There are a few interesting things hidden within and behind this verse.
If we were to translate it literally, it would read:
“But when two years were fulfilled, Festus was received as successor to Felix; and Felix, with a desire to gain favour with the Jews, left Paul in bonds.”
Remember that Felix was being recalled to Rome to answer to charges laid by the Jews that he was corrupt.
He had recently slaughtered hundreds of people with the excuse of trying to maintain law and order.
And in the process he had confiscated the wealth and property of the richest of those accused.
This was after years of abusive and ruthless government.
Nero was then the Emperor, so Felix’ relationship to the throne was okay, but it wasn’t nearly as tight as it once was.
He needed all the help that he could muster, so with a desire to gain at least a little favor with the Jews, he left Paul in bonds.
So Felix had the power and the obligation to release Paul, but he chose not to do it in order to curry favor.
Unfortunately for just about everyone, that little tactic didn’t work, and the High Priest himself went to Rome to stand before the Emperor to accuse the former Governor.
Then there is the reference to “bonds.”
Should we understand this literally or figuratively?
As we have already seen Paul had a certain degree of liberty – at least in the early months of his captivity.
“And he {Felix] commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him.”
Do the words “left Paul bound” mean that Paul was required to remain in the barracks in Herod’s Judgment Hall, or do they mean that he was now actually in chains?
I think that it is probably figurative, meaning only that Paul wasn’t free to leave the Palace area.
But if I am wrong and Paul was physically shackled, we might ask WHEN that actually started.
Remember that the wife of Felix was Drusilla, and that woman’s aunt was Herodias.
Besides the fact that they were children of Herod, there are a lot of similarities between those two women.
For example, although they both claimed to be members of God’s chosen nation, they were both grossly immoral.
And both were confronted with prophets of God, who were not afraid to point to their immorality and pronounce judgment.
Herodias then worked her womanly magic on her then current paramour and arranged for the murder of John the Baptist.
There is no reason to think that Drusilla would listen to the charges and pronouncements of Paul without hating him at least as much as her aunt had hated John.
In other words Paul could have been living in chains for some time before the two years were completed.
Humanly speaking, it might have been by the strength of Felix against the wishes of his wife that Paul was still alive.
Also here in this verse we have the introduction of Porcius Festus.
We know next to nothing about this man, except that Josephus tells us that he died just a few years after Acts 26.
But his name is intriguing.
If you had to guess about the roots of the name “Porcius,” what would your guess be?
Did his mother and father give him this name; or did it come from some important official in Rome?
Was it considered something good in his day or was it as low as I think of it today?
Did Festus look like a pig, eat like a pig, or behave like a pig?
Did he deserve this name? Did he like this name?
These are curious questions no one can answer today.
Leaving these things, as we finish our look at Acts 24 (in record time) let’s think about the implications of Paul’s forced two year vacation.
Following that I need to figure out where to file it, so that I can find it again if I ever need to.
That means determining in which of about 50 categories to place it.
In the case of this message, I thought about filing under God, because the Lord seems to will these two year stints with some degree of regularity.
But I eventually decided to put this particular message under “Christian Living,” because we’re not so much interested in Who arranged it, as we are in what to do about it.
How long did it take the Lord to submerge the world in water during the days of Noah? Forty, you say?
Well then, how long did it take before the waters had subsided enough for Noah & family to leave the ark?
It took ten times as long for the waters to recede than for them to arrive.
Do you think that God would have had any problem in drying up the water as quickly as He sent the water?
For about a year, Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives, lived together in the ark, without a TV, radio, CD player or even a Scrabble game, as far as we know.
Since many, most, or all of the animals were hibernating, how do you think that the family spent their time?
It was God’s will that they spend that time together, and therefore I assume that there was something good in it for them, whether they took advantage of it or not.
And there was plenty of time to spend with the Lord.
Approximately how old was Joseph when he was sold into Egyptian slavery?
According to Genesis 37, Joseph was 17 years old when he was having dreams about his family bowing down to him, and I assume that it was shortly after that he was sent to Egypt.
And how old was he when he became Prime Minister? The scriptures say that he was thirty.
Doing the math, it appears that he was at least half a dozen years in Potiphar’s prison.
