Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 25:15

"about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed [me], asking for sentence against him." — Acts 25:15 (ASV)

Festus told Agrippa how the Jewish leaders confronted him with Paul’s case when he first went to Jerusalem and that they had asked for Paul’s death (v.15), but he acted in accordance with Roman law in demanding that charges be properly laid and the defendant allowed his day in court (v.16). Furthermore, he insisted, he acted with due dispatch, for on the day after he and the Jewish leaders returned to Caesarea, he convened court in order to try the case (v.17). To his surprise he found that the charges did not concern real offenses punishable under Roman law but theological differences of a Jewish intramural nature (vv.18–19a) and a debate “about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive” (v.19b). With a shrug of his shoulders, Festus confessed his total inadequacy to deal with them (v.20a). In an endeavor to resolve the impasse, Festus told Agrippa he was prepared to accede to the Sanhedrin’s request for a change of venue to Jerusalem (v.20b). But Paul objected and appealed to Caesar, an appeal Festus had granted (v.21). Now then, what was he to write in sending Paul on to the imperial court regarding the charges against the prisoner and the issues of the case?