Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 24:24

And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

24. And after certain days, when Felix came, &c.] To conform to the Greek more strictly, the Rev. Ver. reads “But after certain days, Felix came, &c.” It is difficult to say what is gained by this. Felix did not always reside in Csarea. After the first hearing of St Paul’s cause he had gone away for a time, but on his return he sent for the Apostle to question him on his doctrine. Perhaps those words about the resurrection of the just and the unjust had made him uneasy.

with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess ] She was a daughter of Herod Agrippa I. and so sister of Agrippa II. and of Bernice. She had formerly been married to Azizus, King of Emesa, but had been induced by Felix to leave her husband, and become his wife. Though she had been only six years of age when her father died (Act 12:23) she may have heard of the death of James the brother of John, and the marvellous delivery of St Peter from prison. For such matters would be talked of long after they had happened, and perhaps her father’s sudden death may have been ascribed by some to God’s vengeance for what he had done against the Christians. Her marriage with the Gentile Felix shewed that she was by no means a strict Jewess, and what she had heard of Jewish opposition to St Paul’s teaching may have made her, as well as her husband, desirous to hear him.

sent for Paul ] The Apostle was lodged in some part of the procurator’s official residence (see Act 23:35, note) and so was close at hand.

and heard him concerning the faith in Christ ] The best MSS. add Jesus. What St Paul would urge was not only a belief in the Christ, for whose coming all Jews were looking, but a belief that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah whom they had so long expected.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Felix came with his wife Drusilla – Drusilla was the daughter of Herod Agrippa the elder, and was engaged to be married to Epiphanes, the son of King Antiochus, on condition that he would embrace the Jewish religion; but as he afterward refused to do that, the contract was broken off. Afterward she was given in marriage, by her brother Agrippa the younger, to Azizus, king of Emesa, upon his consent to be circumcised. When Felix was governor of Judea, he saw Drusilla and fell in love with her, and sent to her Simon, one of his friends, a Jew, by birth a Cyprian, who pretended to be a magician, to endearour to persuade her to forsake her husband and to marry Felix. Accordingly, in order to avoid the envy of her sister Bernice, who treated her ill on account of her beauty, she was prevailed on, says Josephus, to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and to marry Felix (Josephus, Antiq., book 20, chapter 7, sections 1 and 2). She was, therefore, living in adultery with him, and this was probably the reason why Paul dwelt in his discourse before Felix particularly on temperance, or chastity. See the notes on Act 24:25.

He sent for Paul, and heard him – Perhaps he did this in order to be more fully acquainted with the case which was submitted to him. It is possible, also, that it might have been to gratify his wife, who was a Jewess, and who doubtless had a desire to be acquainted with the principles of this new sect. It is certain, also, that one object which Felix had in this was to let Paul see how dependent he was on him, and to induce him to purchase his liberty.

Concerning the faith in Christ – Concerning the Christian religion. Faith in Christ is often used to denote the whole of Christianity, as it is the leading and characteristic feature of the religion of the gospel.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Act 24:24-25

And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla he sent for Paul and heard him.

Felix and Drusilla

When Herod Agrippa I died at Caesarea (Act 12:23), he left behind him a son and three daughters as heirs of the ancestral name and virtues. The son was the Agrippa of chaps, 25, 26, then a handsome and accomplished youth of seventeen, detained at Rome by Claudius. The girls were Berenice (sixteen), Mariamne (ten), and little Drusilla, only six years of age. Pitiful to think of them!–heiresses of such a name, station, temptations, personal beauty and fascination of manner, and ungovernable passions! It was quite consistent with the traditions of the Herod family that Berenice should, while still a girl in her teens, be given in marriage to her uncle Herod of Chaleis, old enough to be her father. At twenty, a widow with two children, she came to Rome to the house of her brother; and there was nothing, either in his character or in hers to prevent horrible suspicions of them from being entertained in the society and the literature of the capital. To avert scandal, she was married to Polerno, a petty king in Asia Minor, whom she soon deserted, and returned to the society of Agrippa, at his two seats, in Caesarea Philippi and Jerusalem. A dozen years after the hearing before Festus, when more than forty-two, twice a widow, and of infamous reputation, her fascinations had so captivated the heart of Titus that he was hardly dissuaded by the indignant clamours of the Romans from making her empress. The story of Mariamne, the second sister, is happily brief and uneventful. But here is this poor little Drusilla, named for her fathers old friend at court, Drusus, son of Tiberius. At the time when her brother set up business as king on a small scale at Caesarea Philippi, she, only fifteen, and a famous beauty, is married to Aziz, another little king, lording it at Hamath, a few days journey to the north. And now, to bring in another character, we go back to Rome, to the year 44, with which we started. The back stairs influence of the palace was in the hands of two smart, capable brothers, by the names of Pallas and Felix. They had been, several years before, purchased by Antonia, mother of Claudius. Pallas became her confidential servant, and by and by the brothers received from her their freedom. At her death they transferred their services to her son, to whom they succeeded in making themselves indispensable. Pallas became a sort of major domo on the Palatine hill; and Felix (who took the name of Claudius out of compliment to the emperor) had rapid promotion in the army. In 52 a delegation of Jews arrived with a most grave complaint against the wretched administration of Cumanus, governor of Judaea. Naturally they took counsel at once with young Agrippa, and they drew Pallas into their interest by proposing to petition the emperor to give the governorship to Felix; and so the former house servant of the dowager Antonia became the procurator of Judaea. His administration was worthy of his antecedents. With all manner of ferocity and lust, says a famous sentence of Tacitus, he wielded the power of a king with the temper of a slave. He had no scruple against employing the basest treachery against public or private enemies. The upright Jonathan, to whom he owed his office, ventured to reason with him of righteousness, and he hired assassins to murder him. The last public service which he had rendered just before the arrest of Paul was in the case of an Egyptian leader of four thousand men who were robbers (sicarii, dagger men). He dispersed the banditti; but that Egyptian had escaped, and they were looking for him. Felix had been about a year in his government, when young Agrippa came to be his next neighbour–a delightful accession to the provincial society, especially when the house of Agrippa was enlivened by the visits of the youthful and beautiful Queen of Hamath! It was not unreasonable in the libidinous old slave (he must have been well advanced towards sixty) to mistrust the power of his personal fascinations; and in looking for some ally in his criminal design, he found, all ready to his hand, a certain magician named Simon, in whom we recognise our old acquaintance Simon Magus. This appropriate agent plied his arts of seduction to such purpose on the young bride, that she abandoned her husband, and gave herself to be the so-called wife of the mean and servile old debauchee at Caesarea. This act of the drama fits closely with the death of the deserted husband, Aziz, a few months later, at his desolated palace between the ranges of Lebanon. Whether he died of a broken heart or not we can only conjecture. Such was the pair before whom, invited to give them a private conference on the subject of faith in Christ, Paul reasoned of justice and continence and coming judgment. Caesarea, a seaport town with a population divided between Jews and Gentiles, was liable to furious outbreaks between the parties. One such took place towards the end of Pauls two years imprisonment, when Felix filled up the measure of his iniquities. There went up to Rome complaints that he had not only caused wanton slaughter, but had used his opportunity for private plunder. He had considered himself safe in any crime, it was said, so long as his brother Pallas continued near the ear of Nero. But this time he had ventured too far. To the inexpressible relief of the Jewish people, in 60 he was recalled to Rome; whither he promptly departed, accompanied by Drusilla, and by Simon Magus (as a sort of domestic chaplain), and followed by a deputation of Jews to prosecute him. The prosecution succeeded so far as to compel him to disgorge much of his plunder; but the influence of Pallas screened him from severer punishment. Felix and Drusilla both vanish out of history at this point, and Felix never appears again. But about nineteen years afterwards we get a glimpse of a faded beauty of forty years haunting the voluptuous Roman watering places by the Bay of Naples, in whom we may not easily recognise the little Drusilla. In her company is her grown-up boy, Agrippa. It seems as if the world were threatened with the infestation of yet another generation of the accursed race of Herod. But God is merciful. The awful eruption of Vesuvius that overwhelmed Pompeii amid its debaucheries blessed mankind by burying beneath the storm of suffocating ashes the princess Drusilla and her only child. Many have seen, among the remains of that great catastrophe, the perfect contour of a womans form moulded in the ashen soil, within which the flesh had withered away and perished, and the skeleton had fallen bone from bone. It needs no wild effort of the fancy to imagine, as we look on these sorrowful relics, that we are in presence of what remains of the beautiful and guilty princess of the royal house of Herod. (L. W. Bacon, D. D.)

Paul before Felix

I. The preacher. Paul. Faithful, fearless, sympathetic, uncompromising, heroic. A man unsurpassed in native and acquired ability, and a match for the proudest philosopher of his day. Here he stands before us with the enemy at bay, and the world beneath his feet; a conqueror, not a captive. Though his limbs were manacled, his spirit revelled in a liberty which no prison walls could circumscribe.

II. The hearers. Felix and Drusilla.

1. Officially high. Felix was governor of Judaea.

2. Socially great. In those days, as well as now, money or office cleared a mans social standing ground, and without inquest for character, or intelligence, he was admitted into the best society.

3. Morally corrupt. There are few crimes of which Felix had not been guilty. Drusilla was no better.

4. In reputation bad. With the stains of cruelty, robbery, adultery and murder upon them, their reputation grew worse and worse, until driven from the country into exile and disgrace.

III. The sermon.

1. Its style. He reasoned. Christianity thrives best in the unclouded light of reason, and has nothing to fear from the merciless rigours of logic.

2. Its divisions.

(1) Righteousness. Justice, in the broad sense of rendering to all their due. Right with God above, and fellowman below; right everywhere and always.

(2) Temperance–not merely total abstinence from intoxicants, but the right control of the whole man, with special reference to chastity.

(3) Judgment. That great day when Felix shall be like Paul; when all earthly distinctions shall vanish, and only moral character shall avail. What a mere child Felix must have felt himself to be in the grip of this iron-bound free man! It will be seen that this discourse was–

(a) comprehensive;

(b) sublime;

(c) practical;

(d) exhaustive.

IV. The effect. Felix trembled. Gospel preaching is Divinely intended to–

1. Convince the intellect;

2. Stir the sensibilities;

3. Affect the will.

There is in every man the instinct of retribution, and ever and anon the imagination comes flying back from the future pale with the tidings it brings; and from before these spectres the mind recoils and the knees smite together.

V. The failure. Go thy way. He was powerfully moved; he felt a great crisis was upon him. Why did he not yield? Indisposition to stop sinning was the cause. So is it always. Drusilla was the stumbling block. (T. Kelly.)

Paul before Felix

Learn–

I. The possibility of hearing the gospel from wrong motives (verse 24). Felix sent for Paul, not from a sincere desire to know the truth, but to gratify his own whims. We hear the gospel from wrong motives–

1. When we regard it as a pleasing change in the daily routine of life. It afforded diversion for Felix and Drusilla.

2. When we hear it from interest or curiosity in the preacher, or service, or subject.

3. From a desire to please or oblige others.

4. From self-interest. Felix looked for ransom money (verse 26).

5. From a false conception of the gospel, as moderating the severity of the law, and giving license to sin.

II. The possibility of hearing the gospel from wrong motives demands the utmost faithfulness of the preacher. Paul knew the character of his audience, and saw the vast importance of the opportunity. He reasoned of–

1. Righteousness to the venal judge–a man on whose favour he was humanly dependent, but whom faithfulness will not permit him to flatter.

2. Temperance–soberness, chastity, to this immoral pair.

3. Judgment to come–to the unrighteous judge.

III. Faithfulness in the preacher will certainly be influential. Felix trembled. He had not expected such a discourse, and never before heard such, particularly from the lips of a prisoner.

1. His conscience was aroused. He trembled–a proof that there was something good in him that felt itself drawn by the good. There is hope in such cases, if the conscience stricken will put forth suitable effort.

2. The power of Gods Word was vindicated (Psa 119:120; Heb 4:12-13).

IV. The utmost faithfulness may fail of absolute success. Go thy way. How hard to break away from sin! He hesitated–postponed–and was lost. Felix is a sad representation of many hearers.

1. He trembled.

2. And yet he remained as he was. (The Lay Preacher.)

Paul before Felix

At the beginning of this interview Paul stood a captive before Felix, but at the close Felix stood a moral captive before Paul. The world rests its success upon men; God rests the foundation of His kingdom on the truth. It was not Paul who made Felix tremble, but rather truth blazing in the apostles words. In connection with this, observe–

I. The power of truth in statement apart from personal example. There is a marvellous force in words, even apart from the person who uses them. Every mans life tends to strengthen or weaken that force, but cannot destroy it. Pauls example, of course, was a tremendous power, but he stood before Felix a stranger, and it was while he reasoned on the faith in Christ that Felix trembled.

II. The nature of Christian truth and faith. It is not needful that we seek out the reason of Felix sending for Paul. He had doubtless anticipated a pleasure in hearing what this Nazarene had done, when Paul confronted him with the fact that faith in Christ always includes the human conscience. What shall I do to be saved? asked the jailer of the same apostle. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, was his answer; and his exposition of the same Christian faith to the other who had summoned him from a dungeon included the golden rule, the Sermon on the Mount, and the preparation for the Judgment Day, all put into practice. A light thing to believe–a light thing to have faith in Christ! Not that–not so thought Felix. Faith means the human choices and the deeds that shall be sealed in the presence of God.

III. Mans true nature is subserved by the truth. Godlessness is the dwarfing of mans nobler nature; impurity is poison. Against this place the faith in Christ, which includes righteousness and purity, and the preparation for the right account, and we have what man needs. Paul made known to Felix the one thing needful. The whole aim of revealed truth is to develop in man his nobler nature. We need God, and all other blessings such as we need will come.

