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Acts 23:1-18  We Will Eat Nothing Until We Have Slain Paul

[Study Aired September 10, 2023]

Act 23:1  And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.
Act 23:2  And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.
Act 23:3  Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?
Act 23:4  And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest?
Act 23:5  Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.
Act 23:6  But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
Act 23:7  And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided.
Act 23:8  For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.
Act 23:9  And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.
Act 23:10  And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.
Act 23:11  And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Act 23:12  And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.
Act 23:13  And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.
Act 23:14  And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.
Act 23:15  Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.
Act 23:16  And when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle, and told Paul.
Act 23:17  Then Paul called one of the centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain: for he hath a certain thing to tell him.
Act 23:18  So he took him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee.

Our study today begins with Paul being brought before the Sanhedrin after being saved from the blood-thirsty Jewish mob, which had been stirred up by false accusations from “Jews which were of Asia”, a province in which Paul spent much of the time of his ministry. The chief captain had permitted Paul to address the mob, but when Paul told the mob that the Lord had warned him that the people of Jerusalem would reject his testimony, and that the Lord had told Paul “I will send you hence to the Gentiles”, at that word ‘Gentiles’ the mob began once again demanding Paul’s death. At that point the chief captain told the soldiers to take Paul into the castle to be interrogated by a beating. As the soldiers were binding Paul in preparation of his beating, Paul called the centurion in charge and pointed out to him that they were in the process of beating a Roman citizen who had not yet been condemned. The centurion informed the chief captain that Paul was a Roman citizen, and the chief captain immediately stopped the preparations for the scourging and decided instead to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin to determine what laws Paul had broken:

Act 23:1  And Paul, earnestly beholding the council [G4892: ‘sunedrion’ the Sanhedrin] said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.

“Paul earnestly beholding the council” means that he was looking everyone in the eye, just as everyone looked upon Peter and John when they healed the man who was born lame and had been begging for decades at the gate of the temple. The Greek word for the two English words, “earnestly beholding” is G816, ‘atenizo’. The ‘z’ always has an ‘idz’ sound when being pronounced in Greek, and it would be pronounced at-en-id’-zo. It means that you give something or someone your undivided attention.

Act 3:11  And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.
Act 3:12  And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?

All four English words “look ye so earnestly” are properly translated from the single Greek word, ‘atenizo’. Peter and John had the undivided attention of the multitude, and they took advantage of that ‘attention’, that ‘atenizo’, to witness for Christ, just as Paul is taking advantage of the attention being placed upon him by the members of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. Paul knew this Sanhedrin whole-heartedly agreed with the mob which had “[gone] about to kill him” the previous day. The high priest made his own sentiments concerning the apostle Paul perfectly clear, just as the religious leaders of this day feel about those who proclaim the doctrines of Jesus Christ:

Act 23:2  And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.

Paul is Christ’s ambassador:

2Co 5:20  Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Make no mistake about it. If you or I, as ambassadors for Christ, make the statement that we are not to become entangled in the affairs of this age, or that we are not to take up arms against our enemies, the religious leaders of the churches of this day we live in would think nothing of “smiting (us) in the mouth.”

Act 23:3  Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?

Notice how quickly our own flesh, when breaking the law, thinks nothing of appealing to the law when it serves the interests of the desires of our flesh as those who wanted to smite Paul did:

Act 23:4  And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest?
Act 23:5  Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.

Paul would not have rebuked the high priest if he had known the man was the high priest. Paul had rebuked the high priest not knowing he was the high priest. However, he could not deny the truth of the words he had spoken. He might well have thought that because Ananias had acted so unlawfully, he was not behaving as a high priest.

Here now we have another example of what Christ meant when He admonished us all to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mat 10:16):

Act 23:6  But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.

We are made aware of this difference between Pharisees and Sadducees in all three of the synoptic gospels:

Mat 22:23  The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

Mar 12:18  Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,

Luk 20:27  Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him,

The priests were almost all Sadducees, demonstrating that the highest-ranking religious leaders have always been the most corrupt and the most ignorant of the Truth of God’s Word.

Act 23:7  And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided.

Paul had been told by the holy spirit that his testimony would not be received by the Jews at Jerusalem.

Act 22:17  And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, [from Damascus] even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;
Act 22:18  And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.

Paul is relating what the holy spirit told him two decades earlier, but nothing has changed, and the Jews at Jerusalem are still rejecting ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ’. Both the Jews and the Christians, “the seven churches of Asia” reject “the testimony of Jesus Christ” until this very day. That fact is signified by placing the apostle John “in the isle that is called Patmos”:

Rev 1:9  I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Paul had given his testimony, and it had been overwhelmingly rejected by the religious leaders and by the people of the city of Jerusalem as a whole. He was now being tried by the very same people who so hated him, and it appeared there was no way out. The holy spirit made the apostle Paul to be “wise as a serpent but harmless as a dove” and provided a strategy for saving Paul’s life and snatching him “out of the mouth of the lion” (2Ti 4:17):

Act 23:8  For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.
Act 23:9  And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.
Act 23:10  And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.
Act 23:11  And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.

