The Audacity of Faith

Paul is standing before the Jewish King and the Roman Governor. He is on trial. Once again, he falls back to telling his personal story, but he takes it one step further and explains to these men how his story connects to Jesus' story and how Jesus' story is the culmination of the story of the entire Jewish nation.

His judges lose it. The Governor accuses him of being crazy, "You're great learning is driving you insane." But Paul isn't done with the King. He pushes him, as a Jew, as to whether he believes the words of the prophets regarding the messiah. He won't let Agrippa hear these things without pushing for a response.

"Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" There is no way that Paul could have persuaded a King to change his stripes. That would be insane. But, Paul wasn't doing the persuading. Paul's words and Paul's story were driven by an outside power. He could believe that these men could change in an instant because he wasn't driving the change. He was doing his part, but God had a part to play as well.

It was Paul's knowledge of his team, that he did not have to face these men alone that allowed him to have such audacity. It allowed him to lay out his personal story and relate it to God's story. The two were written for and by one another, they were inexplicably intertwined, as our story should be with God's.