IV. The rejection of Christian truth is sin against self. If the acceptance of revealed truth is what we need, then to slight it is self-infliction of a personal injury. Eternal punishment means eternal sin. The judgment day book on which God writes retribution is man himself, or, rather, God seals what man has written on his own heart. If the worm keeps boring at the root of the tree, the leaves will soon fade and the tree die. If the rats keep gnawing on the plank, the music of the waters outside will be ended in the sound of despair. If the canker keeps on eating, it reaches the vitals soon. Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death upon the sinner–this is the eternal law, a law no man can set aside.

V. Delay is confession. Go thy way for this time, means a recognition of the truth in what has been said. Putting off duty is confession of duty–duty deferred. The excuse simply declares a love for sin–an unwillingness to give it up. Paul found it convenient to drag his chains into Felixs presence to testify of his hope. What if Paul had said, When I have a convenient season I will obey! (D. O. Mears, D. D.)

Paul before Felix; or, the contact of Christianity with a heart of corruption and a life of guilt

I. The truths which Christianity has to address to such a man.

1. Righteousness. Nothing could be more appropriate in respectfully addressing one appointed to administer justice, or be more likely to arrest the attention of one so venal as Felix. It would embrace the nature and the requirements of justice in the relations which man sustains to his fellow men; and it would, at the same time, lead the mind up to justice in the higher sense–in that which pertains to God and to His administration.

2. Temperance. The power of self-restraint, self-government. This topic, too, was eminently appropriate. Not indeed an intemperate man in the modern sense, he yet had not the corrupt propensities of his nature under control, and gave free indulgence to carnal appetites.

3. Judgment to come. Addressing wicked man, who must, like other men, soon appear before the bar of his Maker, it was eminently proper that this should be a prominent topic. And these are proper topics for preaching anywhere and everywhere.

II. What is the natural and proper effect of such truths on the mind?

1. All men are aware that, when nature acts freely, there are certain marks of conscious guilt which convey to those around us the knowledge of that which is passing within. The blush, the paleness of the cheek, the averted eye; a trembling and agitated frame; a restless, suspicious, fearful look, are marks of what is within. They cannot be transferred to another kind of conduct–to the consciousness of a noble deed; to purity of purpose.

2. The design of this arrangement, as a part of our constitution, it is not difficult to understand.

(1) No one can explain it except on the supposition that there is a God, and that He rules over mankind.

(2) It is an arrangement designed to reveal or disclose the knowledge of our sin to others. The trembling of Felix could not be misunderstood. He would not have trembled if he had not been conscious that he had lived in violation of righteousness and temperance, and had reason to look with apprehension to a judgment to come.

(3) The arrangement is designed, not only to put others on their guard, but also to restrain us from the commission of sin and to secure the reformation of the guilty, and to lead them to flee from the wrath to come. Thus the jailer at Philippi trembled; thus Felix trembled; and thus the sinner now trembles at the prospect of impending judgment. And he is the most successful preacher who is most able to produce this consciousness of guilt.

III. In what manner are these impressions often met and warded off? Felix trembled, but he did not yield. The jailer at Philippi trembled, and yielded. The original Greek is, Taking time, I will call for thee; that is, I have it not now; I will secure it at some future period. So men, engaged in the world, plead that they have not time to attend to the matter now. So the young delay the subject to a future period, when it will be more suitable than at present. So the gay and thoughtless ask for delay with a promise or a hope that the time will come when religion will be more appropriate, and when–the pleasures of life past–they may find leisure to prepare to die. I do not say that the purpose to attend to it is never carried out. Felix found time to consider the subject, for he sent for Paul often. It is not for us to say that a man who has neglected a present opportunity of salvation never is or can be saved. But that it may be the last opportunity no one can doubt; for death may be near. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

Felix, a mixed character

In this incident we see–

I. Good conduct inspired by a good motive.

1. Felix trembled, which was good as far as it went, and was infinitely better than insensibility, flippancy, infidelity, or obstinacy. It is the first step in a new direction–if the next is taken.

2. Felix trembled under a genuine conviction that Paul was right, and the trembling shows a momentary desire to put himself in the right.

II. Bad conduct with a good motive.

1. Felix was animated with a strong desire to release Paul. He liked the man and knew that justice was on his side. What better sign than a desire to be of service to a good man.

2. But Felix sought to compass his desire in a wrong way. Why not say that the case against him had broken down, and that his right to be released must be recognised. But no; Felixs cupidity was stronger than his amiable desires and his sense of justice. He would do good if bribed to do it. The apostle tells us that their condemnation is just who do evil that good may come.

III. Good conduct with a bad motive.

1. Felix communed with Paul. If evil communications corrupt good manners, how much must good communications improve them. A man is known by the company he keeps, and to exchange the company of Drusilla for that of Paul–what a hopeful sign.

2. But why did Felix commune with Paul? To get money out of him–the reason why many a wolf puts on sheeps clothing, and why many worldly and wicked men attend Church.

IV. Bad conduct from a bad motive. The true man comes out at last.

1. Bad in conduct. He left Paul bound–in spite of spiritual convictions, sense of justice, communings.

2. Bad in motive. Willing to show the Jews a pleasure. Conclusion: Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The man who begins to try to do so ends by wholesale service of the latter. (J. W. Burn.)

Felix and the jailer

(text and Act 16:27-31):–Let us mark–

I. The points of resemblance.

1. They were wicked men when the apostle became acquainted with them.

2. They were hearers of the gospel. Ungodly though they were, they did not refuse to hear Gods Word. This was well. Gospel was and is the very thing for sinners. I came not to call the righteous, says the Saviour, but sinners to repentance.

3. They had a desire to know the gospel. This was a farther step. The gospel is, to many of its so-called hearers, an object of complete indifference.

4. They trembled from spiritual conviction.

5. They were delivered from their fears. Before the night had passed the jailer was rejoicing with all his house; and Felix did not tremble long. Thus far the cases correspond and have a hopeful aspect.

II. The points of contrast. They differed as to–

1. The motives which induced them to hear the gospel. The jailers motive was anxiety to be saved. Did Felix ever ask, What must I do to be saved? Never. Curiosity to hear of the new faith from so famous a teacher may have had an influence. But venality was at the bottom of what he did. He wanted a bribe, and he became a gospel hearer, to give Paul opportunity and encouragement to offer it. Here our thoughts naturally turn to the motives by which people are induced to hear the gospel among ourselves. Remove from our congregations all those who come to gratify an idle curiosity–all who come to acquire a name of respectability, by which their temporal interests may be served–and all who come without any anxious desire to be saved, and how many will remain?

2. As to the nature of their convictions. Both were in deep alarm. Felix saw that God would punish sin. But that was all. He did not see that God was just in doing so. His heart clung to sin, while his spirit was quaking at the thought of the Almighty wrath to which sin exposed him. The jailer saw whence the danger came, and what it was that had brought him to the brink of perdition; that it was sin that was his enemy, rather than God.

3. As to the tendency of their convictions. Felix trembled and Bent Paul away; turned his back upon Gods ordinance of preaching, and rejected the instrumentality that might have led to the salvation of his soul. The jailer trembled to better purpose. His convictions brought him to the apostles feet. Hearers of the Word! are any of you awakened? Do not turn your back upon the ordinances that have disturbed your slumbers. This difference farther appears with regard to sin. The convictions of Felix produced no change upon his life; but the jailer became a new man.

4. As to the issue of their convictions. The heart of Felix was hardened; the jailers was broken.

5. In the mode of deliverance from their fears. The fears of Felix were overcome by unbelief: those of the jailer were banished by faith.

6. In important particulars of their conduct.

(1) In their treatment of the gospel. The jailer embraced it; Felix rejected it.

(2) In their treatment of Christ. Christ stood at the door and knocked. Felix answered not, and showed a desire to be let alone, and that Christ should not knock again. Far other entertainment was given by the jailer. He received the Saviour without delay.

(3) In their treatment of the servants of Christ. Felix sought to turn Paul to account, and, failing in that, he persecuted him to get popularity with his enemies. The jailer honoured Paul and Silas, did what he could to lessen their sufferings, and supplied their temporal wants.

7. In fine, if Felix died as he lived, which we have no reason to doubt, there is a crowning difference now. The terrors of Felix have returned; the jailer is with Jesus in paradise, awaiting the redemption of the body. (Andrew Gray.)

Pauls private speech

We have often seen Paul in public; we have now to study somewhat his private ministry. It is easier to speak upon Mars hill to a great crowd than to speak in a gilded chamber to two eminent personages. Will Paul be the same man in both places? Look at the case in detail.

I. The auditors are great people, yet the gospel does not spare them. Here is the true apostle face to face with evil; he smites it with both hands alone. These are the instances that commend the gospel to our confidence. We cannot dwell too long, too gratefully, upon the moral dignity of this gospel. There is no greatness before it. Because the gospel speaks in this tone it lives forever.

II. The auditors were but two in number, yet the gospel sought to save them. When Christianity takes the census it counts every man one, and says to despairing preachers, Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death. Christianity despises no one. Other religions go by numbers; the individual life is a fleck, a drop of a bucket. But the religion of Jesus Christ having found that one of the lambs has gone astray, will neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, until the wanderer is back again. So, every man is a congregation. Earnestness can always speak to the individual. If one soul is within ear shot, he constitutes the supreme occasion of any ministry. Jesus often spoke to the one hearer and made revelations to individual hearers greater than any he ever made to the crowd.

III. The auditors asked for entertainment; yet the gospel gave them judgment. The gospel has no entertainments. Felix cared nothing for the faith in Christ himself, for he was a Roman; but Drusilla was a Jewess, and had heard of Jesus of Nazareth, and would hear somewhat of her eccentric compatriot. So we become interested in certain sides and aspects of questions. Drusilla could have no interest in the spiritual Christ; but she had intellectual interest, or the interest of curiosity in the historical magician, the prince of the wonder workers. Paul was an expert, a devotee; he would know about the whole case and would be able to explain it, and now he was at liberty to tell the tale. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment. Is that the faith that is in Christ? Is that Christian preaching? Verily; and the preaching we want every day. Men are delighted with high theological cobweb speculation, and call it marvellous. It is not Christian preaching. The true preaching makes the robber empty his pockets, makes the bad man white with inward accusation, makes the oppressor turn uneasily on his seat as if he were sitting on thorns and fire, turns the bad man mad, and makes him say foamingly at the church door that he will never come back again. The audience should always suggest the subject. This was Pauls method, and was the invariable method of Jesus Christ Himself. The audience is the text; this is where our speakers fail so much. What do our hearers want with speculations they cannot follow, with dreams they never heard of? He who would preach to the times must preach to the broken-heartedness of the day, to the criminality of the hour, to the inconstancy of the times, to the disloyalty of the army. This advice will never make popular preachers: it will make Pauline preachers. May the Lord of the harvest thrust into His harvest field many such preachers! We are not sent to make theologians, but Christians; we are not sent to build up a system, but to build up a character. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 24. His wife Drusilla] We have already seen that Felix was thrice married: two of his wives were named Drusilla; one was a Roman, the niece or grand-daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, mentioned by Tacitus, lib. v. cap. 9. The other, the person in the text, was a Jewess, daughter to Herod Agrippa the Great. See Ac 12:1, c. When she was but six years of age, she was affianced to Epiphanes, son of Antiochus, king of Comagene, who had promised to embrace Judaism on her account but, as he did not keep his word, her brother Agrippa (mentioned Ac 25:13) refused to ratify the marriage. About the year of our Lord 53, he married her to Azizus, king of the Emesenes, who received her on condition of being circumcised. Felix having seen her, fell desperately in love with her, and by means of a pretended Jewish magician, a native of Cyprus, persuaded her to leave her husband; on which Felix took her to wife. She appears, on the whole, to have been a person of indifferent character; though one of the finest women of that age. It is said that she, and a son she had by Felix, were consumed in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. See Josephus, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 7, and see Calmet and Rosenmuller.

Heard him concerning the faith in Christ.] For the purpose mentioned in Clarke’s note on “Ac 24:21“, that he might be the more accurately instructed in the doctrines, views, &c., of the Christians.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Felix came with his wife; having been out of town to meet and conduct his wife.

