Almost, But Not Quite

“Many charges have been leveled against me by the Jews.” With these words, St. Paul opens his hearing before King Agrippa. Paul has been imprisoned by the Jewish authorities who accuse him of stirring up sedition among their people by preaching the Risen Christ. Agrippa is a Jewish King, appointed by the Roman Emperor to reign over portions of Palestine and to be in charge of the Temple in Jerusalem. Paul argues his own defense with great eloquence. He traces his career beginning with his youth. He had been a loyal Jew, a Pharisee who practiced strict observance of Jewish Law, he tells the King. Faithful to Jewish Tradition, he had lived in hope of the Messiah’s coming. When the early Christian Church began to organize, he loyally carried out the authority vested in him by the chief priests by persecuting Jewish converts to Christianity. “I once thought it my duty to oppose the Name of Jesus the Nazarean in every way possible,” he says…