“The night following” is that very night after the “great dissension” between the Pharisees and the Sadducees over whether there is a resurrection. These words of the Lord… “Be of good cheer, Paul: As you have testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome”… were of great comfort to the apostle Paul as they should be also to us. This promise of the Lord’s providence over our lives will see us through the storms of life, signified by Paul’s stormy journey to Rome to appear before Caesar. The venom of serpents which Paul will face on this journey to Rome signifies the serpents we handle and cast into the flames of the Lord’s fiery words, as we make our own journey in this life.

Mar 16:17  And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
Mar 16:18  They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Notice that it does not say, “They shall deliberately take up serpents” or “intentionally drink any deadly thing.” Such foolishness would be “tempting the Lord thy God” which Christ expressly told us not to do:

Mat 4:5  Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
Mat 4:6  And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Mat 4:7  Jesus said unto him, It is written again [“the sum of Thy Word” (Psa 119:160 ASV)], Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Jerusalem, where Paul was apprehended by the Jews, signifies the religious world which passionately despises the testimony of Jesus Christ. Rome signifies the secular world, which also hates the doctrines of Christ, but not to the point of wanting to kill Him:

Act 3:13  The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

The Lord is telling Paul, in type, that he will judge this world and will then go on to judge angels in the lake of fire.

1Co 6:2  Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3  Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

The Lord is telling Paul, and through Paul, He is telling us, that we are in His hands even in the midst of our severest trials. This is what the Lord is reassuring Paul:

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

We cannot see how our trials are working anything good while we are enduring the pain they bring us.

Joseph lived for 13 years from the age of 17 when his brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery until he ascended the throne of Egypt at the age of 30. During all that 13 years he outwardly appeared to be going steadily downhill. First, he was betrayed and sold into Egypt by his own physical brothers. Then he was sold as a slave to Potiphar, and from Potiphar’s house he was sent to Pharaoh’s prison. That is 13 years of fiery trials of Joseph’s faith in the Lord’s promise to make him a ruler and to make his brothers bow down to him.

It is the same with the apostle Paul, and it is the same with us. The enemies of the gospel are fervently determined to destroy Christ and His kingdom within us:

Act 23:12  And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.
Act 23:13  And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.

The fact we are told… “And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy” and the meaning of the number four (the whole of what is under consideration), being multiplied by ten, (the perfection of corruptible flesh), simply confirms these words of Christ:

Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Conspiring with others to destroy the Lord’s chosen few comes as naturally to our flesh as breathing. All of Babylon has conspired to reject the Words of Truth throughout scripture. The scriptures teach “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Eze 18:4 and 20). The great harlot and her daughters have conspired to teach the false doctrine of eternal torment in literal flames of fire. The scriptures teach “it is not of him that willeth” (Rom 9:16). The churches conspire together to teach the false doctrine of ‘free moral agency.’ The scriptures teach that the fire of the Lord’s words will save all men (1Co 3:15). The churches of Babylon teach that the ‘fire’ will torment most of mankind for all eternity. The scriptures teach that the Godhead is understood by the relationship of a man with His wife (Rom 1:20, 1Co 11:3). The scriptures plainly state, “There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and [besides this ‘one God’ there is also] one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things” (1Co 8:6). The great harlot and her daughters have all agreed to teach the false doctrine of a triune God head.

The Great harlot conspired to slay the apostle Paul, but once again the Lord delivered His elect ‘out of the mouth of the lion’:

2Ti 4:17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

Act 23:14  And they [the “above forty” conspirators] came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.

This situation was first prophesied in the book of Genesis where the Lord cursed the serpent in the garden:

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Act 23:15  Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.

“Above forty men” had conspired to kill the apostle Paul.

In 1972 I was working on ‘the mail analysis team’ at the headquarters of the World-Wide Church of God. In the span of five workdays, we received 25 paperback copies of a book entitled “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” by a man named Gary Allen. It was a book which documented the establishment of the unconstitutional and therefore unlawful, and purposely mislabeled Federal Reserve System. At that time, I was the most unpolitical person in the world. I despised the fact that the news headlines would interrupt my country music on the radio every hour on the hour. I was a member of the only true church, and I was convinced that by virtue of being a member of that church I was going to be carried to a “place of safety” which we had been told would be the city of Petra in Jordan. Our doctrine forbade us from taking any part in the affairs of this world, and that was fine with me. Therefore, I had no interest whatsoever in politics. Nevertheless, it was my job to ‘ analyze’ any trends in the mail we received, and those 25 paperbacks were definitely a trend. We were also receiving many other letters asking about what was in that book.