Drusilla; who was daughter of Herod the Great, and sister of that Agrippa of whom mention is made in the two following chapters; a most libidinous woman, who had left her husband Aziz, and, whilst he yet lived, was married to this Felix, who was taken with her beauty. Yet Paul preached

the faith in Christ, the gospel, unto such, not knowing what persons, or in what hour, God might call.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

24, 25. Felix . . . with his wifeDrusilla . . . a JewessThis beautiful but infamous woman wasthe third daughter of Herod Agrippa I, who was eaten of worms (see onAc 12:1), and a sister ofAgrippa II, before whom Paul pleaded, Ac26:1, &c. She was “given in marriage to Azizus, king ofthe Emesenes, who had consented to be circumcised for the sake of thealliance. But this marriage was soon dissolved, after this manner:When Festus was procurator of Judea, he saw her, and being captivatedwith her beauty, persuaded her to desert her husband, transgress thelaws of her country, and marry himself” [JOSEPHUS,Antiquities, 20.7.1,2]. Such was this “wife” ofFelix.

he sent for Paul and heardhim concerning the faith in ChristPerceiving from what he hadheard on the trial that the new sect which was creating such a stirwas represented by its own advocates as but a particular developmentof the Jewish faith, he probably wished to gratify the curiosity ofhis Jewish wife, as well as his own, by a more particular account ofit from this distinguished champion. And no doubt Paul would so farhumor this desire as to present to them the great leading features ofthe Gospel. But from Ac 24:25it is evident that his discourse took an entirely practical turn,suited to the life which his two auditors were notoriously leading.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And after certain days,…. Some days after this trial:

when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess; to Caesarea, having been to fetch her from some other place, or to meet her: this woman was the daughter of Herod Agrippa, who was eaten by worms, Ac 12:23 and sister to King Agrippa, mentioned in the next chapter; but though she was born of Jewish parents, and so a Jewess, as she is here called, yet her name was a Roman name, and is the diminutive of Drusus; the first of which name took it from killing Drausus, an enemy’s general, and who was of the Livian family; and the name of the mother of Tiberius Caesar was Livia Drusilla; Caius Caligula, the Roman emperor, had also a sister whose name was Drusilla a; this name Herod took from the Romans, and gave to his daughter; though the masculine name is often to be met with in Jewish writings; we frequently read of , “Rabbi Drusai” b; Herod Agrippa c left three daughters, born to him of Cypris, Bernice, Mariamne, and Drusilla; and a son by the same, whose name was Agrippa; Agrippa when his father died was seventeen years of age, Bernice was sixteen, and was married to her uncle Herod; Mariamne and Drusilla were virgins, but were promised in marriage by their father; Mariamne to Julius Archelaus, son of Chelcias, and Drusilla to Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, king of Comagene; but after Herod’s death, he refused to marry her, being unwilling to embrace the Jewish religion and relinquish his own, though he had promised her father he would; wherefore her brother Agrippa married her to Azizus king of the Emesenes, who was willing to be circumcised; but this marriage was quickly dissolved; for Felix coming to the government of Judea, seeing Drusilla, was enamoured with her beauty; and by the means of one of his friends, one Simon a Jew, and a native of Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician, he enticed her from her husband, and prevailed upon her to marry him:

he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ; which he did, chiefly on account of his wife, who being brought up in the Jewish religion, had some notion of the Messiah the Jews expected, and could better understand what Paul talked of than he did; who at this time doubtless showed, that Christ was come, and that Jesus of Nazareth was he; that he is truly God and man, that he died, and rose again from the dead on the third day, and that he has obtained salvation for sinners, and that whoever believes in him shall be saved; this was the faith in Christ Paul discoursed of, and Felix and his wife heard; but it does not appear that it was attended with the power of God, to the conversion of either of them; it seems to have been merely out of curiosity, and as a diversion to them, and to do his wife a pleasure, that he sent for Paul and heard him.

a Sueton. in Vita Tiberii, sect. 3, 4, & in Vita Caligulae, sect. 7. b Shemot Rabba, sect. 35. fol. 136. 4. & sect. 43. fol. 140. 4. Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 14. 4. & 18. 2. Juchasin, fol. 88. 1. c Joseph. de Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 11. sect. 6. Antiqu. l. 19. c. 9. sect. 1. l. 20, c. 6. sect. 1, 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

With Drusilla his wife ( ). Felix had induced her to leave her former husband Aziz, King of Emesa. She was one of three daughters of Herod Agrippa I (Drusilla, Mariamne, Bernice). Her father murdered James, her great-uncle Herod Antipas slew John the Baptist, her great-grandfather (Herod the Great) killed the babes of Bethlehem. Perhaps the mention of Drusilla as “his own wife” is to show that it was not a formal trial on this occasion. Page thinks that she was responsible for the interview because of her curiosity to hear Paul.

Sent for (). First aorist middle of as usual (Ac 10:5).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

POSTPONEMENT OF THE TRIAL, PAUL’S SECOND DEFENCE BEFORE FELIX – TWO SILENT YEARS V. 24-27

1) “And after certain days,” (meta de hemeras tinas) “And after certain days,” had thereafter passed, following Paul’s imprisonment with liberties, perhaps for shake-down” purposes of Felix’s receiving money, Act 24:26-27.

2) “When Felix came with his wife Drusilla,” (paragenomenos ho pheliks sun Drousille) “When Felix in company with Drusilla arrived;” She was the younger daughter of Agrippa 1, sister to Agrippa 11, married at age 14 as a beauty queen to Azizus King of Emeseses. Felix persuaded her to leave King Azizus and marry him; to them a son by name of Agrippa was born and perished in the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, according to-Josephus, A.D. 79.

3) “Which was a Jewess,”(te idia gunaiki ouse loudaia) “His own wife (Drusilla) being a Jewess;” She was the third daughter of Herod Agrippa 1, who was eaten by worms, Act 12:1; Act 12:20-23. She was also the sister of Agrippa 2, before whom Paul later pled his innocence, Act 26:1-32.

4) “He sent for Paul,” (metepempsato ton Paulon) “He sent to bring Paul from his guard who had held him with indulgence liberty,” Act 24:23. He perhaps wanted his wife Drusilla to hear this noted man Paul, who was a Christian Jew.

5) “And heard him concerning the faith in Christ.” (kai ekousen autou peri tes Christon lesoun pisteos) “And heard him give his testimony concerning his faith in Jesus Christ,” and with relationship to Jesus Christ. Paul sought always to point men and women to Jesus Christ as Savior, and to His service for their life commitments, Eph 2:8-10; Rom 14:16; He, without question, knowing the morality and ethics of their lives, preached repentance, faith, accountability and the judgement to come, to them, Act 24:25; Act 17:30; Act 17:32; Rom 2:4-5; 2Co 7:10.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL REMARKS

Act. 24:24. When Felix came, or Felix having come, not to Csarea, after a temporary absence, but into the place of audience (Hackett), rather than into the prison (Holtzmann). Drusilla.Sea Homiletical Hints. As a daughter of the first and sister of second Herod Agrippa she could hardly have been unacquainted with the main facts of the history of the new society of Christians. She must have known of the death of James and of the imprisonment of Peter

(12), and may have connected her fathers tragic end at Csarea with the part he had taken in persecuting the preachers of the faith of which one of the chief preachers was now brought before her (Plumptre).

Act. 24:25. Righteousness.Including the duties man owes to man, as well as those man owes to Godi.e., the obligations of both tables of the law. Temperance.In its widest sense of self-control.

Act. 24:26. That money should have been given him.Possibly he had an eye to some of the gold referred to by Paul in Act. 24:17. Greed of gain in the very act of administering justice was the root of evil in his weak and wicked character.

Act. 24:27. After two years.Lit., when two years were fulfilled, Felix received as successor Porcius Festus (A.D. 60 or 61), who suppressed the outrages of the bandits or robbers, and restored tranquillity to the province, but died in the second year of his office (Jos., Wars, II. xiv. 1). To him Felix, with characteristic baseness, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, or desiring to gain favourlit., to deposit a favour with the Jews, which should not be without return; an investment in iniquity (Plumptre) which did not turn out well (see on Act. 24:2)handed over Paul as a prisoner. How these two years in Csarea were spent by the apostle can only be conjectured (see Hints on Act. 24:27).

HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.Act. 24:24-27

Pauls Interview with Felix and Drusilla; or, a Great Discourse and What Came of It

I. The magnificent auditorium.Herods palace at Csarea, which the great Idumean had constructed for himself as a residence when at the height of his glory, but which was now occupied by the Roman procurator as a mansion for himself and a barracks for his troops. A wonderful building, with bloody recollections. Many phantoms glided through the empty rooms. Here had Herod uttered the death-sentence upon his sons. Here was their betrayer, the ruthless Antipater, imprisoned. Before these gates, for five days and five nights, had the complaining Jews lain and besought Pilate not to desecrate their temple. Here had Herod Agrippa breathed out his hypocritical soul, and before his windows had the crowd, howling and weeping and kneeling, lain in the dust and prayed for the soul of the pious (!) king. So adhered numerous historical images to this place, and from the days of Herod downward blood stuck to every stone. (Hausrath, Der Apostel Paulus, p. 458). In a marble hall attached to this palace was a sermon about to be preached such as seldom is poured into the ears of men, and least of all into those of powerful state dignitaries. No doubt the eloquence of the preacher was stimulated by the aforesaid terrible reminiscences, of which he was not entirely ignorantrather of which he was fully cognisant.

II. The distinguished hearers.

1. Felix. The Roman governor, whose character on its worst side was also perfectly understood by Paul (see on Act. 23:24). Its hideous cruelty and rapacity, which caused him to be pronounced by Josephus the worst ruler that ever swayed the destinies of Juda, and even after his deposition to be followed by his quondam subjects to Rome with bitter complaints against his administration, were so notorious that Tertullus was obliged to hide their loathsomeness by fulsome flattery (Act. 24:2). Its shamefaced profligacy had intruded into the palace hall, and stared on the apostle with unblushing countenance.

2. Drusilla. Felixs wife, whose evil reputation was hardly less than his own. The daughter of the first Herod and the sister of the second, Drusilladiminutive of Drusushad been married at an early age to Azizus, King of Emesa, who, in order to obtain her hand, had become a Jewish proselyte and accepted circumcision; but her fascinating beauty having inflamed the libidinous desires of the Roman procurator, he employed the services of a Jewish magician named Simon, to proceed to Emesa and seduce her from her husband. In this unholy errand the magician, whom some have endeavoured to identify with the sorcerer of Samaria (Act. 8:9), proved lamentably successful; and the daughter of Herod Agrippa, who had much to endure at the hands of her sister Bernice on account of her beauty (Hausrath, Der Apostel Paulus, p. 459), having deserted her lawful husband, became the third wife of Felix, who had formerly been a slave, but was then the governor of Palestine.

III. The fearless preacher.Paul, who at the request of Drusilla had been fetched up from his place of confinement into the judgment hall. As a Jewess she could not have been entirely ignorant of the new sect of Christians that had arisen in the land. As a daughter of Agrippa I. she may have been desirous of hearing one of the chief preachers of those Christians whom her father had persecuted, and with whom, in some way, she may have connected her fathers death. But from whatever motive summoned, Paul, when he appeared, evinced no timidity. Having the Lord upon his right hand (Psa. 16:8), he presented as valiant a front as David did to his enemies, or as Daniel did before Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:19-27) and Belshazzar (Dan. 5:22-28), or as afterwards John Knox of Edinburgh did in the presence of Queen Mary of Scotland. The man who had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus (1Co. 15:32), who had confronted the mob from the castle stairs in Jerusalem (Act. 22:1), who had bearded the Sanhedrists in their Star-Chamber (Act. 23:1), and who had already appeared before the representative of Roman law and majesty (Act. 24:10), was not likely to quake at the sight of a beautiful adulteress.

IV. The alarming sermon.

1. The theme of it was generally the faith in Christ Jesus, which would doubtless lead Paul to dilate upon the main facts and doctrines of the gospel, and in particular upon the death and resurrection of Christ, pointing out how in both the truth of His Messiahship was confirmed. In this the apostle furnished a noble example to all preachers who, whatever the rank or character of their hearers, should resolutely determine to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1Co. 2:2). The faith in Jesus Christ is the highest need of the human soul, in whatever sort of body that soul may be enshrined.

2. The application of it brought the noble Christian orator to closer quarters with the consciences of his hearers.

(1) He spoke to them of righteousnessthat awful demand for upright and holy living, both toward God and toward man, which the Divine law, familiar at all events to Drusilla, demanded, which the consciences of both proclaimed to be just, and which the faith of Jesus Christ declared to be indispensable to all who would partake of the Messianic salvation Christ had come to introduce among men; perhaps pointing them to the gracious provision in the gospel, by and through Jesus Christ, for first bestowing upon men and then reproducing within men that righteousness of the law which no man could furnish of himself (Rom. 3:24-25; Rom. 8:1-4).

(2) Next he reminded them of temperance or self-control, that sacred chastity or mastery of the lower appetites and passions which religion in general, but especially the faith that is in Christ, requires of its devotees (Tit. 2:11), but of which the illustrious pair before him were sadly wanting. That the apostle had a powerful ally in the bosoms of his bearers need not be questioned.

(3) And finally, he lifted up his hearers and himself to the judgment to come, that overwhelmingly awful tribunal before which all menkings and princes no less than common men, judges and prisoners alikemust one day stand (Rev. 20:12-13)a tribunal over which that Jesus of whom he spoke should preside (Mat. 25:32; Act. 17:31; 2Co. 5:10), at which the secrets of all hearts should be laid bare (Rom. 2:16), and from which impartial awards should be made to every man according as his works should have been (Rom. 2:6).

3. The effect of it. What impression this weird sermon from a weirder preacher had on those who heard it, and for whom specially it was intended, is only recorded in part. What Drusilla thought of it the pen of inspiration has not revealed. Did the remembrance of her first husband recur to her? or the revolting character of her present wickedness disturb her? Did the gleaming fires of the impending judgment-day startle her half-dead conscience within her, fast-bound in the cords of lustful sleep? Or, did she hear as though she heard not? Did she steel her bosom against the soul-piercing words of the Lords servant? Did she drown the still small voice that whispered within her bosom and wooed her to better things? These are questions to which no reply can be given. So far as Drusilla is concerned an unbroken silence will encompass her until the trumpet of the great day shall sound. But for Felix no such doom has been reserved. How he felt, as the weary, weather-beaten missionary of the Cross, becoming animated as he warmed to his theme, and fixing on his listener that intense look which was so characteristic of the apostle (Act. 23:1); how Felix felt, as the unearthly words echoed through his spirit, and raised up before his imagination ideas that were awe-inspiring in their ghostly grandeur;how he felt, and what he said, has been set down in burning letters that he who runs may read. Felix trembled at the picture which this strange manwith a solemn eloquence which held him spellboundhad painted on the canvas of his soul. He could see the great white throne, with the Judge whose eyes were like a flame of fire (Rev. 1:14); he could see the assembled multitudes, and himself among them, undistinguished by any earthly greatness, in all the hideous nakedness of his guilty soul; he could hear the booming of the thunders and the glancing of the lightnings which proclaimed the commencement of the business of that awful assize; and as he realised the wickedness of his past and present lifeits utter lack of righteousness, and horrible defilement through lusthe grew terrified with that terror which ever seizes on the guilty when their wickedness is on the eve of detection, and said Go thy way, for this time; and when I have a convenient season I will call thee unto me.

