Did Paul Really Fall Into A Trance?

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the Book of Acts chapter 22, and we’re going to pick up with verse 17:“And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;”

Dave:

Tom, this is Paul’s defense before this mob that was tearing him apart.The soldiers came and rescued him and now they allow him to give his defense in Hebrew.

Tom:

Dave, before I go on, we had better explain this, “I was in a trance.”Was this an altered state of consciousness or something.Was he meditating, Eastern meditation?

Dave:

Tom, I certainly am not qualified to correct the King James translators but I think this is a poor choice of words.One of the, maybe a major meaning of that Greek word is a state of wonderment or astonishment.And you get that from the next verse:“And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem:for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.”So, Paul is praying in the temple and Christ appears to him.And, well, I would say that would be rather astounding, be enough to cause you to wonder and marvel.So, that’s what he was saying, I was staggered!

Tom:

Astonished!

Dave:

Yeah, here comes Christ and he appears to me and he tells me to get out of here fast because they are not going to receive your testimony concerning me.

Tom:

I’ll pick up with verse 19:“And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee:And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.”That was not a word they wanted to hear.

Dave:

One that Christ is warning him to get out of there.Now that raises a lot of questions because, we talked about this before, there were prophecies, Agabus was bound him, and so forth, there were prophets on Paul’s journey to Jerusalem, and they spoke to him by the Word of the Lord, Don’t go there!We’ve dealt with that a little bit.I think Paul was in God’s will when he went there, but he was being tested.Paul did you hear from God? Or are there prophets hearing from God?Well, they are both hearing from God, because the prophets who are warning him not to go are saying, By the Word of the Lord, don’t go.And Paul says, Look, I know, wherever I go bonds and afflictions await me, and I’m ready to go even if they kill me, because this is what I believe God has called me to do.So now it turns out that Christ tells him, Well, you had better get out of here.Well, that was not a shock to Paul, because that’s been his problem everywhere he went.He wasn’t met with a welcoming committee with a red carpet, and so forth.What do they say in Ephesus?Well, these who turned this world upside down, they’ve come here, they are against our god, Diana of Ephesus, and so forth.So Paul, you’re not going to make any headway, you’re going to try to preach the gospel, you’re going to tell them about Me in Jerusalem.This is a mob and they are not ready to hear this, but I’m going to send you unto the Gentiles.You’ll not get an audience unto this word.And then, lifted up their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth for he is not fit that he should live.”

Tom:

Dave, I’m going to back up to Verse 18, well actually, 17 and 18.When did this take place that Paul this?

Dave:

Well, he has gone into the temple and they have accused him of bringing a Greek, which he didn’t.Remember, he shaved his head, he has taken a vow, this was a legitimate thing for a Jewish person to do, and that was when they saw him, and he, at the same time I guess, or just before they recognized him.

Tom:

I see, I see.

Dave:

Christ appears and says, You had better get out of here.And then, here they come; Hey, that’s Paul, that’s Saul of Tarsus.

Tom:

I get it now.

Dave:

I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed—Well, they ought to know that I’m not coming here to destroy the Hebrew faith.Well, of course he explained to them that the Hebrew faith points to him, but they are not going to believe that.And he tells them what he has done; the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed,I was there and I kept the raiment, and so forth.He’s relating this to this mob; he’s saying:You guys know what I did here, you know who I am, it’s not a secret.Okay, well, they are with him up to that point, he’s one of the good guys—he really was against these Christians.Well, not exactly.And then he says:“The Lord appeared to me and He said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.”Wow!You don’t use that word around these religious people, they are fanatics, they don’t really understand the truth of the Old Testament.Tom, it reminds me of 1967, my wife and I and our 4 young children, ages 8 to 15, were in Egypt just before the Six Day War, and they were gearing up for it, and I made a mistake, I went into a travel agency.See, we had double transit visas to go through Syria and then Jordan, and then naively, I mean, it was ridiculous, we were just going to just slip across the mantle bound gate into Israel.Now, you don’t go across the border, you don’t sneak across the border, but that was what I had in mind, I was just very naïve.But then when I got into Israel what am I going to do because I’ve got to have some transportation out of Israel. So I went into a travel agency to see if I could book passage.Are there any ships leaving that we could put our VW bus on.From Haifa or Televiv, when we get into Israel?—The guy was kind to me;You say that word once more and you are dead!You know, that if you have been to Israel they don’t stamp your passport because otherwise you could never get into a Muslim country.That’s the way the Jews were.To mention a Gentile!No, and that was of course, the way the apostles were a few chapters earlier when he went among the Gentiles, went into a Gentile home!And it took a little persuasion on Paul’s part to prove that God led him to do this, and the Gentiles could be saved also, but he’s not going to persuade this mob of that.

Tom:

Verse 22:“And they gave him audience unto this word, and lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth:for it is no fit that he should live.And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.”

Dave:

Well, he doesn’t understand this Jewish mind, he doesn’t understand the Jewish religion.I don’t know how long he has been stationed in Jerusalem but he thinks this guy must be a horrible criminal.Well, he did talk about killing people, and throwing them in prison, and so forth.So, how are we going to find out the truth?Well, we’ll just strip him down and we’ll just give him the cat-o-nine-tails until he confesses.And that’s when Paul says in verse 25:“And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?”They did go by the Roman law, and now he’s going to be a little bit frightened.He hasn’t done the right thing, and when we get a little farther in the chapter we find he writes a letter to the governor and it puts him as the hero.He rescues Paul from the mob, but it doesn’t say anything about him binding him and giving him the scourging.