Scripture Focus: Acts 26.24
24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”

Reflection: Open Letter to Students of the Bible
By Erin Newton

To my fellow Bible students, theology readers, church historians, pastors, and professors—to all who take seriously the work of the Lord and the Word of God…

Grace and peace to you, as Paul would say.

The work, I know, is hard. The days are long. When our time is saturated with answering questions about life and faith, we give ourselves over to the strenuous task of gleaning wisdom. When we open a book or sit down to research, our minds are cultivated and poured out for others.

It takes extraordinary effort. We grow in knowledge, mature in ministry, and reshape our understanding of God and the world. Former assumptions are confronted, conflicting theories are presented, and we wrestle with never-ending questions.

In many ways, it can feel like we have lost our minds.

Festus certainly believed Paul was crazy. Was it possible? Had Paul delved too far into religious matters? Had Paul spent too much time talking to the people of “The Way” and read too much of the former prophets?

Paul was well-trained both professionally as a Jew and individually after his conversion. He experienced visions of heaven and Jesus spoke to him directly on the way to Damascus. If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, Paul was certainly an expert.

Festus was incredulous, but rightfully so. His logic was grounded in common wisdom, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” (Eccl 12:12). He was spiritually blind and considered the gospel foolishness (1 Cor 2:14).

Paul, however, was no fool. He was no lunatic either. His life gave testimony of what his mind wrestled to understand. Paul had great learning but a greater ministry.

Let us not miss a real warning here: Great learning, unchecked and untethered, can poison the mind.

Paul was the student of students, the apple of a teacher’s eye. He was brilliant and eloquent, passionate and determined. He cross-checked the Scriptures and reasoned with logic. He was our role model for learning.

Yet he did more than write letters. He was knee-deep and in chains for the ministry. He was tethered to the church through evangelism, discipleship, and prayer.

Dear scholars, do not let your learning drive you mad. Pair your mind with your hands. Let us use our gifts of knowledge to be poured out for the sake of Christ.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Morning Psalm
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name… — Psalm 86.11

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Reading
Numbers 3 (Listen 6:01)
Acts 26 (Listen 5:17)

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It is our lives, paired with our words, that make our faith “true and reasonable” to the watching world.

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Scripture Focus: Acts 25.18-19
18 When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. 19 Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.

Acts 26.24-27
24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.” 
25 “I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. 26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.” 

Reflection: True and Reasonable Faith
By John Tillman

Festus is confused by the false charges against Paul. He didn’t even know how to describe the case when sending it to Caesar. Paul’s claims seemed like madness to him.

Many within Greek-influenced Roman culture thought the spirit was a superior form of reality and the body was an inferior shell. The resurrection of the dead was nonsense—more like a curse than a miracle. Later, as Paul spoke of resurrection during his defense, Festus would interrupt, saying, “You are out of your mind!” (Acts 26.24-27)

Paul’s defense included telling the facts of his own life, his previous persecution of “The Way,” and his meeting with the risen Jesus. Paul presented his claims as verifiable facts that “did not happen in a corner” (Acts 26.26) and invited scrutiny of everything, including the resurrection. Even in Paul’s day, all the authority and power of Rome couldn’t disprove Paul’s testimony about Jesus.

Paul’s defense also claimed that his testimony about resurrection was “reasonable” from the Jewish perspective and in light of what was written in the prophets. To Agrippa, a man well-studied in Jewish anthropology and the scriptures, the resurrection of the dead was not madness and Paul’s story apparently seemed quite compelling. (Acts 26.28)

Paul demonstrated that he was innocent of the charges against him. But what is more important is that he demonstrated that Christian claims sprang logically from promises in the Jewish scriptures and that the facts of his life merited serious consideration of his religious claims.

The TV series, The Chosen, imagines a conversation between Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene. In that scene, she says, “I was one way… and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between… was Him.” Even as far removed from the events of the Gospels as we are, we still can bear witness, like Paul and others did, using our own stories.

You may think, “I don’t have a dramatic story. I wasn’t arresting Christians like Paul or possessed by demons like Mary.” But surely Jesus has made a dramatic change in you? Hasn’t he changed the way you think about yourself? Hasn’t he changed the way you think about others? Hasn’t he rooted out of your heart stones and weeds and planted new growth?

Keep testifying to the truth of the resurrection and living out its implications. It is our lives, paired with our words, that make our faith “true and reasonable” to the watching world.


Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Jesus said: “In all truth I tell you, whoever welcomes the one I send, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” — John 13.20

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Reading
Numbers 2 (Listen 3:47)
Acts 25 (Listen 4:40)

Read more about Implore Them to Stay
Christians are engaged in evangelism by living ordinary lives and glorifying God.

Read more about A Bad Day Fishing
Peter’s first recorded words to Jesus in response the miracle are “go away.”

Scripture Focus: Acts 26.20
20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.

Reflection: Demonstrating Repentance–and Christianity
By Bridget Jack Jeffries

King David. Martin Luther. John Calvin. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These are names that we as modern-day Christians often revere, names of men who fought for the kingdom of God. 

Yet King David is also known for his murder of the righteous Uriah and his taking of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. Martin Luther was a rabid antisemite who called for graphic violence against Jews. John Calvin was complicit in the state execution of Michael Servetus, while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an unequivocal plagiarist and serial adulterer who spent his last night on earth with another woman. 

My point here is not to diminish the enormous accomplishments of these men, nor to cross-examine their Christianity. My point is that actions matter and their own actions (very unfortunately) cast an enormous shadow over their work for the kingdom of God. 

Paul also preached that actions matter—that we as Christians “should repent and turn to God and demonstrate [our] repentance by [our] deeds.” This is because Paul understood that few things would undermine incipient Christianity faster than Christians whose lives were indistinguishable from non-Christians–that is, Christians who continued in sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6.18) or greed (1 Timothy 6.10) or neglect of the poor (Galatians 2.10) or the worship of other gods (1 Corinthians 10.14). We see the consequences of neglect of Paul’s teaching in the modern-day church, where many Christians are “deconstructing” and leaving their faith because they see no actual Christianity in the lives of the so-called “Christians” and “Christian leaders” around them.

We believers often have a fraught relationship with works, and it certainly is grace that saves us (Ephesians 2.8-9). Yet Jesus also advised that we could discern true Christians from false ones by their fruits (Matthew 7.16-20), meaning their actions and results. Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah warned that we can be undone by our own actions: “Your wickedness will punish you, your backsliding will rebuke you” (Jeremiah 2.19a). 

Ultimately, being Christian is not supposed to look the same as being non-Christian. We should pursue lives of “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5.23-24), lives that showcase the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit within us. By this Spirit, Jesus promised to teach us and lead us into lives of holiness, if we will only surrender to him.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth tremble before him. — Psalm 96.9


Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 2 (Listen -5:54)
Acts 26 (Listen – 5:17)

Read more about The Ever-Patient Agriculturalist
The purpose in deconstruction is reconstruction…in uprooting is to replant…May we rejoice in being pruned and replanted.