Focus: I Have No Idea!

Text: Act.23:5

"Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people."

For you to succeed in anything you do, you need concentration and commitment. You can't be here and there and think that you can succeed. You must find that one thing that must claim your whole attention and dedication.

Paul utterly committed himself to the Jewish faith, which is also known as Judaism. He was in touch with the powers that be in Judaism, especially the priesthood. He knew every one who mattered in the land. He was conversant with all of them. But after Paul encountered Christ and was converted to Christianity, his allegiance shifted completely from Judaism to Christianity. He decided to know nothing else except the things pertaining to Christ. Paul said, "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1Cor.2:2). He focused all his faculties and devoted his whole energy on knowing Christ and doing His behest. 

Paul says, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death" (Phil.3:10). Paul lost interest in Judaism and made the glory of Christ the goal of his life and ministry, and also the focal point of his eternal pursuit.

I am buttressing a point here, which is that, in a short while after embracing Christ, Paul was saying to the people, 'I simply have no idea that he is the high priest. After all, I am fully aware of the instruction God had given to us not to speak evil of our own rulers.'

Paul, out of anger, had said unknowingly to the high priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" (Act.23:3). Paul's anger stemmed from the fact that the high priest instructed his men to smite him , "And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth" (Act.23:2). