Summary
First, they accused Paul of teaching against the Jewish people against God's law and against the temple. They had seen them together in the city and they assumed that Paul had brought this man into the inner courts of the temple. He came to us and took Paul's belt, bound his own feet and hands with it and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind to the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. Paul had already been misidentified and mischaracterized by the Jews, and now this Roman tribune has assumed Paul to be an Egyptian pseudo-profit who had a few years prior raised up a rebellion with the intent to flatten Jerusalem and overpower Rome. However, to be mischaracterized or to be misjudged or have assumptions made about one, I don't know that I would have the same patience with suffering that Paul displays here, but Paul's patience and constant defense of the gospel without a return of force. Mischaracterized, misjudged, misidentified, Jesus was brought before the world, thinking that the world was going to judge him, but taking upon himself the judgment of the father in our place.
Video citations
- Mistaken Identity: 3-29-20 — I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to the Book of Acts the 21st chapter. The Book of Acts the 21st chapter. Have you ever looked for stories on mistaken identity? There are some really…