We know that he was given lots of responsibilities, but still, he had over 2,000 nights to himself – thinking, praying and meditating on the things of God.
How long was Moses living on the backside of the wilderness before the Lord sent him to save Israel?
Moses’ life was basically divided into three parts of equal length – 40 years each.
For about forty years he lead the quiet contemplative life of a shepherd.
When we compare the Moses of 40 years of age and the Moses of 80, do we see the same sort of man?
What do you suppose changed him?
For how many months or years was David in hiding from Saul after the Lord had revealed to him that he would be king?
We know that he was a very young man when that started and that he must have matured a great deal before his thirtieth birthday,
But we have to wonder how much of that maturity was gained by living in the caves and hollows around the Dead Sea and among the Philistines.
How long was Elijah at the Brook Cherith waiting upon the Lord for his every meal?
Paul’s two years in Caesarea was not inconsistent with the way God worked in other people’s lives.
And who is to say that the Lord isn’t doing the same with you or me at this very moment?
What is to keep the Lord from putting us into an hiatus for some specific purpose?
And what might that purpose be?
I would be the last person to accuse Paul of any pride about his ministry and accomplishments.
I believe that every statement of self-deprecation in his letters is absolutely genuine.
But who is to say that as he finished his 3rd missionary journey, he wasn’t on the verge a big dose of ego?
Solomon once said, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
I can’t say that I’m an expert in this, but isn’t our enjoyment of something much greater after waiting a good long time to receive it.
Isn’t that long-desired vacation much more memorable than the one that was taken on the spur of the moment?
It was David who said, “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him:
because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass,”
And “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”
Many good things cannot be rushed; they require time to mature, and speed would only ruin them.
For example we have a pair of beautiful “Thanksgiving Cacti” on our living room coffee table.
But we have to wait a week or so for the buds to open.
And if we tried to force them any sooner, there wouldn’t be any flowers at all.
And we respect those words of David and Paul, because we know that they knew what patience really is.
Another effect of these forced vacations and uncomfortable incarcerations is PRAYER.
One of the great heros of the Word of God has to be Joseph.
but I am convinced that 95 Christian young men out of a hundred who were forced into situations like Joseph’s would have crumbled rather than solidify into maturity.
Wouldn’t it have been a wonderful thing if that man had kept a journal of his thoughts and prayers?
And once he was brought into Egypt, without a single friend, and unable to speak a word in a common language, he turned to the only friend that he had – Jehovah.
And there was Paul in a similar kind of situation.
And yes, he may have had a busy correspondence with the outside.
But you can be sure that he had hours and hours of time for prayer; for fellowship with his Saviour.
For years he had been a spiritual adrenaline junkie.
He had fled a dozen cities with blood-thirsty gangs at his very heels.
He had seen important men bow in tears before the Saviour after he introduced them.
He had been a part of miracles.
But he also had the promise of God that this prison was not going to be his final earthly home.
But this forced hiatus also provided the opportunity for a growing dependence upon and confidence in God.
There is much that the Lord has promised us, and much that we haven’t obtained.
The fulfilment of God’s promises are all coming.
And another result of this two-year period, was hours in the Word of God.
I think that there is the likelihood that Paul was one of the geniuses of his day.
And I know that Paul was privileged to receive direct revelation about new and important doctrine.
And I know that he had been raised in a family and culture which immersed him in the Scriptures.
When he was preaching every day, visiting and traveling, I doubt that he had much opportunity to study.
But there he was in Caesarea for weeks, months and years, with hours a day for prayer and Bible study.
What a privilege.
What do you suppose that he meant when he wrote to Timothy, “The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments”?
Do you suppose that he was talking about commentaries and scriptures, or was it something else?
And last, one of the things that this two-year period did was to remind Paul, and us, Who it is that is in charge.
We all have a tendency to think of ourselves more highly than we should.
Some of us think that if we ever left this church, it probably wouldn’t survive.
But the ministry isn’t about us; it is about the Lord.
Paul’s two years gave the churches and his friends the opportunity to take their eyes away from the greatest man on earth and to look to the great God of Heaven and Earth.
Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Paul’s two years in Caesarea could have been a great period in his life.