BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

In today’s reading, Paul starts to look like Joseph and Jesus. Though innocent, Paul lands in the pit of a prison because his Jewish brethren have grown to hate him. Like Joseph’s brothers, they rejected him and cast him into a pit.

Joseph’s rise from prison to power gave him access to Pharaoh, before whom he exalted Yahweh. Now, lifted up from prison to stand before Governor Felix and King Agrippa, Paul exalts Jesus. The pattern repeats and expands.

While Felix and Agrippa find Paul’s message crazy and unconvincing, they also declare Paul’s innocence. In Jesus’ story, the Roman Governor Pilate and King Herod, Agrippa’s great-uncle, find no evidence to condemn Jesus (Luke 23). Luke wants to show how Paul, like Jesus, endures unjust imprisonment and false accusation as one who is truly innocent.

Patterns like this invite meditation on deeper themes. In this case, it appears that evil constantly wages war through imposter courts and murderous schemes and that God ultimately vindicates the innocent.

All three men—Joseph, Jesus, and Paul—share stories that testify to evil’s intent to destroy and devour and to God’s intent, like a good judo master, to turn evil back on itself. Darkness, however powerful or royal or normal it looks, will never truly win.

From here, the Gospel message travels into the hard heart of Rome’s empire, where the good news of Jesus’ Kingdom moves toward the emperor’s doorstep.

Reflection Questions

• Take a moment to read through Paul’s discussion of Jesus’ resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. What have you learned from that passage about the reason for Paul’s trial—and for Paul’s unshakeable hope?
• Compare Paul’s words in Acts 26:23 to Simeon’s words in Luke 2:28-32. What do you notice? How have you seen these statements play out in the story of Luke-Acts?