Acts 21:40-22:30
40 And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying: 1 “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” 2 And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said: 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, 5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. 6 “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ 8 And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. 10 And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ 11 And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus. 12 “And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, 13 came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him. 14 And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; 15 for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’ 17 “When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ 19 And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. 20 And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ 21 And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” 22 Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” 23 And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging, to find out why they were shouting against him like this. 25 But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” 26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen.” 27 So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” 28 The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.” 29 So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him. 30 But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.
On March 2, 2004, the American theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles delivered the McGinley Lecture at Fordham University. It was entitled “The Rebirth of Apologetics.” That is a word we need to learn: apologetics. Apologetics refers to the act of defending the Christian faith. A Christian apologist is somebody who gives particular attention to defending the faith and countering arguments against the Christian faith with the truth of the gospel. There are people who have this as their primary ministry, but, in truth, every Christian needs to be an apologist.
Dulles’ lecture, “The Rebirth of Apologetics,” dealt with the question of how the Christian Church has defended the Christian faith over the last two thousand years and how it should seek to defend the Christian faith today. It was a very interesting lecture filled with very interesting insights. He shared how in earlier periods of Church history different approaches to defending the faith took center stage: some of them philosophical and some of them argumentative and some of them confronting particular heretical ideas or non-Christian religions that seemed to be threatening the Church at particular times or in particular places. In his lecture, after outlining the history of Christian apologetics, Dulles proposed that the future of Christian apologetics, the future of how we will most effectively defend the faith, will be through the sharing of testimonies. That is, we will best defend the faith by telling our stories about our personal relationships with Jesus.[1]
Church, there is something powerful about the story of how you came to Jesus and what difference He has made in your life! Do you remember the great old hymn “Blessed Assurance”? In 1873, Fanny Crosby wrote this hymn. Notice the words of it.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels, descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest, Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
And after each stanza, the refrain:
This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.
Yes, “This is my story, this is my song!”
We need to regain a sense of the beauty and power of telling our stories, our testimonies. Some of you may be hearing this and may be thinking, “I do not have a story. I do not even know Jesus!” To you I would like to say, “You can begin your story today! You can accept Jesus today! Today could be the first chapter of your story with Jesus!”
I also realize that some of you are thinking, “Oh, I know all about these testimonies. The really good ones involve people who have done truly terrible things, who met Jesus in unbelievably shocking ways, and who have then had amazing, public ministries as a result! My story is nothing like that. I was raised in a Christian home and came to know Jesus at a very early life. My testimony is boring! Nobody would want to hear that!”
To anybody here today who is saying that, may I share with you some words from Megan Hill? She wrote these in an article she entitled, “My Boring Christian Testimony,” in Christianity Today.
There is no dull salvation. The Son of God took on flesh to suffer and die, purchasing a people for his glory. As Gloria Furman writes, “The idea that anyone’s testimony of blood-bought salvation could be uninteresting or unspectacular is a defamation of the work of Christ.”[2]
To that I say, “Amen!”
Again, there is great power in telling your story! For instance, in our text today, the Apostle Paul is standing before a very large, very angry crowd of people who want to kill him. He begs permission to be able to address this hostile crowd. When it is granted, the people, and all of us, wait on the edge of our seats to see what this infamous Paul will say. Will he deliver a three point sermon? Will he wax eloquent with a profound philosophical discourse? Will he attack and berate the people? What will he do?
Here is what he does: he tells his story. Watch and see how Paul chose to defend the faith by giving his testimony.
Your story about your relationship with Jesus is your greatest defense of the truth of the gospel.
Let us begin by first noting that Paul viewed his testimony as a defense and not simply a story.
40 And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying: 1 “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” 2 And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said:
Paul, addressing the audience in their native tongue, said, “hear the defense that I now make before you.” Do you remember that I began this sermon talking about apologetics? Well here is that word. The word “defense” is the Greek word apologia. Tellingly, Paul uses it to describe his testimony. That is, his testimony, his story, was his apologia, his defense.
One thing we must realize is that the idea of an apologia, a defense, was well known in the ancient world. In the Roman Empire it had become popular for speakers to give an apologia, a defense of oneself. It was fashionable because it was associated with Socrates and so had a kind of cultural authority. In the wider culture of the time, historians tell us that an apologia was a rhetorical device, “a strategic vehicle through which individuals were able to ‘write the self’ or perform idealized cultural identities.” Furthermore, “the apologia was a rhetorical opportunity for sophists to present highly stylized versions of themselves in imagined scenarios” in order to “present themselves in culturally authoritative ways.”[3]
That is most interesting. We must note that Paul used a device that was well known at the time. However, contrary to how some sophists or mere rhetoricians might have made their apologias, Paul was in no way seeking crassly to “present [a] highly stylized version of [himself] in [an] imagined scenario.” He was, however, seeking to “write the self,” because what had happened to him was real and life-changing. Furthermore, it was so real that he could stand confidently on what had happened to him and say to everybody who would listen, “You need this too! You need this Jesus too!”
