Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

23. “If Christ should suffer, if he should first rise from the dead, he is about to proclaim light to
the people,” i.e., the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul sweeps away all defalcation from King Agrippa as
a member of the Jewish Church, because he proves everything appertaining to Christ by Moses and
the prophets, meanwhile his application to the Gentiles, i.e., not only Festus, but all the Roman
world, is equally sweeping and conclusive. At this moment Festus breaks down, unable longer to
restrain his impulses and hold his peace,
24. But shouts uproariously, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; many writings have turned thee into
insanity,” seeing that Paul is a man of greatest learning, a real expert not only in the rabbinical lore
of all bygone ages, but thoroughly posted in all the learning of the Gentiles. Such is the power of his
oratory, the irresistible logic of his arguments and the irrefutable force of his burning pathos, that
Festus leaps to the conclusion that immense study has overwrought his brain and turned him into
insanity, thus finding a nigh way to account for all the troubles in the case.
25. “But,” says he, “I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and
soberness.” Well could Paul address him “most noble Festus.” His deportment in the Pauline trial,
appeal and transportation is irreproachable. Though heathen, he was certainly a man having sterling
qualities of head and heart. Paul now addresses King Agrippa in person, as he is his brother in the
Jewish church; he is sanguinely hopeful, by proving to him clearly by Moses and the prophets that
Jesus is the Christ, of converting him to Christianity.
27. “O King Agrippa, dost thou believe the prophets? I know that thou believest them.” Paul has
cornered Agrippa, having a double grip on him because he is a Jew. Having proved so conclusively
and irresistibly the Christhood of Jesus by all of the prophets, he thus precipitates the confession of
Agrippa, constraining the king to break silence and put a quietus to the over-mastering vehemence
and foregone conclusion of Paul, that because he does believe Moses and the prophets, by whom
Paul has so powerfully and unanswerably proven the Christhood of Jesus, therefore he is constrained
to confess the great salient facts of the gospel.
28. Agrippa said to Paul, “You persuade yourself with little persuasion that you make me a
Christian.” The E.V. misses this translation. See R.V. Agrippa stoutly resisted the preaching of Paul,
grieving the Holy Spirit, rejecting the unanswerable Scriptural arguments of Paul, and showing no
evidence of conviction. To his cheerless and hopeless negative answer, Paul simply responds in an
ejaculatory prayer.
29. “I would to God that not only you but all those who hear me this day, both with little and
much persuasion, were such as I am except these bonds.” He prayed for their greatest possible good,
that they might have the great salvation which he enjoyed, with none of his temporal afflictions. This
verse is Paul’s benediction on the adjourning multitude, as King Agrippa had wound up the meeting
by his positive negative answer to Paul’s mighty appeals to accept Jesus as the Christ.
31, 32. After they have returned to the palace they talk over the matter, Agrippa giving his verdict
unequivocally decisive of Paul’s utter innocence, assuring Festus that there was no reason for not
releasing him on the spot except his appeal to Cæsar. While King Agrippa was a stalwart Jew, loyal
to the fallen church, and in no way disposed to forsake the multitude, incur the ban of popular