V. The pitiful conclusion.It ended in three sad things.

1. Delay. Felix had some shadow of excuse for procrastination in the preceding instance, when Paul defended himself before his, barthis, namely that he had been unexpectedly summoned in Providence to decide between Paul and his accusers, and might naturally plead that he wished to be better informed before delivering judgment. In this case no such ground for putting off existed. Felix was called to decide in a matter which affected himself alone, and for which the materials lay at hand. For him the clear duty of the moment was to repent and humble himself before God, to separate himself from the beautiful but wicked woman at his side, to break off his flagitious courses in life, and turn to God in righteousness and holy obedience. But, alas! he deferred again, as he had deferred beforehe put off giving judgment between himself and God, as he had previously delayed pronouncing a verdict between Paul and his prosecutors. He would settle his own case, as he had promised to settle Paulsat a more convenient season. In Pauls that more convenient season would arrive when Lysias should come down; in his own, when he should have more inclination or leisure to turn from dalliance with the fair creature by his side and think of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Let it be noted that, as in Pauls case no reason remains for believing that Lysias ever came down to Csarea, so is there good ground for holding that for Felixs own case the convenient moment never arrived.

2. Resistance. Felix, it appears, had frequent interviews with his prisoner, but never again allowed his peace of mind to be disturbed, or his better nature to be aroused. Rather, he strenuously fought his convictions down. He fell back upon the evil demon of cupidity within his breast, called up into the field the spirit of avarice to do battle against the spirit of repentance and righteousness that had been temporarily awakened in him. He hoped withal that money would be given him of Paul. He never proposed to Paul the question of the Philippian gaolerWhat must I do to be saved?

3. Rejection. Whatever promise of good may have been in Felixs soul, when he trembled under Pauls preaching, it ultimately died away. Felix decided neither Pauls case nor his own, but left the brave apostle, whom he knew to be innocent, to languish in prison for two whole years; and when at length, his own reign of iniquity coming to an end, he was recalled by his imperial master, he still delayed doing justice to the servant of Jesus. Thinking to ingratiate himself with his much-abused subjects, and hoping to shut their mouths against him at the bar of Csarin which, however, he was deceivedhe left Paul in bonds.

Learn

1. The possibility of hearing the gospel without being saved.
2. The danger of trifling with ones convictions of sin.
3. The wisdom of deciding for God and Christ at the earliest moment.
4. The probability that opportunities for being saved, once neglected, will not return.
5. The almost certainty that he who deliberately turns from the light will stumble on and down into deeper darkness.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Act. 24:24. The Character of Felix.

I. An unjust ruler.

II. A licentious voluptuary.

III. An inveterate procrastinator.

IV. An avaricious money-hunter.

V. A crafty promoter of his own interests.

VI. An unprincipled trampler on the rights of others.

Drusilla, the Wife of Felix.A woman

I. Of highly exalted birth.The daughter of kings. Noble parentage, when good, is an incalculable blessing, and entails great responsibilities. Noblesse oblige.

II. Of ripe personal beauty.Her loveliness the ruin of both herself and Felix. Physical grace and elegancea precious gift of Heavennot always prized as such, but often bought and sold, like meat upon the shambles.

III. Of deeply depraved character.At the moment when she heard Paul living in open sin, being the runaway wife of one man and the adulterous paramour of another.

IV. Of manifestly trifling disposition.No reason to think she was in earnest, either in sending for or listening to Paul; probably actuated by no higher motive than to see the distinguished preacher (compare Luk. 23:8), or to gratify her curiosity about the new faith, or to while away a few leisure moments in her frivolous and wicked life.

V. Of palpably seared conscience.Sitting beside her husband, whose innermost soul quaked beneath the searching words that spake of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, she heard unmoved. At least, she evinced no sign that the arrow of conviction had reached her womanly breast. Fast asleep in the depths of sin, her soul heard not the awakening voice of truth.

Paul before Felix.The scene introduces us to four things:

I. A celebrated preacher.Paul. After Jesus Christ, who spake as never man spake (Joh. 7:47), no nobler representative of the Christian ministry has ever appeared in the world or the Church. When he stood before Felix, three virtues shone forth conspicuously in him.

1. Unwearied zeal in embracing every opportunity to advance the cause of his Master. Seldom have circumstances been less favourable for the exercise of the preachers gift than were his that day in Csareahardly even when confounding the Jews who dwelt at Damascus (Act. 9:22), fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus (Act. 19:31; 1Co. 15:32), or addressing his countrymen from the castle stairs in Jerusalem (Act. 22:1); and yet, no sooner was he invited than he began to pour forth the wondrous story of his crucified and risen Lord.

2. Unflinching courage in shaping his discourse to suit his hearers. Not to please, but to profit; not to flatter, but to rebuke; not to lull into drowsy stupor, but to awaken from the trance of spiritual death. And yet he flinched not an instant in his task. Not a quaver of fear, though possibly more than one of affection, was heard in his oration. Like Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:27), he told out his message without trepidation.

3. Irrepressible hopefulness in despairing of no man. Paul not ignorant of the characters of Felix and Drusilla, yet, when invited to discourse to them about the faith of Christ he declined not, on the plea that such sinners were beyond the reach of mercy or inaccessible to the power of grace.

II. A pattern discourse.

1. A sermon on the right themethe faith that is in Christ Jesus. This held the place of honour in all Pauls preaching, whose unvarying subject was Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

2. Intensely practical in its contents. With such topics did it deal as righteousness, temperance, judgment to cometopics too often absent from modern ministrations.

3. Directly personal. Shaped so as to meet the characters, rebuke the sins, and arouse the torpid spirits, of his hearers.

4. Eminently rational. Paul reasoned, declaimed not, but pressed home upon his listeners arguments which flooded their intellects with light, touched their hearts with emotion, and stirred within their conscience the voice of truth and right.

III. Illustrious hearers.

1. Persons of high rank. No better or more valuable in Gods sight than people of obscure position. Equally with these in need of salvation. Often more so.

2. Notorious sinners. Less heinous offenders are still transgressors in the sight of Heaven and such as require to be called to repentance and faith.

3. Deplorably indifferent. So are multitudes of those to whom preachers are called to present the gospel. The number of those who truly long for salvation, and thirst after righteousness, is few.

IV. Disappointing results.

1. Only one of Pauls hearers impressed. Only Felixnot Drusilla; and yet she, having been a Jewess, ought to have possessed a better understanding of Pauls message than her husband had, while, having been as wicked as her husband, she had as much cause for trembling as he. So it often happens under the ministry of the gospel. One is taken, the other left; one touched, the other unmoved.

2. That one only impressed, not improved. Felix convicted, not converted; merely trembled, did not turn. This also a not unusual phenomenon under a faithful ministry. Souls are alarmed who do not eventually prove to be saved.

3. The impressed one trifled with, but did not embrace, the gracious opportunity which came before him. Felix, had he fostered the convictions awakened in his soul, might have been recovered from his sinful condition; but he procrastinated, allowed his better impulses to subside, and was lost. So thousands permit their day of merciful visitation to pass, to their everlasting hurt. The Holy Ghost saith, To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart (Heb. 4:7).

The Faith in Christ Jesus.Is

I. Heavenly in its object.Directing its look, not to the historical, but to the crucified and risen Christthe Christ whom Paul preached.

II. Reasonable in its character.Capable of being set forth in such terms as to command the assent of the understanding and judgment. So Paul presented it to Felix.

III. Holy in its demands.Though not requiring righteousness and temperance as grounds of justification, insisting upon these as indispensable to salvation.

IV. Alarming in its operation.Awaking in the souls of them to whom it is presented conviction of sin and fear of judgment.

V. Saving in its results.When accepted in humility and penitence, trustfulness and obedience, it issues in the blessing of complete redemption from the curse and power of sin.

Act. 24:24-25. A Preacher such as Paul (before Felix) should be

I. Ready for every call to preach that presents itself in providence.Paul interposed no objection when Felix sent for him, declined not the invitation preferred him to expound the principles of the gospel, but heartily embraced the opportunity to advance his Masters cause. Semper paratus should be the ministers motto.

II. Courageous in facing every audience on whom he looks.This he will be if he preserves a lowly estimate of himself, conjoined with an exalted idea of the Master he serves and of the message he bears, as well as a lively sense of that Masters presence.

III. Evangelical in the truths he proclaims.The proper business of the pulpit is neither to teach science or philosophy, nor to disseminate the elements of ordinary knowledge, but to publish the everlasting gospel.

IV. Direct in the manner of his teaching.A good sermon, besides having a good text and good matter, should be appropriate and personalnot in an offensive and impertinent, but in a heart-searching and conscience-touching, sense. Preaching that lacks point in front, and has no push from behind, is not likely to result in conversions.

Paul, Felix, and Drusilla; or, Three Phases of Conscience.

I. The courage of a good conscience.Exemplified in Paul, who reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, before the adulterous pair. Compare John the Baptist before Herod (Mat. 14:4).

II. The alarm of a guilty conscience.Illustrated in Felix, who trembled as the vision of a judgment-day arose upon his minds horizon. Compare Herod, the Baptists murderer (Mat. 16:2).

III. The insensibility of a hardened conscience.Exhibited in Drusilla, who heard, unmoved, the heart-searching words of Paul. Compare the behaviour of her sister Bernice (Act. 26:30). Both instances of that most awful psychological phenomenona conscience past feeling (Eph. 4:19).

Act. 24:25. Convenient Seasons

I. Are always present to those in earnest about religion.To such as are

(1) convinced of their own guilt and sin;
(2) alive to the necessity and importance of salvation;
(3) aware of the uncertainty and shortness of life.

II. Never come to those indifferent about religion.To those who are

(1) in love with sin and its pleasures (Tit. 3:3);

(2) blinded by the god of this world (2Co. 4:4);

(3) unconscious of their perilous condition.

Act. 24:26. The Love of Money, as Exemplified in Felix.

I. Rooted, presumably, in his corrupt and unprincipled heart.Mammon, the god of this world (Mat. 6:24).

II. Fostered by his wicked life.For his personal extravagance and licentious indulgence he needed money, and this need kept the demon of avarice awake.

III. Obstructive of higher impulses.It stifled his conscience, hardened his heart, destroyed his soul. It prevented the entrance into his soul of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

IV. Productive of other sins.In Felixs case it led to procrastination or trifling with his own highest interests; to the infliction of injustice on Paul, by continued imprisonment; to the practice of hypocrisy, in pretending to commune often with Paul about the faith, when secretly he hoped that money would be given him of Paul. The love of money is the root of every kind of evil (1Ti. 6:10).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(24) Felix came with his wife Drusilla.She was, as has been said (see Note on Act. 23:26), the daughter of the first Herod Agrippa and the sister of the second. In her name, the diminutive of Drusus, and borne also by a sister of Caligulas, we trace the early connection of her father with that emperor. She was but six years of age at the time of her fathers death. She had been married at an early age to Azizus, king of Emesa, who had become a proselyte, and accepted circumcision. Felix fell in love with her, and employed the services of a Jewish magician named Simon, whom some writers have identified with the sorcerer of Samaria (see Note on Act. 8:9), to seduce her from her husband. By her marriage with Felix she had a son named Agrippa, who perished in an eruption of Vesuvius (Jos. Ant. xix. 7; xx. 5). It follows from the facts of her life that she could scarcely have been altogether unacquainted with the history of the new society. She must have known of the death of James and the imprisonment of Peter (Acts 12). She may have connected her fathers tragic end at Csarea with the part he had taken in persecuting the faith of which one of the chief preachers was now brought before her. It would seem, from her being with her husband at these interviews, that she was eager to learn more of the faith in Christ. Felix, too, seems to have been willing at first to listen. This new development of his wifes religion, presenting, as it did, a higher aspect than that of the priests and elders of Jerusalem, was for him, at least, an object of more than common interest. The procurator and his wife were apparently in the first stage of an earnest inquiry which might have led to a conversion.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

24. Drusilla Felix, the once Greek slave, was eminently successful in matrimonies, being called by Suetonius maritus reginarum trium, the husband of three queens, or kings’ daughters. The present Drusilla was great granddaughter of the first Herod, whose court was disturbed by the birth of Jesus, granddaughter of the Herod Antipas who beheaded John the Baptist, and who met Jesus before the crucifixion. With the hope of the Jews of a future Messiah, with the claims of Jesus to that title, and something of the rise of Christianity, she must have been acquainted.

When, therefore, she learned that Paul, the noted “ringleader” of the sect of “Nazarenes,” (as Tertullus called him,) was in the palace of Felix, she entertained much the same curiosity to see him that her grandfather Antipas did to see Jesus.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But after certain days, Felix came with Drusilla, his wife, who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus.’

Meanwhile Felix had been discussing Paul and his teaching with his wife and brought her with him one day, to a place to which he also called Paul to be brought, so that he could hear him concerning ‘the faith of Jesus Christ’. His wife was a Jewess, and about nineteen years old, but we will remember that she had deserted her husband to marry Felix.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Act 24:24. His wife Drusilla, She was the daughter of Herod Agrippa, and sister of the king Agrippa mentioned in thenext chapter. She had been married to Azizus king of the Emessenes; but Felix, being struck with her beauty which was remarkably great, made use of the agency of one Simon, a wicked Jew, who professed himself a magician, to persuade her to abandon her husband, and marry him; to which she consented, more perhaps to avoid the envy of her sister Bernice, than out of love to Felix; though Azizus had but a little before submitted to circumcision, and so embraced Judaism as the condition of the nuptials. She was afterwards consumed with the son she had by Felix, in a terrible eruption of Vesuvius.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Act 24:24 . .] denotes the coming along of Felix and Drusilla to the prison (Act 23:35 ), where they wished to hear Paul. Grotius thinks that it refers to the fetching of Drusilla as his wife, which took place at this time. But this must have been more precisely indicated, and is also not chronologically suitable, as the marriage of Felix with Drusilla occurred much earlier (53 or 54). See Wieseler, p. 80.

