King Felix and St. Paul Continued...

Taken from:

Discipline and Other Sermons 

(1881 edition)

 by Charles Kingsley

The first time St. Paul came before him, Felix seems to have seen at once that Paul was innocent, and a good man; and that, perhaps, was the reason he sent for him again, and, strangely enough, heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

And what he heard we may very fairly guess, because we know from Paul's writings what he was in the habit of saying.

St. Paul told him of righteousness - a word of which he was very fond. He told Felix of a righteous and good God, who had manifested to man his righteousness and goodness, in the righteousness and goodness of his Son Jesus; a righteous God, who wished to make all men righteous like himself, that they might be happy forever.

Perhaps Paul called Felix to give up all hopes of having his own righteousness - the false righteousness of forms, ceremonies and superstitions - and to ask for the righteousness of Christ, which is a clean heart and a right spirit; and then he set before him, no doubt, as was his custom, the beauty of righteousness, the glory of it, as Paul calls it; how noble, honorable, divine and godlike a thing it is to be good.

Then Paul told Felix of temperance. And what he said we may fairly guess from his writings. He would tell Felix there were two elements in every man, the flesh and the spirit, and that those warred against each other; the flesh trying to drag him down, that he may become a brute in fleshly lusts and passions; the spirit trying to raise him up, that he may become a son of God in purity and virtue. But if so, what need must there be of temperance!

How must a man be bound to be temperate, to keep under his body and bring it into subjection, bound to restrain the lower and more brutal feelings in him, that the higher and purer feelings may grow and thrive in him to everlasting life!

Truly the temperate man, the man who can restrain himself, is the only strong man, the only safe man, the only happy man, the only man worthy of the name of man at all. This, or something like this, Paul would have said to Felix.

Paul did not, as far as we know, rebuke him for his sins. He left him to rebuke himself. He told him what ought to be, what he ought to do, and left the rest to his conscience. Poor Felix, brought up a heathen slave in that profligate court of Rome, had probably never heard of righteousness and temperance, had never had what was good and noble set before him. Now Paul set the good before him, and showed him a higher life than any he had ever dreamed of - higher than all his viceregal power and pomp - and bade him see how noble and divine it was to be good.   To be continued...

Paul Before King Felix.

Taken from:

Discipline and Other Sermons 

(1881 edition)

 by Charles Kingsley

And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”  Acts 24:25

This is a well-known text, on which many a sermon has been preached, and with good reason, for it is an important text. It tells us of a man, who, like too many men in all times, trembled when he heard the truth about his wicked life, but did not repent and mend; and a very serious lesson we may draw from his example.

But even a more important fact about the text is that it tells us what were really the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion in those early times, about twenty-five years, seemingly, after our Lord's death; what St. Paul used to preach about; what he considered was the first thing which he had to tell men.

Let us take this latter question first. About what did St. Paul reason before Felix?

About righteousness (which means justice), temperance, and judgement to come.

I beg you to remember these words. If you believe the Bible to be inspired, you are bound to take its words as they stand. And therefore I beg you to remember that St. Paul preached not about unrighteousness, but righteousness; not about intemperance, but temperance; not about hell, but about judgement to come; in a word, not about wrong, but about right.

I hope that does not seem to you a small matter. I hope that none of you are ready to say, "It comes to the same thing in the end." It does not come to the same thing. There is no use rebuking a man for being bad unless you first tell him how he may become better and give him hope for himself, or you will only drive him to recklessness and despair. You must show him the right road before you can complain of him for going on the wrong one.

But if St. Paul had reasoned with Felix about injustice, intemperance and hell, one could not have been surprised. For Felix was a thoroughly bad man, unjust and intemperate, and seemingly fitting himself for hell.

He had begun life as a slave of the emperor in a court which was a mere stink of profligacy and villainy. Then he had got his freedom, and next, the governorship of Judea, probably by his brother Pallas's interest, who had been a slave like him, and had made an enormous fortune by the most detestable wickedness.

When in his governorship, Felix began to show himself as wicked as his brother. The violence, misrule, extortion and cruelty which went on in Judea was notorious. He caused the high-priest at Jerusalem to be murdered out of spite. Drusilla, his wife, he had taken away from a Syrian king, who was her lawful husband. Making money seems to have been his great object; and the great Roman historian of those times sums up his character in a few bitter words thus: "Felix," he says, "exercised the power of a king with the heart of a slave, in all cruelty and lust."

Such was the wicked upstart whom God, for the sins of the Jews, had allowed to rule them in St. Paul's time and before him St. Paul had to plead for his life.  To be continued...