile nations to the north and west. Unto this great purpose Christ appointed Paul to be an apostle, declaring that "you will be a witness for (Me) to all men of what you have seen and heard."

      Although these words were directed to Paul with respect to the monumental work as an apostle that lay before him, there is a sense in which they may apply to every Christian. Paul literally saw Jesus in His heavenly radiance in the noonday sky, and he clearly heard the very voice of Jesus speak to him from high above. In his years of ministry for Christ, Paul received a great number of special revelations from the Lord in visions and dreams; in II Cor. 12:7 he refers to them as "the surpassing greatness of the revelations." It was his appointed task to be a witness to the things he had seen and heard, for it was by means of his testimony that others were to be led to the faith, persuaded to obey its provisions, and be saved by its power, (Rom. 1:16). No one today receives revelations in dreams or visions; no one hears the audible voice of Jesus or is permitted a visual experience of His radiant Form. But we can, nevertheless, still be witnesses, and very important ones at that!

      Every Christian is to be a steadfast student of God's word, which contains an inspired description of Jesus' deeds and words of salvation. In our faith we can "see" Jesus as He performed great deeds and can "hear" His vital sayings, lessons, and sermons. In Jno. 20:29 Jesus pronounced a special blessing upon those who build faith in Him without having seen or heard Him in person like His apostles were privileged to do. It is therefore our mission also to be "witness(es) to all men of what (we) have seen and heard." We should always be eager and prepared to share these insights with others for their good unto salvation. With this divine appointment filling his heart, Paul later declared in Rom. 1:15, "For my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." Christians today, motivated by their knowledge of Jesus and His gospel, should also feel this same eager desire to communicate their knowledge unto salvation to any and all whom they can get to listen.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

Acts 21:27-29 ... "The Jews from Asia, upon seeing him (Paul) in the temple, began to stir up all the multitude and laid hands on him, crying out, 'Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people, and the Law, and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled the holy place.' For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple."

      At the conclusion of his third missionary journey Paul, along with several Christians from Asia, including Luke the physician, went to Jerusalem. His visit there had a triple objective:  to report to the church on the progress of the gospel in Asia and Europe where he had labored, to bring gifts from the Christians in those regions to their poor brethren in Jerusalem and Judea, and to worship in the Temple. It was this latter activity that led the apostle into extreme trouble and danger. Paul was well known to the Jews from Asia who had come to Jerusalem to observe the festival of Pentecost, for he had preached in their synagogues and engaged in lively debates with them. They fairly hated Paul, for they understood his message to be an attack against orthodox Jews, against the integrity of the Law of Moses, and against the Temple with its sacrifices, rituals and priestly administrators. More than once in Asia they had tried in court to remove him from circulation, and failing that, had tried outright to kill him. With this loathing and rage pent up within them they simply lost control when they spotted their adversary right there within the sacred precincts of the Temple.

      No Gentile was allowed to pass through the gate into the Court of Israel within the outer Temple complex. Having earlier seen Paul somewhere on the city streets in the company of Trophimus, a Gentile of Ephesus, "they supposed Paul had brought (him) into the Temple." Their hatred of Paul immediately erupted in violence.  Starting a riot, they began to beat him with the intent to kill him, and would have done so had not a Roman police squadron quickly run down into their midst and pulled him to safety. As it turned out, Paul had not brought Trophimus or any other Gentile into the Temple, for he fully respected the rules governing the Temple and Jewish reverence for the sanctity of the Temple. The uncontrolled outburst of these people had been based upon a false presupposition. Groundless logic had led them to a false conclusion which almost cost an innocent man his life and made them guilty of murder. Had the Romans not restrained their fanatical zeal and foolishness, they would have spilled innocent blood in the Temple and polluted its sacred grounds far worse than Paul would have had he actually sneaked a Gentile inside.

      There is a most appropriate lesson evident in this account. How often do we size up someone, or an idea, or a situation when we know little or nothing about it? Do we not rush into conclusions when our grounds consist of rumors, appearances, or garbled and unsubstantiated reports? Sometimes we think we have the answers when, in reality, we don't even know the questions. Hardly a one of us hasn't once suffered disgrace and shame when we found ourself suspended in mid-air because we jumped to a conclusion, only to find no substance where we were sure a bedrock of fact existed. We should learn from such an awful experience to be more careful next time and gather more information before we set our mind and begin to act. Worse than our own embarrassment and personal chagrin, however, is the suffering inflicted upon the victim of our baseless, hasty judgments. That person is not due the catastrophe brought upon him, but the person who brings it by groundless, impulsive conclusions is due every part of the shame that comes back upon him when his error is exposed.