Acts 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Five days after Paul is moved to Caesarea, the high priest Ananias arrives with elders and a hired lawyer, Tertullus, who accuses Paul before Governor Felix of stirring up trouble among Jews everywhere and trying to defile the temple. Paul answers point by point, denying the charges and saying the real issue is his belief in the resurrection of the dead. Felix postpones a decision until the commander Lysias arrives, keeps Paul under light guard, and later hears him again with his wife Drusilla. Felix hopes for a bribe, and after two years he leaves Paul in prison when Porcius Festus replaces him.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • Five days later, Ananias the high priest came down.
   • The elders came down with him.
   • An orator named Tertullus came down with him.
   • They laid information before the governor against Paul.
2. 24:2
   • Paul was called forth.
   • Tertullus began to accuse Paul.
   • Tertullus said that through Felix they enjoyed great peace.
   • Tertullus said that reforms were being made for this nation by Felix's foresight.
3. 24:3
   • Tertullus said they accepted this always and in all places.
   • Tertullus addressed Felix as most excellent.
   • Tertullus said they accepted it with all thankfulness.
4. 24:4
   • Tertullus said he did not wish to detain Felix further.
   • Tertullus asked Felix to hear them briefly.
   • Tertullus appealed to Felix's clemency.
5. 24:5
   • Tertullus said they had found this man to be a plague.
   • Tertullus said the man stirred up sedition among all the Jews throughout the world.
   • Tertullus said the man was a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
6. 24:6
   • Tertullus said the man also attempted to profane the temple.
   • Tertullus said they seized him.
   • Tertullus said they would have judged him according to their own law.
7. 24:7
   • Tertullus said the commander Lysias came upon them.
   • Tertullus said Lysias took the man out of their hands with great violence.
8. 24:8
   • Tertullus said Lysias commanded the man's accusers to come to Felix.
   • Tertullus said that by examining him Felix could himself learn of all these things.
   • Tertullus said these were the things of which they accused him.
9. 24:9
   • The Jews also joined in the accusation.
   • The Jews said that these things were so.
10. 24:10
    • The governor motioned to Paul to speak.
    • Paul answered.
    • Paul said he knew Felix had been a judge over this nation for many years.
    • Paul said he therefore made his defense the more cheerfully.
11. 24:11
    • Paul said Felix could verify it.
    • Paul said it was not more than twelve days since he went up to Jerusalem.
    • Paul said he went up to worship.
12. 24:12
    • Paul said they did not find him disputing with anyone in the temple.
    • Paul said they did not find him stirring up the people.
    • Paul said they did not find him doing so in the synagogues.
    • Paul said they did not find him doing so in the city.
13. 24:13
    • Paul said they could not prove the things of which they now accused him.
14. 24:14
    • Paul confessed to Felix that he worshiped the God of his fathers according to the Way.
    • Paul said they call the Way a sect.
    • Paul said he believed all things written in the law and in the prophets.
15. 24:15
    • Paul said he had hope toward God.
    • Paul said his accusers themselves also hold this hope.
    • Paul said there will be a resurrection of the dead.
    • Paul said the resurrection is of both the just and the unjust.
16. 24:16
    • Paul said that because of this he disciplines himself.
    • Paul said he strives always to have a conscience without offense toward God.
    • Paul said he strives always to have a conscience without offense toward men.
17. 24:17
    • Paul said that after many years he came.
    • Paul said he came to bring alms to his nation.
    • Paul said he came to bring offerings.
18. 24:18
    • Paul said certain Jews from Asia found him purified in the temple.
    • Paul said he was not with a crowd.
    • Paul said he was not with a tumult.
19. 24:19
    • Paul said those Jews ought to have been present before Felix.
    • Paul said they ought to bring their charge.
    • Paul said this applied if they had anything against him.
20. 24:20
    • Paul said that otherwise these men present should say it themselves.
    • Paul said they should say whether they found any wrongdoing in him.
    • Paul said this was while he stood before the council.
21. 24:21
    • Paul said the exception was this one thing he cried out.
    • Paul said he cried it standing among them.
    • Paul said he was being judged before them that day concerning the resurrection of the dead.
22. 24:22
    • Felix heard these things.
    • Felix had accurate knowledge of the Way.
    • Felix adjourned the proceedings.
    • Felix said that when Lysias the commander came down he would decide their case.
23. 24:23
    • Felix commanded a centurion to keep Paul in custody.
    • Felix commanded that Paul be allowed some liberty.
    • Felix commanded that none of Paul's own people be forbidden to serve him or come to him.
24. 24:24
    • After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla.
    • Drusilla was a Jewess.
    • Felix sent for Paul.
    • Felix heard Paul concerning faith in Christ.
25. 24:25
    • Paul reasoned about righteousness.
    • Paul reasoned about self-control.
    • Paul reasoned about the judgment to come.
    • Felix became afraid.
    • Felix said Paul should go for the present.
    • Felix said he would call for Paul when he had a convenient time.
26. 24:26
    • Felix also hoped that money would be given him by Paul.
    • Felix hoped this so that he might release Paul.
    • Felix sent for Paul more often.
    • Felix conversed with Paul.
27. 24:27
    • After two years Porcius Festus succeeded Felix.
    • Felix wanted to do the Jews a favor.
    • Felix left Paul in bonds.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

24:1

The hearing is in Caesarea, the coastal city that served as the Roman governor's headquarters; Jerusalem stands in the hills, which is why the King James says the party "descended." The "elders" are members of the ruling council in Jerusalem. Tertullus is a hired professional advocate, a man trained in Greek and Roman courtroom speech who would present the prosecution's case in the form a Roman official expected to hear.