On the beautiful Drusilla, the third wife of Felix (Suet. Claud . 28), the daughter of Agrippa I. and sister of Agrippa II., who was at first betrothed to Antiochus Epiphanes, the prince of Commagene, but afterwards, because the latter would not allow himself to be circumcised, was married to Azizus, king of Emesa (Joseph. Antt . xx. 7. 1), and lastly was, with the help of the sorcerer Simon, estranged from her husband and married by Felix (whose first wife, according to Tac. Hist . v. 9 the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, [155] is said to have been also called Drusilla), see Gerlach in the Luther. Zeitschr . 1869, p. 68 f.; Ewald, p. 556 ff.

. . .] certainly at the desire of his Jewish wife, whose curiosity was interested about so well known a preacher of Christ.

[155] Suetonius, l.c. , calls him “ trium reginarum maritum.” We know only the two.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

C.A SECOND HEARING BEFORE THE PROCURATOR IS ALSO WITHOUT RESULT; AND FELIX LEAVES PAUL AS A PRISONER TO HIS SUCCESSOR

Act 24:24-27

24And [But] after certain [some] days, when Felix came with his13 wife Drusilla, which [who] was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ14. 25And as [But when] he reasoned of [discoursed concerning] righteousness [justice], temperance [continence], and judgment to come [the future judgment]15, Felix trembled [became afraid], and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have aconvenient season [when I find a convenient time], I will call for thee. 26He hoped also [He also hoped, at the same time, ,16] that money should have been given him of [money would be given to him by] Paul, that he might loose him [om. that he might loose him17]: wherefore he [also, ] sent for him the oftener, and communed [conversed] with him. 27But after two years [had elapsed, ] Porcius Festus came into Felix room [Felix received a successor in Porcius Festus]: and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure [wishing to place the Jews under obligations18], left Paul bound [Paul in confinement].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Act 24:24 a. Felix came with his wife, i.e., to the apartment in which he intended to hear Paul [probably the mentioned below Act 25:23. [Conyb. and H. II. 294. n. 5.Tr.]; or the sense may be: he came back to Cesarea, after having been engaged elsewhere, in the province, during the interval.

b. Drusilla.She was a daughter of Herod Agrippa I., who had commanded that James should be executed, and who afterwards died in Cesarea. Act 12:1 ff.; Act 24:21 ff. She was distinguished for her beauty, and had been married to Azizus, the king of Emesa. Felix became acquainted with her, and, with the assistance of a Jewish sorcerer, named Simon of Cyprus, induced her to forsake her husband and marry him (Jos. Antiq. 20:7. 1, 2.). The summons which Paul received, was no doubt suggested by her; as a Jewess and a member of the Herodian family, she had unquestionably heard the Christian religion mentioned on many occasions, and may have been desirous of seeing and hearing for herself one of the principal representatives of the Church. It is obvious that the questions addressed to Paul, did not specially refer to the accusations which had been brought against him.

Act 24:25-26. a. And as he reasoned of. etc.When Paul received liberty to speak, he did not confine himself to those points on which Felix or his wife wished to hear him; he also introduced certain subjects of which Felix did not wish to hear, but on which the apostles conscience, precisely for that reason, constrained him to discourse. He spoke of justice to a judge, of continence to a prefect, whose recklessness and licentiousness had made him notorious [per omnem svitiam et libidinem, Tac. Hist. V. 9.Tr.], and of the future judgment to a man who needed that he should be reminded of his future account. The word is here employed, as the proceedings were not, strictly speaking, official and public, but rather assumed the character of a private interview between Paul and the procurator, together with the wife of the latter.

b. Felix trembled [became afraid].[Trembled is merely Tyndales loose translation of a phrase denoting inward feeling, not its outward indications. (Alex.)Tr.]. He was alarmed, as he had not for a long time heard such language from any one, and least of all from the mouth of a prisoner of whom he was the acknowledged judge. But he abruptly terminated the interview, and sent Paul back to his prison. , i.e., for the present; this expression occurs very frequently in the later Greek writers, as Lucian, Diodorus, Chrysostom, etc. The participle is connected with , although other words intervene. There can be no doubt that Felix was aware of the deep interest which the Christians took in the fate of Paul, and knew that they would make the most costly sacrifice in order to aid him. [But his hopes of receiving money from Paul, furnished by the Christians, were unfulfilled; for while the apostle was ever ready to claim the protection of the law, he never resorted to dishonorable means. (Conyb. and H. II. 295).Tr.]. Felix would, indeed, have gladly received a bribe from Paul, although it was expressly forbidden by the Lex Julia, De repetundis, that any person should receive pay in any form for the arrest, the condemnation, or the acquittal of any individual. [It is remarkable that Tacitus uses of Felix [Ann. XII. 54) the expression: cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus. (Alf.).Tr.]

Act 24:27. But after two years [had elapsed].These two years are naturally to be reckoned from the beginning of Pauls imprisonment, and not from the time of the appointment of Felix to office, the latter being here of no importance whatever. [The events of these two years of the life of the apostle are so entirely unknown, that the assertion cannot be made with confidence (Ewald), that none of his epistles, written during this period, can be extant. (Meyer).Many messages, and even lettersmay have been sent from Cesarea to brethren at a distance. And a plausible conjecture fixes this period and place for the writing of St. Lukes Gospel, under the superintendence of the Apostle of the Gentiles. [Conyb. and H. II. 295).Tr.]. Felix was recalled by Nero, without any agency of his own, probably in the summer of the year 60. He left Paul behind him, a prisoner, and in chains; he adopted this course in order to confer a favor on the Jews, and thus induce them, in view of the obligation, to treat him with forbearance, and withhold complaints. [] is a classical expression, equivalent to beneficium conferre, literally, to deposit thanks (lay up favor) with any one. But this object was not attained, for Felix had scarcely departed, before the Jews sent a deputation commissioned to accuse him before the emperor. [See Exeg. note on Act 23:25-30. a.Tr.]. Porcius Festus, who was now invested with the procuratorship, fulfilled his duties with integrity, but retained the office at most only two years, when he died. Albinus succeeded him in the autumn of the year 62.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. It contributes to the honor of Christ, that the apostle cannot speak of Him, without alarming the conscience of Felix. Persons may sometimes be found, who are very willing to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, although we might not previously have supposed that they entertained such a wish; thus Herod Antipas desired to see Jesus [Luk 9:9; Luk 23:8]. But they are governed by a carnal feeling, and expect to find in Christianity a religion suited to their own particular views. The word of Christ, however, is essentially of such a nature, that it takes hold of the conscience.

2. Felix is alarmed. He accordingly felt one edge of the word of God, but not the other edge, which, in its turn, heals through the power of God, through reconciliation, forgiveness, and renewing grace; for he withdrew himself from the powerful and penetrating influences of the word, and sought to evade the whole subject, rather than to acquire a knowledge of his sins, and to repent. A single sin, of which an individual is the willing servant, places him under a secret ban, which renders his conversion and deliverance impossible.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Act 24:24. After certain days Felix sent for Paul.As men are fond of change, they are occasionally willing to hear the Gospel in its turn; sometimes they simply wish to gratify their curiosity, even as Herod had for a long time desired to see Jesus; but sometimes, too, they hope that the Gospel will furnish them with a cooling application for an uneasy conscience. Thus many in our day listen to one witness of the truth after the other, while they fully obey none; their only object is to obtain from every one of these witnesses some principle or point of doctrine, which, when all are combined, will render religion endurable to the flesh. (Rieger).Paul again appears before Felix, not, however, at a public trial, but at a confidential and private interview. Hence the apostle does not on this occasion speak in his own defence, but seeks to win the heart of his judge for Christ through repentance and faith. He stands before Felix at this moment, not as a man accused of offences, but as a herald of the Gospel. (Leonh. and Sp.).

Act 24:25. And as he reasoned of righteousness [justice], temperance [continence], and [the] judgment to come.Paul gave such a turn to his discourse on faith in Christ, that it ultimately referred to those truths respecting justice, chastity and the future judgment, which are so deeply seated in the conscience. A conversation on these topics would, no doubt, exercise a direct influence on such a judge, and such a couple as Paul saw before him. [His audience consisted of a Roman libertine and a profligate Jewish princess. (Conyb. and H. II. 295).Tr.]. Such was a natural and necessary result; for when divine truth is properly set forth, it discerns and judges the inmost thoughts and intents of the heart. [Heb 4:12]. (Rieger).Paul here preaches before his judge, a man of high rank, on whose favor much depended. Nevertheless, he proclaims to him the whole counsel of God, and holds nothing back. He does not represent to him the way to heaven as broader than it really is; he neither attempts to charm his ears, nor connives at his lusts. He preaches the Gospel, but does not observe silence respecting the law. He even attacks the favorite sins of Felix, and does not fear that he will give offence by his preaching. What a noble example of a faithful witness of the truth! (Ap. Past.).The text and the theme are admirably suited to these hearers. He preaches on justice to a venal officer, on chastity to an adulterous pair, and on the future judgment to an unrighteous judge, who was afterwards cited in a menacing manner before the imperial tribunal at Rome.However, Paul did not speak with a special reference to the sins of the governor, but discoursed in general terms on those solemn subjects. It was not necessary that he should make a direct and personal application; the Holy Spirit himself applied the words to the heart of Felix. Sermons that are intended to rebuke, should not seem to be personally offensive; if they are of the right description, they will consist of such expositions of the command: Repent, as may penetrate the heart; those to whom the words apply, will then become fully conscious that it is not the preacher, but the Lord, who has reached them. (Williger).Felix trembled.Behold the power and majesty of the word of God! Here the judge is alarmed in the presence of the accused; the ruler of the country, in the presence of a tent-maker; the master, whom many servants surround, in the presence of a prisoner. Such an effect was not produced by the bold speech of Paul, but by the word of God, Psa 119:120; Heb 4:12-13. (Starke).Felix was alarmeda proof that he was not a thoroughly bad, a wholly depraved man; there must have been still something good in him, which was conscious of an affinity with that which was good; he still retained a sense of shame, and could be moved by the truth. How happy it would have been for him, if he had made a proper use of this salutary alarmif he had allowed himself to be penetrated by the piercing word of the truth, to be illuminated by its light, and to be purified in its fire! (Menken).Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.Great lords, great sinners! It is not safe to preach to them; for when their conscience is touched, they either dismiss the preacher in disgrace, or even proceed so far as to deprive him of life, Mat 14:10. (Starke).He wished to wait for a convenient season, and yet it was precisely now that the time accepted and the day of salvation [2Co 6:2] dawned upon him. How often the word meets with a similar reception among us! We are willing to use it as the means for amusing an idle imagination, or for drawing forth carnal tears. Men are willing to hear discourses on Gods paternal love, and listen with delighted ears to fanciful descriptions of a joyful recognition in the world to come. But when we hear the loud call: Repent, when the sermon refers to the strait gate of self-denial, to the narrow way of sanctification, and to the terrors of the judgmentwhen the sword of the word smites our favorite sins, and demands an entire change, a new birth of the whole man, the exclamation is at once uttered: This is a hard saying: who can hear it? [Joh 6:60]. Such severe preaching does not at present suit me; when I am old, when I have enjoyed the pleasures of life, when death is near, I will crucify the flesh, be converted, and prepare for eternity. But woe unto us, if it then be too late, and if Gods response to our foolish words: Go thy way for this time, is: Depart from me! (Mat 25:41). When I have a convenient season! But when do we suppose that this convenient season will come? Our secret thoughts reply: Never, and yet that season is always now here. O that we had but eyes to recognize it, and the courage to avail ourselves of it! But it is precisely here that we fail, and that thou, too, Felix, failest! The hour of thy salvation had arrived, but thou didst allow it to pass by, and didst wait for a more convenient season. But did it ever come? After two years, thou wast commanded to appear in Rome and give an account to the emperor; thou wast accused by the people. It occurred, according to the wonderful counsel of God, that thou wast once more in the same city in which Paul was. Didst thou then avail thyself of that convenient season? Or didst thou again neglect it? And did death at length carry thee off at an inconvenient season? Let the case of Felix be a warning to us. Let us never, like him, say: Go thy way for this time, that the lot of Capernaum, of Chorazin, and of Bethsaida [Mat 11:21; Mat 11:23], may not be our own! Let us not wait for a convenient season, lest our end be like that of Pharaoh and Saul! Let us never be governed by impure motives, when we listen to the word of God, lest we share the fate of Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8.)! When it comes to us, let us answer with Abraham: Here I am, [Gen 22:1], or with Samuel: Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth [1Sa 3:9], or with Cornelius: Now are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God [ch. Act 10:33]. (Fr. Strauss.).

Act 24:26. He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul.When avarice has taken deep root in the hearts of men invested with authority, justice is sold by them for money, and the innocent receive no aid unless they pay for it, while the guilty, who have bribed the judge, escape punishment, Deu 16:19. (Starke).Wherefore he sent for him the oftener.It was really Paul who was flattered by Felix. His liberty was placed within his reach, provided that he was disposed to purchase it with money. But he chose rather to abide by the will of God, than effect his release by employing carnal means. (Ap. Past.).

Act 24:27. But after two years.Not only is the cross laid, in many cases, on the children of God, but many weary days also pass by, before it is removed, Gen 39:20; Gen 41:1-14; Psa 13:1. (Starke).The years of leisure passed by the man who labored more abundantly than all others [1Co 15:10], enriched his own soul with treasures of divine grace, and produced their appropriate fruit for the benefit of the church. But the condition of that man is awful indeed, to whom the grace of God has drawn near for two years, and who, at their close, resembles a barren landmark on which the rain has fallen. Unhappy Felix! (Besser).

