Acts 22:6-16 “Paul’s Witness”

I would like to talk about “Christian Witness” this morning. This term refers to how we witness for Christ in our lives. That is to say, how we represent the body of Christ to non-believers and even to those who do already believe. Saint Paul during his summer vacation journeys that we have been reading about, has a strong witness to the Gentiles. It is his calling to reach outside of his own Jewish community to bring pagans to see the Way of the Lord. This has been an incredible journey, but now he is back home in Jerusalem among Jewish folk again, and he is having significant problems getting the Good News across.

Last we heard, Saint Paul was in Jerusalem visiting Jesus’ true brother James. You may recall that James asked Paul to put on priestly robes, shave his head as a vow, and make a sacrifice in the Temple, as any good Pharisee would do. This was to prove to everybody that Paul was still a good Jew. This was to try to convince the predominantly Jewish Christians in Jerusalem that despite Paul’s reaching out to the Gentiles in Asia and Europe, he was still their guy, too.

This reminds me of the verse in 1 Corinthians 9:22 when Paul says, “When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some.”

I believe that this is sound advice and the best way to engage others when speaking of Christ. Jesus himself, being God, came out of the divine realm to be with us where we are. That is the Christian way. Some folks might find this disingenuous; however, we are fooling ourselves that anyone will listen to the message of Christ if it does not apply to where they are in their lives.

I share with you a story that happened to me about ten years ago. I was in Bavaria, Germany, on a train heading to Munich to visit a childhood friend there. I had a reserved seat, so I found the carriage and sat down next to a young lady–maybe about 25 years old. Now, if you do not know this, people in Germany really do not talk to one another much if they are strangers. They just kind of stare at each other. I had just arrived in Germany and did not have my German blank stare happening yet. I did the unthinkable and greeted her and even told her my name. I figured we would be sitting inches apart for the next two hours anyway.

After a little more single-sided sharing, and my telling her that I was from Hawaii, and showing her my Hawaii ID because she did not believe it; we started to talk story like normal non-German people do. She was amazed that I could not only speak German but that I could speak her dialect of Bavarian German.

It turned out that she was engaged to be married. She showed me her engagement ring. I shared that I was a pastor and had married many people. I talked about the pre-marital counseling I had done. All of the sudden she had a lot of questions for me. We spent the next two hours in full Christian counseling mode. At the end the train pulled into Munich train station, I had some mango tea from Kauai as an extra gift in my luggage. I pulled it out and gave it to her as a marriage gift. She started to cry. Never in her life had she ever received a gift from a total stranger! I offered to say a prayer with her for her upcoming marriage, and she accepted.

Now, I did not tell her my life’s story. I did not share with her that time when I felt Jesus calling me to ministry. There was no talk of the supernatural. I just met her where she was in her life, gave her a bit of grace, and sent her on her way with a prayer. Was that a “Christian witness”?

As an aside, recently a famous big-church evangelist/preacher was asked why he needs a private jet to get around. His response was that when he travels on regular airlines he has to talk to people. He does not want to do that. Yup, that is right!

At the very beginning of this chapter in Acts, which we actually did not read, we hear Paul give a defense of the faith right before his witness. The actual word in the Greek that he uses is “Apology” (απολογια). We get the word Christian “apologetics” in bible college. It means to defend the faith–not to apologize for it. Obviously there is no “apology” needed for the Son of God. The term literally means to give an uplifting blessing.

He gives this uplifting blessing in the Hebrew dialect (Aramaic, most likely). So, they start listening. I wonder what would have happened if he spoke Greek or Latin with them. They would have surely just walked away. This reminds me of when we were missionaries in Thailand and discovered not but a few missionaries from the United States who had lived there already ten or twenty years but were unable to speak or share the Good News in Thai. If I were not speaking in English at the moment, but rather some other tongue, how many of you would continue to listen? Really!

Not only does Paul speak their language, but he shares his credibility by listing his bona fides: He is a Jew. He was a Pharisee. He studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel. Lastly he states that he has in fact already persecuted and killed some Christians! You know that got their attention! In fact, we know that Paul was indeed there at the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian Faith.

You know, one of the questions I like to ask as an ice-breaker when in a group of people who do not know each other is: “Have you ever saved another’s life?” Here, Saint Paul takes this on a more morbid trajectory: “Have you ever killed another person because of their faith?” Sadly, Paul actually does have this in common with these others with whom he is engaging. In fact, they are really into it and are about to put Paul on their hit list. Now Paul is talking to them in their language and at their level!

Kind of as an aside I need to say that we have heard Paul’s witness before. It is shared by Luke in Acts 9 already. In the Bible we can hear his witness four different times as he shares it in two of his letters as well. However, please note that each time he shares, it is to a different audience. He has never shared his personal story of coming to know Jesus as Lord and Savior with this group of listeners before.