Please note: Paul sees his story as his defense.
We should too.
Why is your story, your testimony, also your best apologia? Because nobody can take away from you what happened to you when you met Jesus. Theoretical arguments can be dismissed and philosophical proposals can be shrugged off, but the story of how you met Jesus and what difference it has made in your life carries a power that goes right to the hearts of all who will listen.
Some of you are afraid to share your faith. Tell your story! Some of you worry about whether or not you will be asked a question that you cannot answer. Tell your story!
Would you like to see an amazing example of the stubborn power of personal testimony? Consider the man born blind who Jesus healed in John 9. He was healed by Jesus and the religious authorities were angry about it so they approached the man and tried to slander Jesus and engage the man in an argument. Watch how this unfolded.
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.
Ha! I love it! You can hear the utter frustration in the voices of his critics when the man just goes back to his story time and again. “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Oh, Church, we do indeed need to learn theology and doctrine and the deep things of God. There is no excuse to be willfully ignorant of the truths of Jesus. But may I say that if all you have is your story, then tell it and know that God can work through it! You do not need a PhD in theology to tell your story! You do not have to be Thomas Aquinas to tell your story! You do not have to know the ordo salutis, what a good definition of the hypostatic union is, what apophatic theology is, what supralapsarianism, antelapsarianism, infralapsarianism, sublapsarianism, or postlapsarianism is, what theophany is, what the exact calibrations and formulations of Trinitarian theology are, what perichoresis is, what transubstantiation is, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or whether or not Adam had a belly button to tell your story!
We can grow in our understanding of theological truths, and we should, but, at the least, we should have a story. And, if we do, that story has power! D.L. Moody, the great Chicago preacher of yesteryear, put it like this:
You ask me to explain regeneration. I cannot do it. But one thing I know: that I have been regenerated. All the infidels and skeptics could not make me feel differently. I feel a different man than I did twenty-one years ago last March, when God gave me a new heart. I have not sworn since that night, and I have no desire to swear. I delight to labor for God, and all the influences of the world cannot convince me that I am not a different man.[4]
Simply awesome! Your best defense of the truth of the gospel of Jesus is your own story of how Jesus has changed your life!
Your story should have three key elements.
And what should your story sound like? Well, it is uniquely your story so it will not sound just like anybody else’s. So stop beating yourself up that your story does not sound like the stories of others. Each is unique! Even so, a Christian’s story should generally have three basic elements:
- An awareness of your need for Jesus.
- How you came to know Jesus.
- What difference knowing Jesus has made in your life.
1. An awareness of your need for Jesus.
When Paul began to tell his story to the watching, listening crowd, he began by telling them that he was once far from Jesus and needed a Savior.
3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, 5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.
Do you see? Paul is trying to say that he was not always as he is now. There was a time when he did not know Jesus. In fact, there was a time when he hated the things of Christ and actively sought to stomp out the Christian movement!
Church, however your story unfolds, it should have somewhere in its telling an awareness on your part that you needed Jesus, that you would be lost in your sins and rebellions without Jesus! For Paul, it was persecution. For all of us, it is something. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
At this point I think that many of us who grew up Christians sometimes struggle. We hear dramatic testimonies of horrible crimes committed and we think, “I accepted Jesus when I was a child. I knew I needed him but I did not have a prison record or a drug habit or a violent past. But I knew I needed him!”
That is the key: you knew you needed him. I daresay that a child can come to know that he needs a Savior. To be sure, he or she will grow in greater awareness of this need, but a child can know he or she is a sinner.
I speak from experience. When my mother and father sat on the side of my bed and led me to Jesus as a six or seven year old boy, I had committed no great crime in the eyes of man, but I had in my own heart. Believe me when I tell you that when my parents told me I needed forgiveness I could say even at that age with as much sincerity as a prisoner on death row that I did need it. Even then I knew that my little heart wanted to do what I wanted to do and was bent toward every kind of wickedness.
Had I known these words from William Faulkner at that age I would have agreed with him:
When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they don’t really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it, which is not innocence but appetite; his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it, which is not ignorance but size.[5]
Pessimistic, you say? Not for me. And not for you.
