Acts 23:11-35 The Romans protect Paul from conspiracy

Act 23:11 The Lord appeared to Paul to encourage him. Perhaps Paul was wondering if all this chaos was really honoring Jesus, if he was fulfilling the purpose for which The Lord had sent him to Jerusalem. After all he had accomplished on the mission field, it would have been sad if he had died at the hands of a mob without having really presented the gospel. In any event, Jesus promised him that he had indeed witnessed in Jerusalem and would live long enough to do so in Rome.

Acts 23:12-22 Having failed to get the Romans to do their dirty work, the Jews decided to use duplicity and treachery to murder Paul. At least forty men committed themselves to this task. Somehow Paul's nephew heard about this plot and told Paul, who then had a centurion take him to the commander. We haven't heard anything about Paul's family before this, but apparently they had not excommunicated him. Perhaps he had evangelized them, or perhaps it was simply familial connection. With a conspiracy as large as that described, it would have been hard to keep a secret, and perhaps Paul's nephew was young enough that he was not considered a threat and happened to overhear loose talk.

Acts 23:23-35 The commander did his duty to protect Roman citizens. Seventy cavalry troops and 200 infantry was perhaps an overreaction to forty poorly armed conspirators, fanatical though they might be. At least the issue was not in doubt. The chiliarch sent Paul with a letter to the governor Felix in Caesarea. He explained the situation as he could, not mentioning that he first intended to examine Paul by scourging before finding out he was a Roman citizen. But since his attempts to get at the heart of the matter had left him mystified, and it was clearly a political issue, not a military one, he probably made the pragmatically best choice. The soldiers delivered Paul to Antipatris that night, and then the next day the cavalry took Paul the rest of the way to Caesarea, the reverse of the 120 km journey that Paul had made only a few weeks earlier. Antipatris was a city built by Herod the Great, and named in honour of his father, Antipater II of Judea. It lay between Caesarea Maritima and Lydda, two miles inland, on the great Roman road about halfway between Caesarea and Jerusalem, .

          It is not clear what the significance of Paul being from Cilicia (where Tarsus is) was, but it apparently influenced Felix to hear the case himself. Perhaps he feared to tread on another governor's prerogatives if Paul had been from Judea and the whole matter should be heard locally. Or perhaps he would have preferred to not hear the case and avoid the risk of having to make a decision, but found out that he couldn't because the rules of administration within the Roman Empire made it his responsibility.