Paul in Rome (Acts 28:11-31)

Paul had an ambition to get to Rome with the gospel. He had intimated this desire in his letter to the Romans when he informed them of his plans some years before. He intended to go to Jerusalem, attend to some things, then make his way to Rome, and from there go further west as far as Spain. 

Those plans were tentative and did not turn out as he had hoped. Instead of arriving in Rome as a preacher on a mission, he reached there as a prisoner facing trial after having been arrested in Jerusalem. He had been forced to appeal to Caesar, a right that he possessed because he had the status of a Roman citizen from birth. Paul back then had not expected to be on trial when he would come to Rome, but changes in his circumstances meant that he been taken there under guard. A centurion had sailed with him for several months, as described in the Book of Acts.

Paul arrives in Rome (Acts 28:11-31)

To begin with, Paul’s experience in Rome was fine. A group of believers in Rome came to meet him and his fellow travellers at the Forum of Appius, a town about forty miles from Rome, and accompanied him to the capital. Paul may have known some of them. Certainly, he was aware of some of the believers living in Rome as we can see from the last chapter of his letter to the Romans where he mentions some of them by name. He knew that there were house churches already there. No doubt, his friends Priscilla and Aquila would have informed him of the state of things. Some of them were even his relatives.

Then it was decided by the authorities in Rome that Paul could have his own accommodation at his own expense, although wherever he went he would be guarded by a soldier because he was a special prisoner. Perhaps he did some work as a tentmaker.

As had been his method throughout his years of service for Jesus, Paul began his time in Rome by making contact with the Jews. He discovered that news of his arrest in Jerusalem had not reached the Jews in Rome or that any negative comments about his message had been reported there. So, the Jewish leaders in Rome informed him that they would like to hear his message, even although they were aware that followers of Jesus had been spoken against everywhere (which is an acknowledgement about how far the faith had spread).

After they had heard Paul, they were divided about his claims that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Presumably, those who were convinced later identified with Paul in the meetings that he held in his rented accommodation. But as is the case whenever the gospel is presented, a division was created, with some remaining strongly opposed. Paul, in response, cited what was initially said by God to Isaiah when he was called to be a prophet, as recounted in Isaiah 6. Yet Paul added a qualification to that prophetic experience of Isaiah. Unlike Isaiah, Paul could bring the gospel to Gentiles and some of them would accept it.

This engagement was not merely the discharge of a duty by Paul. Recall what he said in his letter to the Romans about his fellow countrymen: ‘I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit — that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh’ (Rom. 9:1-3). Paul would have his heart full as he presented to them information about their Messiah. 

Luke closes his account by saying that for two years Paul continued to live at that address which he used as a base for declaring the message of the kingdom of God and explaining the message of Jesus. Nobody hindered him from doing so, and he announced it with great boldness. 

It is not clear what happened after those two years. Maybe that was when his trial commenced, because when we turn to other New Testament references we find that Paul’s trial has taken place and he is waiting for the verdict, and in one of his letters from that time he asks the recipients to pray that he would have boldness as he conveyed the message (Eph. 6:19-20). Perhaps circumstances had become harder, and he was aware of pressure to desist spreading the gospel. One passage that describes his circumstances is Philippians 1.

Paul waiting for a verdict (Philippians 1:12-18)

Paul’s letters reveal that several church delegates came to see him in Rome. One of them was Epaphroditus who came from Philippi with a gift for the apostle. The journey would have been arduous and it may have contributed to an illness that Epaphroditus suffered. Paul indicates that the illness was severe, but that his friend recovered and was able to return home, taking with him a letter for the church in Philippi, a letter that we call the letter to the Philippians. In the letter, Paul informs the church in Philippi about his circumstances and also expresses his concern about some issues that the congregation in Philippi were experiencing. But what does he say about what had or was taking place in Rome as far as Christian growth was concerned?

Somewhat surprisingly, Paul made a strong witness to the imperial guard. It looks as if he was guarded by one of them on a daily basis, and with the passing of time the guards became aware of why Paul was under arrest. Those guards would have watched Paul, observed his prayer life, and listened to what he said when people came to his house. In a sense, they were the captives in that they had to remain and listen to him. They discovered that he was under arrest because of his relationship with Jesus.

Moreover, his confinement had good influences on preachers in Rome. We are not told where those preachers came from. They all preached about Jesus, but they were divided in their response to Paul. Some looked at how Paul was coping with the imprisonment and they received strength by considering how the Lord was helping him by giving fresh supplies of grace. Others, who were against Paul, used their preaching of Christ as a means of attacking him. Perhaps they implied that it was his own fault for being confined because he had appealed to Caesar. Whatever the reason, they were attacking him personally, with the aim of him having enduring pain and distress. 

Paul knew that was the case, but his response, even to those who were opposing him, was to rejoice that the gospel was being declared in Rome. The motives and actions of his opponents in the church did not stop him rejoicing in the fact that the mission of Jesus was being explained to sinners. From his point of view as an ambassador of Jesus, he wanted sinners to be converted.

Dealing with church matters by letter

Although he was under arrest, Paul still functioned as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Unlike other occupations, he could be an apostle anywhere. In addition to writing the letter to the Philippians, Paul at this time also wrote his letter to the Colossians, and in each of them he mentions that he is an apostle. 