ON THE WHOLE SECTION, Act 24:24-27.The causes which lead many to listen willingly to the Gospel, but not to the law: the cause may be, I. An error of the judgment; they suppose that the Gospel has rendered the preaching of the law superfluous. II. An error of the consciencethat our spiritual state no longer needs the law. III. A mistake of the feelingsthey were wounded by every solemn admonition. IV. The dominion of the flesh, which holds the will in bondage. (Langbein).

Why is it that so many persons are found, who take no deep interest in religion? I. Because they cannot entirely break the ties which bind them to the past; II. Because they will not seize the present moment, but wait for a more convenient season: III. Because they refuse to entertain the thought of the future judgment, (id.)

When I have a convenient season: this is the language, I. Of all those who know indeed the vanity of the world, but are too slothful to break loose from the lust of the world; II. Of those who are conscious indeed of the shame and the bondage of sin, but are too feeble earnestly to repent; III. Of those who have indeed experienced in some degree, the power of the divine word, but whose thoughtlessness prevents them from entirely yielding to it. (Leonh. and Sp.).

Felix, a mournful image of many hearers of the word: I. He was alarmed, Act 24:24-25; II. No change in him occurred, Act 24:25-27 (Lisco).

The power of the divine word: I. It calls forth bold preachers (the fearless apostle); II. It awakens the sleeping conscience (the trembling Felix); III. It decides, and divides asunder [Hebr.] Act 4:12], (Paulis dismissed with the words: Go thy way; Felix remains unconverted), (id.).

Two common excuses by which men attempt to evade the serious duty of repentance: I. Everythingsave one!

Felix desired to hear Paul on every subject except the one that specially concerned him, justice, chastity, and the judgment. He was willing to do every thing except the one thing needfulto renounce his favorite sins. II. Tomorrownot to-day! Felix tells Paul to go his way for the present; he will call again for the apostle, when he shall find it convenient to himself. He delays his repentancehe never repented!

When is it a convenient season for repentance? I. At all times, for him who is willing to repent; for (a) God is calling us to re pentance at all times and in divers waysby internal emotions and external experiences, by the law and the Gospel, by joys and sorrows; (b) man can find time to listen to the word of God, at all times, in every occupation and situation of life. II. Never, for him who is unwilling to repent; for (a) whenever God calls, he finds it in convenient to obey; (b) when he shall call on God with a fainting soul, in his extremity, or when, in eternity, he appears before the judgment-seat, Gods season will have already passed away; it will then be too late. The words will then be fulfilled: Ye shall [will] seek me, and shall [will] die in your sins. Joh 8:21.

Pauls text, intended to call Felix to repentance, a text suited to our times: it refers to the fruits of a genuine repentance, namely, I. Righteousness in dealing with our neighbor. Is not this text suited to an age in which unrighteousness prevails far and wide, in every condition of lifean age in which the fidelity and honesty of an earlier period, are more and more rarely found, both among the high and low? II. Chastitythe duty of controlling our own flesh. Is not this text suited to an age in which the lust of the flesh, and corruption of morals, prevail far and widean age in which the modesty and decorum of an earlier period are less and less valued, both in the village and in the cityan age, too, in which many a pair enters the church, and appears before the altar of marriage, united by sinful bonds, like Felix and Drusilla? III. The future judgment, before the eternal God. Is not this text suited to an age of shameless infidelity, which mocks at God and eternity, at a future judgment and retribution, at heaven and hellan age which belies and deceives itself with the Sadducean motto: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die ! ? [1Co 15:32; Isa 22:13].

Paul before Felix, or, The judicial power of the divine word; I. Paul stands before Felix, (a) as the inferior before his superior; (b) as the prisoner before the free man; (c) as the accused before his judge; nevertheless, all is reversed by the power of the divine word, of which the apostle is a minister. II. It is now Felix who stands before Paul, (a) as one accused by Gods word and his own conscience before an incorruptible judge; (b) as one bound by the cords of unrighteousness and the lust of the flesh, before the Lords freeman [1Co 7:22]; (c) as the inferior, alarmed, and irresolute man before the mighty hero of God, who, even in bonds, says, both in word and in deed: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth! me. [Php 4:13].

Pauls imprisonment in Cesarea during two years, or, The painful and yet blessed seasons of repose and expectation, of the servants of God. (Compare the cases of Joseph in the prison, Moses in the wilderness, David in the mountains, Elijah at the brook Cherith, John the Baptist in the prison, John the Evangelist in Patmos, Luther in the Wartburg, faithful pastors on sick-beds, etc.). I. Painful (a) for the servant of God, when his hands are thus bound; (b) painful for the church of the Lord, when its pastors are thus withdrawn; and yet, II. Blessed, (a) for the servant of God, when he thus finds a season suited for quiet meditation and more thorough purification; (b) blessed for the church of the Lord, when it thus increases in its own strength, and learns alike to acknowledge with gratitude the value of the grace conferred by God through faithful teachers, and also to pray without ceasing both for the shepherd and the flock.

Footnotes:

[13]Act 24:24. a. [ after , of text. rec., with A. E., is omitted in B. C. G. H., and is dropped by recent editors generally. Lach. inserts before ., from A. B., but this word is not found in C. E. G. H., and is not adopted by others. Vulg. uxore sua.Cod. Sin. read originally . ; a later hand, A, prefixed to ., but Tisch. remarks here that this word was subsequently erased, apparently by C.Tr.]

[14]Act 24:24. b. after is found in three uncial manuscripts, it is true, [in B. E. G. and also Vulg.], but as it is wanting in three others [in A. C. H.], it ought to be regarded as spurious. [It is inserted by Lach., Scholz., Tisch., and Born., but not by Alf., who, with Meyer, regards it as a later addition. . is found in Cod. Sin. (original), but Tisch. Says of it: bis (ab A et C?) punctis notatum.Tr.]

[15]Act 24:25. after , has been adopted, it is true, by Tischendorf [in the edition of 1849], as genuine; nevertheless it is found only in the two latest manuscripts [G. H.], while it is wanting in the four oldest [A. B. C. E. and also Cod. Sin.]; the word should therefore be rejected as a later addition. [Omitted by Lach., Scholz., Born., and Alf.; the latter say that it is apparently a correction after Act 24:15.Vulg. simply: futuro.De Wette says: is, according to Act 11:28, and Act 23:30, probably genuine.Tr.]

[16]Act 24:26. a. [ after , of text. rec., with some minuscules, is omitted in A. B. C. E. G. H. and Cod. Sin.; Vulg. simul et. It is dropped by recent editors generally.Tr.]

[17]Act 24:26. b. The words are undoubtedly an explanatory interpolation; they are wanting in the majority of the uncial manuscripts. [They occur in G. H., but not in A. B. C. E., nor in Cod. Sin., nor in the Vulg.; they are either dropped by recent editors, or are inserted in brackets. Alf., adopting Meyers views, says: a gloss from the margin.Tr.)

[18]Act 24:27. The plural [text. rec.] is found only in one uncial manuscript it is true [in H., and in some fathers, but in no versions (Meyer).Tr.], but it occurs in by far the largest number of the minuscules. Of the other uncial manuscripts, three [A. B. C] exhibit , and two [E. G.] . The singular is, however, obviously a correction, as the plural did not seem [to copyists] to be appropriate [one favor only here being spoken of; see Act 25:9. (Alf.).Tr.]. The more difficult reading here claims the preference. [De Wette regards the plural as referring to other attempts to gain favor, and Alf. retains it, while Lach., Tisch., and Born. read .Cod. Sin. originally read , which was altered by a later hand, C, to .Vulg. gratiam prstare. The reading , which is the best attested, should be the more readily received, as this form of the accusative was regarded with suspicion, since it does not usually occur in the New Test., although it is found in Jude, Act 24:4. (Meyer). In this passage of Jude, the text. rec. exhibits , with C. G. J., for which Lach. and Tisch. substitute from A. B.Tr.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

Chapter 89

Prayer

Almighty God, we are thine in Jesus Christ, thy Son; we are born again unto thee by the power of the Spirit; we are no more wanderers: we are little children at home. We remember our wandering that we may mourn it; we set before our eyes our sonship that we may magnify thy grace. We are the miracles of God; we are the proofs of Divine Providence; we show how tenderly thou dost care for the sons of men, and how plentifully thou dost supply the necessities of the soul. We do not go abroad for witness: when witness is required we stand up ourselves and say, “The Lord is good, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” May we abide in this testimony, for in it is our strength. May we remind ourselves of it in the dark and cloudy day, lest the tempter be too strong for us, and by many a well-plied seduction draw us from the steadfastness of our love. We would hear in our souls all the vows and promises we have ever been enabled to utter, and we would cause these to repeat themselves, that in their hearing the soul may take courage again, even when the storm is dark and loud. Thy goodness towards us is a daily revelation; it is not an occasional, it is an everlasting presence. Thy mercy endureth for ever. There is no point in all the space of our life that is not made golden by the touch of thy gracious love. It well becometh us, therefore, to stand up together, a unanimous host, to bless the Lord in loud psalm and cheerful anthem for his great love, his tearful pity, his redeeming grace, his Cross of sacrifice and atonement. We would become accustomed to the thought and service of the better world. As the years run away here and make us old, so eternity comes nearer to endow us with everlasting youth. So would we look onward and upward and find in anticipation the joy which cannot be found in retrospect. We look up unto the hills whence cometh our help the eternal hills, the pillars of creation, the bases of thine own throne, the hills of sapphire, the mountains of light, the highlands of glory; and as we look may our help come, and as we gaze may our strength be increased manifold, that we may praise thee, and with new confidence do thy work in the world, hoping ever in God, and making ourselves young at the throne of the heavenly grace. Show us how large is thy pity, thy love, thy tenderness; give us to feel that thou hast made us men, with many natures, many passions, enthusiasms, powers, and faculties a wondrous mystery, a creation of omnipotence everything perfect in its place and order and purpose; a wondrous instrument on which thou canst discourse music pleasing to thine own ear. May we be men, baptized in every faculty and power, exercising every one to thine honour and to thy glory whole men, complete in their cultivation and entire in their consecration. To this end thou wilt not spare the inspiring Spirit. Thou wilt not keep back the light that makes all beauteous things grow and flourish; neither wilt thou withhold the gracious rains which satisfy the thirsting souls, and make them rejoice in newness of strength. Thou dost lead us through the world and show us its great kingdoms and glories; thou dost lift them up to set them down again; thou dost reveal them not to show their greatness, but their littleness. Their wealth is a lie if it be not made good and precious by sanctification. All the world can give is given for a moment, and taken back again, or dies in the eager grasp; but thy peace abideth for ever, quieting the soul, giving the spirit enjoyment, far beyond all rack and noise and tumult. Thy peace is a peace that passeth understanding, and in its enjoyment we forget all harass and care and fret and toil, and feel that we are already enclosed within the gate which is one pearl. We bless thee for all thy love; it is so tender, so continual, so full of all-gracious ministry; it is as a nurse, as a shepherd, as a physician, as a mother; it takes upon itself all beautiful names and symbolisms, and comes to us through the medium of everything in life that most we prize. We pray for one another. Hear the prayers we cannot speak, because there are no words fit for the expression of such necessities. Hear the soul’s sighing, and interpret it into deep and intense and complete confession and supplication. Listen to us when we cannot hear the whisper of our own moaning, and render unto us great answers of joy. Open our way when the gate is high, and it is locked, and we have no key, and we stand there in our helplessness looking beyond and looking above; let the looking be regarded as a prayer, and come thou to throw back the gate and permit us to go forward. Help us to keep the vow we have spoken. Thou knowest how liable it is to breach and flaw and compromise. Enable us to hold it in its integrity, to work it out in all its uttermost meaning of goodness; so that, having withstood, we may stand; having fought, we may come home at eventide as conquerors. The Lord have us where his jewels are kept; the Lord write our name above the flames that shall consume all meaner things; the Lord give us rest in the upper sanctuary calm as the Divine peace, secure as the Divine strength. Amen.

Act 24:24-25

24. And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

25. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

Paul’s Private Speech

We have often seen Paul in public; we have now to study somewhat his private ministry. It is easier to speak upon Mars’ Hill to a great crowd than to speak in a gilded chamber to two eminent personages. Will Paul be the same man in both places? The persons who are listening to him are Felix and Drusilla. There the matter might be supposed to end. If we add to it the intense effect which the discourse produced, as represented in the words “Felix trembled,” the case seems to be a small one. Yet as we study it the lines expand and multiply until it becomes symbolical and presses closely upon our own lives and habits. Look at the case in detail: the auditors are great people, yet the Gospel does not spare them. We have already learned somewhat concerning Felix; let us recall our information that it may give colour and accent to this particular event. Felix was a Roman procurator; he was originally a slave; he became a freed man, and he rose to power almost unlimited. He was, therefore, in some way, unquestionably, a man of genius and invincible will bent, but never broken. He and his brother Pallas were in high favour with Claudius Csar, the emperor, and in equally high favour with Antonia, the emperor’s mother. They were the richest men, probably, in that part of the empire. When the emperor himself complained of being poor, he was told, with much suggestion in the tone, that if he would enter into partnership with Felix and Pallas, he would soon be a wealthy man. The historian tells us also, with much reading between the wide lines, that Felix was at the same time the husband of three queens. A more contemptible personage, history concurs in testifying, never combined the power of a king with the meanness of a slave. That was the one hearer. Drusilla was one of the beauties of her day”; she was the. daughter of one king and the wife of another. Felix employed Simon, a magician, to cajole her from her constancy. She allied herself with Felix another incidental tribute to the marvellous fascination of the man. In this unholy marriage a son was born, whose name was Agrippa. The mother and son both perished in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius which took place in the days of Titus Csar. That was the other hearer; and Paul was in their power. Was ever such goodness in the power of such wickedness? This will try Paul; the auditors are only two in number; he himself is a prisoner well-nigh a slave a word, and he is thrown to the lions; a nod, and the fire will consume him, bone and muscle. He will trip, he will falter, he will say something that will lead him into the pity and confidence of his illustrious auditors. Here is the true Apostle face to face with evil; he smites it with both hands alone, yet he feels the breath upon him of more than twelve legions of angels. He will have harvesting here if he can get it; he will take away from this field two sheaves, if possible, and garner them in heaven. This is a terrible Gospel the power of God unto salvation or unto destruction, a savour of life unto life or of death unto death. These are the instances that commend the Gospel to our confidence. This is the man who said, not long ago in our studies, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy.” How he looks through the villainy of the occasion! how he dares its feebleness! how he shows his penetration of the natural cowardice of wrong! Who was procurator then? Who was emperor? It is moral dignity that elevates a man up above his fellows to a height which never can be attained by merely intellectual genius. See not Paul the man only, but Paul the Christian nay, see the incarnate Gospel itself shut up with these two violators of all holy law, and how it torments them, bites them, and will not spare them one moment. The sword of the Lord! the sword of the Lord, my brethren, and the battle is won; your old sword of paste-board, and the fight is lost; the blade of Jerusalem, and none other; the battle is not yours, but God’s. We cannot dwell too long, too gratefully, upon the moral dignity of this Gospel. It will not spare great people no people can be great before its majesty. There is a light that puts out the sun. The sun is a great light in itself a marvellous, dazzling eye; but there is a light that shames it away, that makes it retire in conscious feebleness. There is no greatness before the Gospel. The Christian is the king. The only monarchy that is not tinsel is the monarchy of holiness. All kings and queens, Csars and thrones all of them are baubles and lies and vanities if they represent not a monarchy greater than themselves. Because the Gospel speaks in this tone it lives for ever. Righteousness is the eternal quantity.

