Bible Study Lesson for Acts 22:22-30: Paul the Roman Citizen

Let's see how Paul's audience of self-righteous Jews respond when he tells them that God Himself told him to go preach to the Gentiles. Read Acts 22:22. How incredibly sad. Their hatred and prejudice against the Gentiles is so strong that even the mere mention that God might send someone to especially minister to Gentiles sends the Jewish crowd into a killer frenzy. And this crowd was supposed to be well versed in their own scriptures! Read Isaiah 49:6. The idea that salvation could be possible for the Gentiles should not have been a foreign concept for them, but it was.

Remember also that one of the accusations brought against Paul was that he brought a Gentile (a Greek) into the temple area. Read Acts 21:27-28.

Read Acts 22:23. The crowd was clearly very, very upset. Flinging and throwing dust up in the air was a sign of mourning and distress. Read Revelation 18:19.

Read Acts 22:24. The concept is twisted, but apparently it was felt that confessions could only be trusted if they were forced; if they simply asked Paul why the crowd was upset, the Romans assumed he would lie. But if flogged, he would tell the truth. My commentary provided more information about what it meant to be flogged: "Not with the rod, as at Philippi but with the scourge, a merciless instrument of torture. It was legal to use it to force a confession from a slave or alien but never from a Roman citizen. The scourge consisted of a whip of leather thongs with pieces of bone or metal attached to the ends."

Read Acts 22:25. "As they stretched him out to flog him" means "as they tied him to a post to prepare him for the whipping." According to Roman law, all Roman citizens were assured exclusion from all degrading forms of punishment: beating with rods, scourging, crucifixion. As a side note, this explains why Paul, when he was martyred, was beheaded, while Peter was crucified. Paul, as a Roman citizen could not be crucified, but Peter, being considered "an alien", could be.

Paul knows his rights and just as they are about to start torturing him, points out that what they are about to do is illegal. Read Acts 22:26-27. I didn't have the time to research this, but I can't help wondering how one proved you were a Roman citizen. Were you required to carry some sort of identification papers with you? Here the commander just asks and apparently accepts Paul's word that, yes, he was a Roman citizen.

Read Acts 22:28. My commentary provided more information about how one became a Roman citizen: There were three ways to obtain Roman citizenship: (1) receive it as a reward for some outstanding service to Rome; (2) buy it at a considerable price; (3) be born into a family of Roman citizens. How Paul's father or an earlier ancestor had gained citizenship, no one knows. By 171 B.C. a large number of Jews were citizens of Tarsus, and in the time of Pompey (106-48) some of these could have received Roman citizenship as well

Read Acts 22:29. Apparently even putting chains on a Roman citizen was illegal; the commander could easily find himself in considerable trouble for this infraction. I think I'm beginning to see why people would be so willing to purchase citizenship at a considerable price! Talk about a caste system!

Read Acts 22:30. It sounds like Paul spent the night in the fortress, under guard, though I'm guessing not in chains! Apparently one could lock up Roman citizens, as long as one had reasonable cause. The sense one has is that the commander probably would have let Paul go if the Sanhedrin hadn't wanted him detained. I would expect that he was in a very tricky, difficult situation: he represented Rome to the Jews, but at the same time his job was to keep the peace in the city. He would try to placate the Jews, as much as possible, but Roman justice would still have to be represented fairly. To deal with the situation, he orders that all the chief priests and the Sanhedrin assemble and that Paul be brought before them.

Just to review the Sanhedrin constituted the ruling body of the Jews. The Jewish court was respected by the Roman governor; however, one had to get the approval of the Roman governor before sentencing to capital punishment.

Blessings!

Sources
Editors. Compton's Interactive Bible (software)
Philip Yancey and Tim Stafford (notes). The Student Bible. NIV Version