How many times should we get to share our personal witness, or coming to Jesus, with the same people? I ask this because in my conversations with others, “How did you come to know Jesus?” rarely comes up! More often than that I hear the questions: “What do you think happens after you die?” “How should I forgive the unforgiveable?” or “What is love?” That was the question in the train to Munich! You see, your conversion story can be very powerful, but it may not be answering the questions that people have on their hearts. Just as a Christian, be fully aware of that!

The other thing I have to watch out for is when I am doing the history tours of the church or governor’s palace (Parsonage) that I have given those speeches soooo many times, I kind of race through them so fast that people do not even have a chance to collect all the data in their brains. That is not a good way to introduce Jesus! People stop listening if you are not sincere.

Were the people listening to Saint Paul tell of his conversion engaged? Were they even listening? The answer is “yes and no.” They were listening for a way to trap Paul. They were listening and waiting for Paul to misspeak. They were in what is known as a polemical mindset: critical and confrontational.

Saint Paul, remember, is now speaking a dialect of Hebrew (ie, Aramaic, the same language as Jesus spoke). Saint Paul is reporting exactly what Jesus said at the time of his appearance on the Road to Damascus. Jesus said “I am the Lord. . . .” If we are reading this in Greek or in English, we just naturally accept these words as being non-confrontational. However, in Hebrew Saint Paul would have just spoken the un-utterable name of God. He technically just blasphemed. Of course, blasphemy is punishable by death according to the Hebrew Torah.

You may recall that time in Exodus 3:13 and on when Moses goes up Mount Sinai and meets God in the burning bush. He asks God to give him God’s name in case the people ask him for it. God simply states “I am that I am.” This phrase in Hebrew is marked by four consecutive Hebrew letters, Yod Het Waw Het. In some English translations the term Yahweh is used. In other translations there is a transliteration from Dutch (believe it or not) that turns that name into “Jehovah.”

In Exodus 20, we find the Ten Commandments listed. Number three says “Do not take the Lord’s Name in vain, for the Lord shall punish those who do.” In order never to take the Lord’s name in vain, it became the statutory rule that one must never speak the four letters YHWH but rather replace them with “Adonai,” meaning “My Lord.” Paul does not say Adonai here at all! He uses the term in Hebrew “I am” which opens him up to be punished according to the Law. The punishment is death by stoning, by the way.

I am thinking about what might be going on in Paul’s head here. We know that during his summer journeys he has been close to death a few times. 2 Corinthians 11:24-25 states, “. . .Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. . . .” He goes on to talk about all of the other times he should have died but did not but by the grace of God. Saint Paul is speaking with the assurance that comes from knowing that God has got his back!

What if you open up your heart and share your faith witness with another person, but that person rejects what you have to say? What if the other person was just looking for something to hurt you with? When do you feel safe actually sharing what you have experienced with God with other people? It is very hard because you can never tell how the other person is going to take or understand your story about how you met Jesus in your life. How do we trust others with our own personal experiences of meeting God in the person of Jesus?

In Bible Study on Tuesday morning we heard the story from one of the members of the class of how she was in a near wreck in her SUV on the H3 Freeway on Oahu. Just when she thought that her life was going to be over, she saw a light and felt it pass through the car, and the vehicle suddenly stopped on its own. Everyone was saved. It was a godly miracle. “Jesus take the wheel!”

Our Christian hearts accept this witness and praise God for the miracle that saved that family that day. But, how might others hear that same story? Last week we talked about super heroes for God in the time of the message. WE know that people love to hear the stories of make-believe cartoon characters being portrayed as real people with amazing abilities. Yet, when we talk about the very real power of God, people tune out and prefer not to be told anything more. They might just tolerate our personal witness long enough to shoot us down afterwards.

I, like Paul, can tell of all the times I should have been killed. I have crash landed in planes twice. I have fallen off a cliff. I have been in active war zones with mortars going off overhead. I was attacked by a homeless person with a knife. Yet, my life is really no different than all of yours in so far as death is always close at hand. We just do not know the time. We know it will be in the Lord’s time, and we turn that over to God.

So, the people who are listening to Paul, and have already decided that he needs to be killed, miss the point that Paul is trying to get across to them completely. You see, Paul states clearly here that when he met Jesus, although he heard the Lord’s voice call to him, nobody else heard that voice. Although Paul was blinded by the bright light of Christ, those with him that had come along to persecute Christians saw the light but were otherwise unaffected. Still they brought Paul to Ananias (a Christian known for his healings) rather than simply kill him for being a follower of Christ. The point is: Saint Paul was not alone when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Yet, as far as we know, he is the only one whose life was changed completely.

Maybe this morning I have more questions than answers about how to witness to Christ in your lives. But like Paul, I want to encourage you to try. Consider who you are talking to, what might be on their heart, how you can be a blessing in the name of Christ to that person (that is the apologia, or apology), if you can share it in their language to comfort them, and whether maybe you can actually change that life to Christ, to actually save that person!

Know that some people will be in tears, and others will want to stone you! But, God will give you the right words just the same.

Amen.