The auditors were but two in number, yet the Gospel sought to save them. The Gospel is the one-man religion. When Christianity takes the census it counts every man one, and says to despairing preachers, teachers, and evangelists, “Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death.” Christianity despises no one; Christianity is the shepherd that will not rest until the hundredth sheep be found. “Ninety-and-nine” there is no music in these chiming syllables, because one of the flock has gone astray. This is another aspect of the Gospel, equal in pathos to the aspect which has just passed before us as clothed with moral grandeur. “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” Other religions go by numbers, by empires; they count multitudinously: they count a nation one. The individual life is a fleck, a drop of a bucket, a very little thing, not to be named. But the religion of Jesus Christ, having found that one of the ten pieces is lost, instantly lights a candle and sweeps the house diligently until it be found. Christianity, having found that one of the lambs has gone astray, will neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor hold the customary feast until the wanderer is back again. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” So, every man is a congregation. Our ministers must be rebuked if they count more than one man in the house. There is only one man in all the populations of the earth, and he is lost and must be found. Oh, preacher! every man is a congregation; the meanest, poorest creature that crouches within hearing distance is a nation the world; know thy duty, and in Christ’s great strength win the fight. Earnestness can always speak to the individual. There is no afront that can be offered to the spirit of the Gospel more deadly than to withhold because the numbers are not overwhelming. If one soul is within ear-shot, he constitutes the supreme occasion of any ministry. The Gospel has thunder for the crowd and whispers for the one listener. That is the truth. Jesus Christ often spoke to the one hearer; Jesus made revelations to individual hearers greater than any he ever made to the crowd. If we might compare the discourses of the perfect Speaker, we might say, by the accommodation of human language, that the most splendid discourses of the Messiah were delivered to solitary listeners. What said he to the woman all sin from the strange city? When she spoke of Messiah, he said, “I that speak unto thee am he.” When did he say that to a crowd? What said he to the woman all grief, because she had buried all her heart? “I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” And so trace his history, and you will find that to individual hearers he communicated his greatest messages. What said he in the hush of night to Nicodemus? “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Produce the match of these discourses from all the public deliverances of the Divine Speaker. When he spoke in public he spoke in another tone: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Even there the same sublime doctrine is conveyed: mark, the invitation is to the one thirsting man. But, whilst the preacher may find some difficulty here, the listener himself may imagine that he is too small to be addressed in his individuality. Whilst he is in the congregation, he may imagine himself lost in the crowd he is only part of the urgent occasion. We must have individuality of hearing as well as individuality of preaching. The true hearer is the man who supposes himself to be the only listener in all the sanctuary who is so absorbed in spiritual earnestness and attention that he hears every word as if spoken to himself alone a message just delivered from the great Father to the one wandering child. Such preaching, equalled by such hearing, and the next step is a converted world. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

In the third place, the auditors asked for entertainment; yet the Gospel gave them judgment. The Gospel has no entertainments. Felix sent for Paul to hear him concerning the faith in Christ. Felix cared nothing for this himself, for he was a Roman; but Drusilla was a Jewess, and she was the occasion of this interest in Christian matters. She had heard of her famous countryman, called Jesus of Nazareth; he had been murdered and done away with, but still his religion was exciting a good deal of curiosity in the country, and she, being a Jewess, would hear somewhat of her eccentric compatriot. So we become interested in certain sides and aspects of questions. Drusilla could have no interest in the spiritual Christ. He would burn her; but she had intellectual interest, or the interest of curiosity in the historical magician, the prince of the wonder-workers. It is not enough to be interested in Christ: we must first know what Christ it is in whom we are interested. Felix and Drusilla would hear the animated story, about the wondrous sorcerer; Paul was an expert, a devotee he would know about the whole case and would be able to explain it, and now he was at liberty to tell the tale. “And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment.” Is that the faith that is in Christ? Yes. You thought Christianity was theology Christianity is morality. Let us call the prisoner Paul, and hear him concerning the famous Jew who was he? what was he? what did he do? what was he like? Tell us in graphic words all he did. “And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.” Was that Christian preaching? Verily; and the preaching we want every day. Many are delighted with high theological cobweb speculation, and call it marvellous. It is not Christian preaching. The true preaching makes the robber empty his pockets, makes the bad man white with inward accusation, makes the oppressor turn uneasily on his seat as if he were sitting on thorns and fire, turns the bad man mad, and makes him say foamingly at the church door that he will never come back again. That is preaching concerning the faith that is in Christ. The audience should always suggest the subject. This was Paul’s method, and, as we have seen in our studies in the Gospel according to Matthew, it was the invariable method of Jesus Christ himself. The audience is the text; this is where our speakers fail so much. The audience is but a company of listeners, or a company of men who may listen or not listen, as they please, and all the great speakers, from Christ downward, including the great Apostle Paul himself, made the audience the text, expounded the text to itself, held a mirror up to nature. This must always be the case. What do our hearers want with speculations they cannot follow, with dreams they never heard of? He who would preach to the times must preach to the broken-heartedness of the day, to the criminality of the hour, to the inconstancy of the times, to the disloyalty of the army. Away farther and farther still the impious thought that only he preaches to the times who preaches about thoughts that people never heard of, and answers arguments which they can neither comprehend nor remember. He preaches to the times who says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I, the Son of God, will give you rest.” These are the eternal times, the other so-called times are flickering moments, changing their colour, changing their throb and pulse by an incalculable process; but the eternal need is forgiveness, the everlasting want is rest for the soul. This advice will never make popular preachers: it will make Pauline preachers, terrible preachers preachers whose sentences are thorns and goads, whose looks are judgments, and whose tones are accusations. May the good Lord of the harvest thrust into his harvest-field many such preachers! Vice is none the less vice because it is gilded and can pay its way. Felix was a rich man, his wife was partner of his property; their roof was gilded, their walls were velveted, their carpets were flowers, soft and fragrant, their wine was plentiful, and they drank it out of nothing less than gold; but the vice was the worm at the core. Nothing is settled until it is rectified; the wall must totter if it is out of plumb. Judge the Gospel theology by Gospel morality. We are not sent to make theologians, but Christians; we are not sent to build up a system, but to build up a character. How does it come that the Gospel holds its own amongst all the competing religions of the world? Because of its morality. The morality of the Gospel is not a scheme or theory of manners; it is the expression of a profound and sublime theology. The true God is above it, the true Cross is at its centre, and therefore its balances are equal, its measures are just, its actions are transparent, its character is without a spot. Men can understand our morality when they cannot understand our theology. It is possible that many may be calling for entertainment who ought to be asking for a judgment. We do not come to the throne of God to be hugged and comforted and confectioned, to be sprinkled with scented water, and to be assured that we are ripe for anything Heaven may have to disclose. Some may be far enough on the road to claim such high privileges and sacred enjoyments, but the most of us are still where we need to be reasoned with concerning righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. I know not what may be the case of special individuals, but taking the world in its totality, as representing one humanity this day, it needs only the theology which ends in morality, and it cries for the morality which is magnified, sanctified, inspired, and assured by the theology of Christ. This is our standing ground. Come, Felix, Drusilla, Zaccheus, Lazarus, beggar at the gate, blind man on the roadside, we have but one speech the forgiveness of sin through its confession at the Cross and through the blood of Christ.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

24 And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

Ver. 24. With his wife Drusilla ] The sister of King Agrippa, and wife of Abidus, king of Emesenes, whom she had basely forsaken, and came and joined herself to this Felix (Joseph. Antiq. 20), worthy therefore to have been hanged, as Joan queen of Naples, was at a window for like treachery by Lewis, king of Hungary. (Heyl. Geog. 167.)

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

24. . ] Into the hall or chamber where Paul was to speak.

] She was daughter of Herod Agrippa I. (see ch. 12) and of Cypros, and sister of Agrippa II. She was betrothed at six years old (Jos. Antt. xix. 9. 1) to Epiphanes, son of Antiochus, king of Commagene; but (Antt. xx. 7. 1) he declining the marriage, not wishing to be circumcised and become a Jew, she was married to the more obsequious Azizus, king of Emesa. Not long after, Felix, being enamoured of her beauty, persuaded her, by means of a certain Simon, a Cyprian magician (see note on ch. Act 8:9 ), to leave her husband and live with him (Antt. xx. 7. 2). She bore him a son, Agrippa: and both mother and son perished in an eruption of Vesuvius, in the reign of Titus (ibid.).

The Drusilla mentioned by Tacitus (Hist. Act 24:9 ), a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, must have been another wife of Felix, who was thrice married, and each time to persons of royal birth; ‘trium reginarum maritus,’ Suet. Claud. 28.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Act 24:24 . : of the three daughters of Agrippa I. Drusilla was the youngest, her sisters being Bernice (see below) and Mariamne. Married, when about fourteen, to Azizus king of Emeza, she had been seduced from her husband by Felix, who had employed for his evil purpose a certain impostor and magician, Simon by name, Jos., Ant. , xx., 7, 2. The account in Josephus implies that she was unhappy in her marriage with Azizus, and asserts that she was exposed on account of her beauty to the envious ill-treatment of her sister Bernice. She married Felix (“trium reginarum maritus,” as Suetonius calls him, Claud. , 28), and her son by him, Agrippa by name, perished under Titus in an eruption of Vesuvius, Jos., u. s. It has been sometimes thought that his mother perished with him, but probably the words in Josephus refer not to Drusilla, but to the wife of Agrippa (so Schrer); “Herod” (Headlam), Hastings’ B.D., The Herods (Farrar), p. 192 ff. , see critical note, the addition of before . (omit. ) perhaps to emphasise that Drusilla, though a Jewess, was the wife of Felix, or it may point to the private and informal character of the interview, due to the request of Drusilla. Possibly both and were additions to intimate that Drusilla was really the wife of Felix, but the article before would have been sufficient to indicate this. , cf. [383] text, which states how Felix acted thus to gratify Drusilla, who as a Jewess wished to hear Paul, as her brother Agrippa afterwards, cf. Act 25:22 , see Knabenbauer, in loco . , see on Act 10:5 . , see critical note.

[383] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 24:24-27

24But some days later Felix arrived with Drusilla, his wife who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. 25But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you.” 26At the same time too, he was hoping that money would be given him by Paul; therefore he also used to send for him quite often and converse with him. 27But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and wishing to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul imprisoned.

Act 24:24 “Drusilla” She was the youngest, and apparently beautiful, daughter of Herod Agrippa I and the sister of Bernice and Agrippa II. She was Felix’s third wife, whom he took from the Azizus, the King of Emesa (cf. Josephus, Antiq. 20.7.2).

NASB, NRSV,

TEV, NJB”Christ Jesus”

NKJV”Christ”

Option #1 is found in MSS P74, *, B, E, and the Old Latin, Vulgate versions. The shorter reading is found in MSS c, A, C, and the Peshitta and Coptic versions. The UBS4 gives the longer version a “B” rating (almost certain).

One wonders if in this context “Christ” should be translated “Messiah” (MS 044 has “the Messiah”).

“faith” This is a crucial theological word. See Special Topics at Act 2:40; Act 3:16; and Act 6:5. Remember these theological terms in Koine Greek are based not on Greek usage, but the Septuagint. Luke knows the Septuagint well. It was the OT for the church.

Act 24:24-25 Paul preached the gospel often (cf. Act 24:26 b) to Felix and Drusilla. This was exactly what Jesus wanted him to do (cf. Act 9:15). He was convicted, but also greedy (i.e., he wanted Paul to bribe him) and put off his decision (cf. Act 24:26).

Act 24:26 Apparently Paul had some funds during this prison period. Possibly from (1) a personal inheritance or (2) help from the churches (i.e., Philippi or Thessalonica). Felix called for Paul often, not to hear him speak, but in hopes of receiving a bribe.

Act 24:27 “after two years had passed” Many believe that it was during this period that Luke gathered eyewitness information from those in Palestine for his Gospel (cf. Luk 1:1-4). This must have been a discouraging time to an aggressive man like Paul! However, he did not seek freedom by means of bribery. He knew he was in God’s will.

