Acts 22:5Plain English VersionThe big boss of our Jewish ceremonies knows that, and so do the other men that belong to our Jewish Leaders Council. They gave me letters to take to our Jewish countrymen in Damascus. Those letters said that it was all right for me to grab the Christians there, and tie them up, and bring them to Jerusalem, for our leaders here to punish them. So I got some other men to join me, and we were going along the road to Damascus. See the chapter |
One of the men at the Jewish Leaders Council meeting was the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies. His name was Ananias. Paul stood up in front of Ananias and all the men at the Jewish Leaders Council meeting, and he looked straight at them, and said, “My brothers, I have respected our God all my life, and I have always done whatever I reckoned was right.” As soon as Paul said that, Ananias told the men that were near Paul to hit him on the mouth.
Some of the Jewish Leaders Council were men that belonged to the Sadducee mob, and others belonged to the Pharisee mob. The Sadducee mob believed that after people die, they will never become alive again. And they believed that there are no spirits, not even God’s angel messengers. But the Pharisee mob believed that all of those things are true, and they were strong for the Jewish law. Paul worked out that some of those council men were from the Sadducee mob, and some of them were from the Pharisee mob, so he shouted out loud to them. He said, “My friends, I’m a Pharisee man, like my father was. I believe that after people die, one day God will make them alive again. That’s the reason why I’m here in this court.” As soon as Paul said that, the Pharisee mob and Sadducee mob started to argue with each other.
Paul was in Rome for 3 days, then he sent a message to the Jewish leaders to come and talk with him. So they came, and Paul said to them, “My brothers, I didn’t do anything bad to our people, and I didn’t say anything bad about our Jewish culture. But our leaders in Jerusalem grabbed me, and they were going to kill me. Then the Roman soldiers came and got me, and they made me their prisoner.
So those men listened to that angel, and they went to God’s ceremony house very early in the morning, and they started teaching the people there. At the same time, the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies and his friends, they called together all the men of the Jewish Leaders Council, for a meeting. Then they sent the soldiers to the jail to get Jesus’s special workers.
It was like this. You have heard what I was like before. At that time, I didn’t believe in Jesus. I was a Jew, and I believed everything that the Jews believe. And you know about the things that I did at that time. I made a lot of trouble for the Christian people. I tried hard to stop them from following Jesus.