My point is this: you do not have to have been to jail to be a criminal. You may laugh, but when I stole a sucker from the Piggly Wiggly of Sumter, SC, as a boy I waited until my mother was not looking before I did it. Are stealing suckers and committing mass murder different things? Yes, but only as a matter of degree.
If you have truly accepted Christ that means that you knew you needed to do so. If you have never felt the need to do so then in what sense is He your Savior? But if you have felt the need for Christ, if you have felt conviction over your sins, whether as a child or as an elderly person, then you can tell that part of your story. It is your story!
2. How you came to know Christ.
Paul then tells how he came to receive Jesus. His story was, of course, jaw-droppingly dramatic.
6 “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ 8 And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. 10 And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ 11 And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus. 12 “And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, 13 came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him.
Not all of us have been struck to the ground before the revealed Christ, but all of us need to know that we have received and accepted Him, that we have met the Lord Jesus. Sometimes this is dramatic and sometimes this is not. Sometimes this happens later in life and sometimes it does not. Some people can give you the date and time and what they were wearing when they accepted Christ and others simply know that they have accepted Jesus, that He is their Lord.
Once again, do not beat yourself up over the fact that your way of coming to receive Christ was not like others’ ways. The Puritan Thomas Watson said this:
The Lord does not tie himself to a particular way, or use the same order with all. He comes sometimes in a still small voice. Such as have had godly parents, and have sat under the warm sunshine of religious education, often do not know how or when they were called. The Lord did secretly and gradually instil [sic] grace into their hearts, as dew falls unnoticed in drops.[6]
I believe this is well said. I have had two occasions in the last couple of weeks to talk to people who know they love the Lord and know that He is Lord of their lives but who struggle to remember the exact moment of their conversion. But they know they have been converted. So I have asked them, “Do you love Jesus now? Is He your Lord? Does Jesus reside within you as Savior and King? Then follow Him. Walk with Him. Stop worrying about the template that we have created for how exactly you should come to know him and follow your King.”
I recently reminded a young believer of the words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 12:3. “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” If you can claim “Jesus is Lord!” as the truth, then walk in the power of the indwelling Spirit and in the name of the King who was slain and yet Who rose again!
Yes, some of us have had dramatic moments and some of us were raised in the faith and took the hand of Christ along and along beginning early in life. But here is the key: both are examples of coming to know Christ.
To be a Christian is to have a relationship with Jesus. There are people who mouthed a formulaic prayer in their youth who have no relationship with Jesus. There are others who are fuzzier on the exact moment but know they have a relationship with Jesus. Your story, no matter what twists and turns it has made, needs to include how you came to know Jesus, be it a Damascus Road experience like Paul or the warm love of a Christian household that brought you up in Christ.
Tell your story, and be sure to tell how your relationship with Jesus came to be!
3. What difference knowing Jesus has made in your life.
And tell what difference it has made. Paul moved from telling of his life before Christ, to telling of his fateful meeting with Christ, to telling of what coming to know Christ meant for the rest of His life.
14 And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; 15 for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’ 17 “When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ 19 And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. 20 And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ 21 And he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
Do you see the calling that God put on Paul’s life? “You will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.” So the first calling of the believer is to bear witness to your own story of coming to know Christ. We might say that this as the general calling for all believers. And specifically, in verse 21, the Lord told Paul that He would send him “far away to the Gentiles.”
On the road to Damascus, Paul met Jesus and Jesus turned his whole life around. So this is what Paul shared with the Jews. He simply told his story. Did they receive his story? No.
22 Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” 23 And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging, to find out why they were shouting against him like this. 25 But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” 26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen.” 27 So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” 28 The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.” 29 So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him. 30 But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.
They did not receive Paul’s story, but even in their rejection they demonstrated the power of testimony: “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.”
If you tell your story, some will trust and believe and others might want you to be blotted from the face of the earth, but this much is certain: no one who hears it will be indifferent. Why? Because it is your story, and you are a living and breathing human being, and you are recounting the amazing tale of how Christ got ahold of your life! Not all will like it, but all to whom you say it will hear how the risen Christ changed you and will be confronted with the powerful challenge of a life forever altered.
Church, hear me: tell your story! It is the greatest defense of the truth of the gospel of Christ!
[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/05/the-rebirth-of-apologetics
[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/december/how-i-know-my-testimony-is-real.html?start=3
[3] Ryan Carhart, “The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts.” Engaging Early Christian History: Reading Acts in the Second Century. Eds., Ruben R. Dupertuis and Todd Penner (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), p.199.
[4] https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/08/what-narrative-theology-forgot
[5] William Faulkner. The Reivers. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), p.46.
[6] Quoted in https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/december/how-i-know-my-testimony-is-real.html?start=3