“Porcius Festus” There is some disagreement between the Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus, over the beginning date of his office. Felix was put on trial in A.D. 55, but it is uncertain whether he was convicted and removed then or in A.D. 59. Festus died in A.D. 62, while still in office (cf. Josephus, Antiq. 20.9.1). There is little known about him (cf. Josephus, Antiq. 20.8.9-10; Wars 2.14.1).

“Felix left Paul imprisoned” It was customary to release all the prisoners at the time of the change of administrations. This verse shows the political situation in Palestine and the weakness of the Roman leaders, as well as the power of the Sanhedrin.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Drusilla. App-109. She was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, and had left her first husband, Azizus, king of Emesa, and married Felix. It was no doubt through her that Felix had his knowledge of “the Way” (Act 24:22).

sent for. Greek. metapempo. App-174. See note on Act 10:5.

concerning. Greek. peri. App-104.

faith. Greek. pistis. App-150.

in = towards, or with regard to. Greek. eis. App-104.

Christ. The texts add “Jesus”. App-98.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

24. .] Into the hall or chamber where Paul was to speak.

] She was daughter of Herod Agrippa I. (see ch. 12) and of Cypros,-and sister of Agrippa II. She was betrothed at six years old (Jos. Antt. xix. 9. 1) to Epiphanes, son of Antiochus, king of Commagene; but (Antt. xx. 7. 1) he declining the marriage, not wishing to be circumcised and become a Jew, she was married to the more obsequious Azizus, king of Emesa. Not long after, Felix, being enamoured of her beauty, persuaded her, by means of a certain Simon, a Cyprian magician (see note on ch. Act 8:9), to leave her husband and live with him (Antt. xx. 7. 2). She bore him a son, Agrippa: and both mother and son perished in an eruption of Vesuvius, in the reign of Titus (ibid.).

The Drusilla mentioned by Tacitus (Hist. Act 24:9), a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, must have been another wife of Felix, who was thrice married, and each time to persons of royal birth; trium reginarum maritus, Suet. Claud. 28.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Act 24:24. , having arrived) in the judgment-hall (governors residence) of Herod, where Paul was being detained captive; with this comp. Act 23:35. But Felix does not seem to have been in the same place, but to have had a particular residence of his own.- , the woman, partner) Accurate language. She was not the legitimate wife of Felix, but having left her former husband, had married Felix.-, a Jewess) of the family of Herod. See Joseph. l. 20, Ant. c. 5.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

he sent: Act 26:22, Mar 6:20, Luk 19:3, Luk 23:8

the faith: Act 16:31, Act 20:21, Gal 2:16, Gal 2:20, Gal 3:2, 1Jo 5:1, Jud 1:3, Rev 14:12

Reciprocal: 2Ki 8:4 – Tell Pro 28:6 – General Dan 3:13 – Then Mat 14:4 – General Mar 6:18 – It is Joh 19:12 – from Act 17:19 – May Act 23:35 – when Act 24:22 – having Act 24:26 – wherefore Rom 1:18 – who hold 1Co 1:27 – General Phi 1:27 – the faith Jam 2:1 – the faith

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

4

Act 24:24. Felix came. He was not residing outside the community; the second word means, “to make a public appearance,” according to the lexicons. His interest had been aroused by Paul’s speech to the extent he wished to hear more about the faith he was preaching. We will hear more about his wife in the next verse.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Pauls Interviews during his long Imprisonment at Csarea with the Procurator Felix and his wife, the Princess Drusilla, 24-27.

Act 24:24. And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Brasilia, which was a Jewess. The Princess Drusilla occupied no unimportant position among the women of the middle of the first century of the Christian era. She was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I., who ended a brilliant and showy life in that miserable way at Csarea depicted in the twelfth chapter of these Acts, and sister to Herod Agrippa II. and the still more notorious Princess Bernice. Her name Drusillaborne also by a sister of Caligula, the emperor with whom these younger Herods were closely intimateis a diminutive of Drusus. Endowed, like her sister Bernice, whose name was a name of shame even in the careless and profligate Roman society of that age, with the often dangerous gift of extreme beauty, she was married at a very early age to Azizus, king of Emesa, who became a proselyte, but left him, and still very young was married again to the Procurator Felix. Their son Agrippa perished, Josephus relates, in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Dr. Plumptre has made an interesting suggestion to account for the special interest this dissolute princess evidently felt in the case of the accused Christian prisoner Paul. She must have heard of the death of James and of the imprisonment of Peter in her girlhood; and she may have connected her fathers tragic end at the games of Csarea with the part he had taken in persecuting the very sect to which the prisoner now in custody in her husbands palace belonged. She evidently showed, from being present with Felix at one, probably at more of the examinations, that she was desirous of hearing more of that way with which her royal house had been mysteriously brought into contact.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

This chapter now concludes with the apostle’s famous sermon before Felix his judge, in which we have considerable, the preacher, the hearers, the text or subject preached upon, and the successful effect of the sermon.

Observe, 1. The preacher, St. Paul; As Paul reasoned. The apostle now was in bonds, yet had liberty to preach, and he preached with liberty, with great boldness and freedom of speech, though under great disadvantages; his person imprisoned, his reputation blotted and defamed, loaded with calumnies and odious imputations: yet under all these disadvantages the apostle preaches.

Observe, 2. His hearers, Felix and his wife Drusilla; Felix, a bad man, guilty of bribery, & c. Drusilla, a vile woman, forsook her own husband, and lived in adultery with Felix, as Josephus says.

Here were a pair of hopeful hearers! yet St. Paul boggles not to preach to them, as bad as they were, hoping to make them better.

Learn thence, That the gospel must be preached by us, when we are lawfully called thereunto, whatever the persons be that make up the auditory; we know not what persons, or in what hour, God may call.

Observe, 3. The text or subject-matter preached upon: righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Where the wisdom of the preacher appears by the suitableness of the subject; the apostle chose a very proper subject for them both.

Felix was guilty of bribery, or at least was ready to commit it; for the next verse tells us, That he hoped to have money given him by Paul to release him: therefore to him he preaches of righteousness.

Drusilla was guilty of incontinence and adultery; to her he preaches of temperance, and to both of a judgment to come.

Happy were it, if great offenders had such wise admonishers near them; but too often they meet with flattering parasites, instead of faithful preachers.

Observe, 4. The success or effect of the sermon: Felix trembled. He trembled, but not believed; he trembled at the guilt of sin, and at the apprehensions of the wrath of God due unto sin; but his trembling did not arise from a holy dread and reverence of the majesty of God speaking to him in and by his word: the word of God can make the proudest and stoutest sinner in the world to quake and tremble.

Observe, lastly, How Felix’s trembling fit, or sick qualm of conscience, soon went over; he dismisses the preacher for that time, and tells him he will call for him at a more convenient season. But we never read of any such opportunity taken afterwards for that purpose: so dangerous is it to stop our ear at the present call and command of God; if to-day we will not, tomorrow God may say, ye shall not, hear my voice.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Act 24:24-25. After certain days After Paul had been kept a few days in this gentle confinement at Cesarea, Felix, who had been absent a short time, came thither again; with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess We learn from Josephus, that she was the daughter of Herod Agrippa, and the sister of that Agrippa who is mentioned Act 25:13. She had been married to Azizus, king of Emessa; but Felix, struck with her great beauty, by means of a wicked Jew, named Simon, who professed himself a magician, persuaded her to abandon her husband and marry him; which she did, though Azizus had but a little before submitted to circumcision, and so embraced Judaism, as the condition required in order to his marrying her. It appears from Josephus, (Antiq, lib. 20. cap. 7,) that she was afterward, with a son she had by Felix, consumed in a terrible eruption of mount Vesuvius. He sent for Paul, &c. Doubtless, Pauls trial had occasioned much discourse in Cesarea, and this, it seems, had excited a desire in Drusilla to see and hear that extraordinary man; and, to gratify her curiosity as well as his own, and to learn from Pauls own mouth what were the principles of his religion, Felix sent for him; and heard him concerning the faith in Christ That is, heard him declare what the Christians believed concerning Jesus; namely, that he was the Christ, or Messiah, long expected by the Jews; and that he was proved to be the Christ, by Gods raising him from the dead. Moreover, being well acquainted with the character and actions of his illustrious hearers, the apostle introduced other articles of the Christian religion, well suited to their particular case; he reasoned of righteousness That is, chiefly of justice and mercy toward men; virtues peculiarly necessary in a ruler; of temperance Of sobriety, continence, chastity, against which Felix and his lady had greatly trespassed in their marriage; and of a judgment to come At which the highest personages should appear, and stand upon equal terms with others, before that righteous tribunal; and at which the great and small should answer to God for their actions; the only effectual way this of preaching Christ to an unjust and lewd judge, such as Felix was. For of him the Roman historian, Tacitus, relates, Per omnem svitiam et libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit, he practised all cruelty and lust in his government; and from what is said above, it appears that Drusilla, though a Jewess, was not less wicked, transgressing, as Josephus observes, , the laws of her country, namely, in marrying a heathen; and the laws of God, in forsaking her own husband and living in adultery with Felix. To persons so unjust, lewd, and otherwise wicked, Paul very properly discoursed on the virtues here mentioned, against which they had both so highly offended; for he knew that it would be to little purpose to address them on other subjects of Christianity, such as those of redemption and salvation through Christ, till they forsook these sins. And it was with equal propriety that he discoursed of a judgment to come, where Felix could not hope to escape unpunished, as here he did. And it is no wonder that Felix trembled, or was terrified, as signifies. How happy would it have been for him had he yielded to the convictions now produced in his conscience, and been careful to pursue the views opening upon his mind! But, like thousands, he deferred the consideration of these things to a more convenient season; a season which, alas! never came. For though he heard again, he trembled and was terrified no more. Nor did he forsake his bad practices, but continued in them as long as his government lasted. In the mean time, we do not find that Drusilla, though a Jewess, was thus alarmed. She had been used to hear of a future judgment; perhaps, too, she trusted to being a daughter of Abraham, or to the expiations of the law, and so was proof against the convictions which seized on her husband, though a heathen. Let this teach us to guard against all such false dependances as tend to elude those convictions that might otherwise be produced in us by the faithful preaching of the word of God. Let us stop our ears against those messengers of Satan, who appear as angels of light, who would teach us to reconcile the hope of salvation with a corrupt heart or an unholy life. Go thy way for this time O how will every damned soul one day lament his having neglected such a time as this! When I have a convenient season Or, I will take some future opportunity, as Dr. Doddridge renders ; to call for thee. He thought it did not become the dignity of a judge on the bench to receive even such oblique admonitions and reproofs from a prisoner, and therefore might really intend to give him a fuller audience in private. Paul must, no doubt, discern those marks of confusion that would be so apparent in his countenance, which would give him some hopes of succeeding in this important attempt for such a conversion, and, consequently, would give him spirit when he resumed the discourse. This must naturally increase in Felix a conviction of his innocence, and esteem for his virtues; yet, in spite of all, he was so far from reforming his life in general, that he would not do justice to Paul; however, the conviction might perhaps prevail so far, as to engage him to persist in his resolution of not delivering him to the Jews. How affecting an instance and illustration of the treachery of the human heart!

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

24. “Now, after some days, Felix came, with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. Drusilla, according to Josephus, was a daughter of Herod Agrippa, whose persecutions of the apostles, and miserable death, we have considered in commenting on the twelfth chapter. She was a woman of remarkable beauty, the lawful wife of Azizus, king of Emesa, but was now living in adulterous intercourse with Felix. Concerning Felix, Tacitus testifies, that “with every kind of cruelty and lust, he exercised the authority of a king with the temper of a slave.”

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

PAUL PREACHES TO FELIX AND DRUSILLA

24-27. During Pauls trial, he managed to get in so much straight gospel truth as to at least arouse the governors curiosity concerning the faith which is toward Christ; consequently, in a few days he avails himself of the opportunity to hear his prisoner preach the gospel with all possible freedom, spiritual and physical.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Act 24:24-27. Paul and Felix.Drusilla was the third daughter of Agrippa (Act 12:1); and Felix had taken her from her husband Azizus of Emesa. She was his third wife, and all three were queens. The marriage was still recent, and Pauls preaching of temperance and judgment would touch them. Other hearings took place; but the delay in the case is set down to another motive than interest in the preaching. The trial of Paul seems to be the date from which the two years (Act 24:27) are reckoned; two reasons being given for the long delay. Felixs last thought on leaving is to win favour from the Jews; which he much needed. The Syriac gives an additional motive for leaving Paul in prison; it was done on account of Drusilla.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 24

Drusilla; the daughter of Herod Agrippa. Felix had enticed her away from her husband, who was still living, as is related by the historians of those times.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

24:24 And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife {o} Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

(o) This Drusilla was Agrippa’s sister of whom Luke speaks afterwards, a harlot and very licentious woman, and being the wife of Azizus king of the Emesens, who was circumcised, departed from him, and went to this Felix the brother of Pallas, who was at one time the slave of Nero.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Paul’s subsequent ministry to Felix 24:24-27

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Sometime later Felix, along with his current wife, sent for Paul. Drusilla was the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa I who had been king over Palestine from A.D. 37-44. It was he who had authorized the death of James, the son of Zebedee (Act 12:1-2), and had imprisoned Peter (Act 12:3-11). Drusilla was Felix’s third wife whom he had married when she was 16 years old. She was now (A.D. 57) 19. She had previously been the wife of Azizus, the king of Emesa, a state within Syria, but Felix broke up that marriage to get her. [Note: Ibid., p. 187.] Felix himself had been married twice before to princesses the first of which was the granddaughter of Anthony and Cleopatra. Felix used his marriages to advance his political career. The Herods were, of course, Idumeans, part Israelite and part Edomite.

Something about Paul and or his gospel seems to have fascinated Felix. Someone commented that when Paul talked to Felix and Drusilla, enslaved royalty was addressing royal slaves. [Note: Cf. Morgan, p. 405.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)