24:2

Opening a court speech with praise of the judge was a fixed convention of Roman legal oratory, expected of any trained speaker before he got to his charges. Listeners would have heard it as formal procedure rather than as sincere compliment, particularly since Felix's rule in Judea was in fact marked by revolts and harsh reprisals.

24:3

"Most noble" or "most excellent" was the standard respectful form of address for a Roman official of senior rank. Antonius Felix governed Judea from roughly AD 52 to 59.

24:5

"Nazarenes" was an outsiders' label for the followers of Jesus, formed from the name of his home town, Nazareth. Calling Paul a "mover of sedition" among Jews "throughout the world" is the legally dangerous part of the charge: Rome tolerated religious disputes but treated anyone who stirred up public disorder across the provinces as a threat to the state. The King James "pestilent fellow" translates a word that literally means a plague or infection.

24:6

Non Jews were allowed into the temple's outer court only. Stone notices in Greek and Latin warned that any foreigner who passed the barrier into the inner courts was liable to death, and Rome allowed the Jewish authorities to enforce that penalty. The accusation is that Paul brought a Gentile companion past that line, which is why it is framed as a capital matter rather than a religious quarrel.

24:7

The sentence about Lysias seizing Paul by force, running from the end of verse 6 through verse 8, is missing from the oldest surviving Greek manuscripts, which is why some modern Bibles print no verse 7 at all. The King James follows the later manuscripts that include it.

24:10

Felix had governed Judea for roughly six years by this point and had served in the region before that, so Paul's opening is a statement of fact about the judge's experience rather than the flattery Tertullus opened with.

24:11

Paul is making a legal point by counting: twelve days is too short a span to have organized the empire wide agitation he is charged with, and the dates could be checked by witnesses.

24:12

A synagogue was the local meeting house where Jews gathered to pray and to hear the scriptures read aloud. Nearly every town had one.

24:14

"The Way" was the earliest name the movement used for itself. The King James "heresy" translates the Greek word hairesis, which at the time simply meant a party, faction or school of thought, the same word used of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It did not yet carry the later sense of false teaching, though Paul's accusers are using it dismissively. "The law and the prophets" are the recognized divisions of the Hebrew scriptures.

24:15

In the King James, "allow" means accept or agree with, not permit. The point matters because Paul's accusers were divided on this: Pharisees held that the dead would rise, Sadducees denied it. The high priest Ananias, standing in the room, belonged to the group that rejected the idea.

24:17

"Alms" are charitable gifts to the poor. Paul had spent years collecting money from Gentile congregations to relieve poverty among believers in Jerusalem. The "offerings" are separate: sacrifices presented at the temple, which is his answer to the charge that he despised it.

24:18

Jewish law required ritual washing and a set waiting period before certain temple rites, marking a person as ceremonially clean and fit to enter. Paul's argument is that he was found in the middle of that observance, behaving as an observant Jew, not as a man smuggling foreigners past the barrier.

24:19

Under Roman law an accuser was expected to appear in person and press his own charge; failing to show up could mean the case collapsed and the absent accuser himself faced penalties. Paul is pointing out that the men who actually witnessed the alleged offense are not present, so the men who are present are testifying to something they did not see. In the King James, "object" means to bring a formal charge, and "ought" is a spelling of "aught," meaning anything.

24:20

The council is the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court in Jerusalem, before which Paul had been brought at the hearing described in the previous chapter.

24:21

He refers to the shout at that earlier hearing before the council, where he declared himself on trial over the resurrection and set the Pharisees and Sadducees on the panel arguing with each other. The King James "one voice" means one single statement.

24:22

"Deferred them" means adjourned the hearing without a ruling. "The uttermost of your matter" means the case in its entirety. A Roman governor could postpone indefinitely, and waiting for the testimony of Lysias, the commander who had made the arrest, was a legitimate reason to do so.

24:23

Roman custody came in degrees, and this is the mild form: a guarded prisoner still awaiting trial, not a convict. It also reflects a practical fact of Roman imprisonment. Authorities did not supply food, clothing or bedding, so a prisoner depended on friends being permitted to bring what he needed.

24:24

Drusilla was a daughter of Herod Agrippa I and was about twenty at this point. She had left her first husband, the king of a small Syrian state, to marry Felix, a match that Jewish opinion regarded as unlawful.

24:25

The King James "temperance" means self-control, including control of sexual appetite. "Righteousness" here is doing what is just, the quality expected of a judge. "A convenient season" means simply a time that suits me.

24:26

Roman law forbade a governor to take money from a prisoner, but the practice was common enough to be a standing complaint against provincial officials. Paul had just arrived in Jerusalem carrying a substantial collection of funds, which is likely why Felix assumed he could raise a payment.

24:27

In 1611 English, "room" meant place or position, so this says that Festus succeeded Felix in office, around AD 59. Felix was recalled to Rome to answer complaints about his handling of the province, and leaving a prisoner in chains was a cheap concession to leaders who were in a position to testify against him.

Where the Manuscripts Differ

Worth knowing before you stand up: a listener following a modern translation may not have this verse in front of them.

24:7

Most modern translations leave this verse out. It is in the Greek text the King James translators worked from, but not in the older manuscripts found since, so scholars generally take it as a copyist’s addition rather than part of the original.