So, I took the book home and read it and began to have my eyes opened to whom the Lord is using to control all the nations on the earth. The scriptures reveal who that is in this verse:

Pro 22:7  The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

As it turns out the Federal Reserve Bank is neither ‘Federal’ nor does it have the ‘reserves’ it is supposed to keep on hand to avoid a depression. Back in the 70’s we had something called ‘telephone books.’ Some of you will remember that. In all those phone books there was a section called the blue pages which had the phone numbers of all agencies connected to federal, state, and local governments. The ‘Federal Reserve’ was nowhere to be found in the blue pages for the simple reason that it is not connected to nor subservient to the U.S. government, even though it is indeed a quasi-governmental organization, but with absolutely no ability to be audited by the federal government until this very day.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a privately owned bank, and it was to be found in the white pages right next to ‘Federal Express’, the privately owned package delivery service here is the United States. It is no more ‘federal’ than any local bank yet it wields incredible power because the nation is in debt to the Federal Reserve Bank to the tune of trillions of dollars which cannot possibly ever be paid back. Every dollar is a “Federal Reserve Note”, and it is plainly labeled as such. What that means is that it must be repaid, and it must be repaid with interest. The payments on the debt are fast approaching the point of this nation not even being able to pay the interest on its debt.

The Lord was not lying when He told us:

Pro 22:7  The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

That book documented how the Federal Reserve Act was passed through Congress just before Christmas day in 1913, after all the patriotic congressmen were home with their families. It ignored Article One section 8 of the constitution which demands that “Congress shall… coin money and regulate the value thereof”, and it gave the right to print paper money from thin air to a group of already very wealthy men, with very little accountability to the federal government. The independence of the federal reserve is acknowledged until this very day.

I am relating all this just to tell you that when I read that book entitled ‘None Dare Call It Conspiracy’ which documented how this cabal of wealthy men conspired to become the owners of all the money in the nation, I went to the most highly regarded historian in the World-Wide Church of God. It was a minister and professor named Dr. Herman Hoeh. With my newfound knowledge of the history of the creation of the Federal Reserve Act, I asked him, “Dr. Hoeh, what does the Bible have to say about conspiracies? Is there anything in scripture about a conspiracy to rule the world through the banking system?” Dr Hoeh brushed me off with an emphatic, “No, there in nothing in the scriptures about conspiracies. If there were, Mr. Armstrong would have written something by now.” He then turned to a fellow German and said, “Hello, Herr Haupt, how are you today?” There would be no discussion of what I had learned with Dr. Herman Hoeh.

The fact is that the scriptures are full of accounts of conspiracies being carried out against those who were sent by the Lord to speak for Him. Beginning with Joseph’s brothers conspiring to destroy him, to Absolom and Ahithophel and many other conspirators who were determined to dethrone and kill King David:

2Sa 15:12  And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor, [also Bathsheba’s grandfather (2Sa 11:3, 2Sa 23:34)] from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom.

The most famous of all conspiracies was that of the chief priests with Judas who betrayed our Lord into their murderous hands.

Mat 26:14  Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,
Mat 26:15  And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted [conspired] with him for thirty pieces of silver.
Mat 26:16  And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

The holy spirit saw to it that Christ was always made aware of those who conspired to kill Him until His time to be betrayed arrived. Then Christ went up to Jerusalem knowing He was going there to be killed. Notice the difference between these two sections of scripture:

Joh 7:1  After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Joh 7:2  Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand. [Notice how John distances himself from ‘the Jews’]
Joh 7:3  His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.
Joh 7:4  For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.
Joh 7:5  For neither did his brethren believe in him.
Joh 7:6  Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
Joh 7:7  The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
Joh 7:8  Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

Twice Christ told His own unbelieving brothers, “My time is not yet come… My time is not yet full come”, and then later, when He knew His time had “full come” this is what He told His disciples:

Mat 20:17  And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them,
Mat 20:18  Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,
Mat 20:19  And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.

When Christ returned to the area of Jerusalem to raise Lazarus from the dead, His apostles somehow knew that the Jews wanted to kill their Lord:

Joh 11:1  Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
Joh 11:2  (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
Joh 11:3  Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
Joh 11:4  When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Joh 11:5  Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
Joh 11:6  When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.
Joh 11:7  Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.
Joh 11:8  His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?

The point to be made is that the holy spirit looks well to the Lord’s flock and warns those who would do harm to His prophets:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
Isa 1:22  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Isa 1:23  Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
Isa 1:24  Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
Isa 1:25  And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

Obviously Paul’s time was “not yet full come” because the Lord had “Paul’s sister’s son” strategically placed to hear and warn Paul about the conspiracy among “above forty men” to kill Paul:

Act 23:16  And when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle, and told Paul.

The Lord has people who are strategically placed in our lives to be in the position to help “the apple of His eye” when the need arises. Jonathan, the son of David’s arch enemy, King Saul, was just such a person. The Lord placed Jonathan in Saul’s household for David’s sake. This is a true statement:

Zec 2:8  For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.

The scriptures do not tell us whether any of those 40 men starved to death, but it does tell us that Paul was still alive for several more years.

Act 23:17  Then Paul called one of the centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain: for he hath a certain thing to tell him.
Act 23:18  So he took him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee.

The whole world hates the Lord and His Christ. Nevertheless the Lord also gives us favor in the eyes of those who are of this world when we need it most. This ‘chief captain’ was just such a person. He was a Roman whom the Jews hated, but Paul’s ways apparently pleased the Lord because we are told:

Pro 16:7  When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Next week we will see how the Lord takes care of the apple of His eye, both then and now.