One day, no doubt to Paul’s surprise and perhaps to the surprise of the guard, in walked Epaphras, a man who had been converted through Paul’s ministry when he had spent three years in Ephesus. Epaphras had taken the gospel to his home community in Colosse and a church had commenced there, alongside churches in the neighbouring communities of Hierapolis and Laodicea. He had now come to Paul for help because of false teaching that was taking place in Colosse over the glory of Christ. The false teaching claimed that Jesus was not active in the way that Paul described him. It preached a different way of salvation and a different way of sanctification. Paul wrote a letter to them, pointing out those errors and describing the truth about the person and work of Jesus.

During the same period, he wrote the letter to the Ephesians, which was designed as a letter that was suitable for all churches to receive in that he does not refer to anything local in it. Instead, he describes great aspects of divine salvation and important areas of Christian living, both in the church community and in conflict with the demonic opposition that the church faces.

The visit of another resident from Colosse probably surprised Paul more the even the arrival of Epaphras. That individual was Onesimus, a slave who belonged to Philemon, in whose house the church in Colosse met, and where Epaphras would have preached. Onesimus had run away from his master, probably after causing some loss to Philemon. He had reached Rome and somehow found his way to Paul’s abode. Maybe he had met Epaphras somewhere in the city. In any case, through meeting Paul, Onesimus was converted and over the next while Paul discovered that Onesimus possessed spiritual gifts that indicated he could serve alongside Paul. So Paul wrote a letter to Philemon asking him to set Onesimus free. This letter, along with the letters to Ephesus and Colosse, were taken to their destinations by Paul’s faithful colleague, Tychicus, a convert from his time in Ephesus and who engaged in several missions on behalf of Paul.

Paul’s attitude in Rome (Philippians 1:19-26)

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul expressed his opinion that he expected to be released from his imprisonment. Yet he realised that it was possible that there could be a more negative outcome. So he described to the Philippians where he was in a spiritual sense. His outlook was very positive, whether he lived or died. If he lived, he would have more opportunities for serving Christ, even in Philippi again, and if he died he would go to heaven and be with Christ. 

Therefore, as he expressed it later in that letter, he was content with whatever happened. But along with his contentment there was a deep and profound commitment to Christ. He knew that he could abandon himself to Christ because he knew that Christ would never abandon him, even if he died. Paul, as he expected, was released from his imprisonment and was to serve Jesus and his cause for several years before being rearrested. 

Paul, the man in Rome

What can we make of Paul’s time in Rome as described here? He was now an old man in terms of the period in which he lived. He was under the pressure of facing Roman justice which would be decided whenever the emperor got round to considering it. He was asked to deal with complicated issues in churches hundreds of miles from where he was. He was coping with the opposition of other Christians who attempted to minimise his influence in Rome. 

His response was to put those issues where they belonged in the perspective he had of the Christian life and of where Jesus wanted him to be. Paul lived out his belief that Jesus was sovereign over all of life. All those burdensome issues, as well as the encouragements he received from his friends, were seen as aspects of divine providence. He knew that his affairs were under the care and direction of the highest of hands and, as he had earlier told the Romans, his God was working all things together for his good. Life might have been marked by surprises or by sorrows or by joys, but whatever came along were the arrangements of his sovereign Saviour.

We can also see from the range of his responses that Paul always regarded himself as the servant of Jesus. He had been called to be a witness and indeed had been told by Jesus years earlier that he would yet appear before kings and rulers and declare the message of salvation to them. Now he had appeared before the most powerful man on earth, the Roman emperor, but he says little about the impression earthly power made on him. Paul as the servant of Christ lived daily in the presence of his Master. What earthly palace could compare with the awesomeness of being in the presence of God? Indeed the presence of Jesus had turned Paul’s place of confinement into a palace of greater splendour than anything earth could provide. But one has to live by faith in order to understand that. Wherever Paul was, he was the servant of Jesus.  

The letters that Paul wrote from his imprisonment reveal that he was a man who made intercession for the growth of the kingdom of Christ. While he was limited in his movements because of the circumstances caused by him being under arrest, he was not limited in his supplications for the kingdom. Of course, he had not commenced his prayer life after he was arrested. Rather he had continued a prayer life that he had commenced years earlier. He prayed because he knew that intercession was part of his work, his calling. Through prayer, he contributed to the work of the kingdom in numerous places. This had been the story of his life since he was converted to Jesus in Damascus, and his prayer life is clearly stated in all of his letters.

A fourth feature of his attitude while in Rome is seen in how he understood his sufferings. In his letter to the Colossians, he informed them: ‘Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church’ (Col. 1:24). Writing to the Philippians, he had said that his desire was to know Jesus ‘and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death’ (Phil. 3:10). Paul considered his sufferings as being also Christ’s sufferings in some form of mutual participation. He had been reminded of this reality when he was asked on the Damascus road why he was persecuting Jesus when, on the surface, he was persecuting Christians. His actions against Christians had been stated by Jesus to be actions against him. There is such a unity between Jesus and his people so that what happens to them happens to him. 

How could Paul function in this manner in such a difficult period for him? He gives the answer to this question when he writes to the Philippians: ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’ (Phil. 4:13). What was true for him, in the availability of Christ’s power in such a wide range of circumstances and demands, can and should be true of every follower of Jesus.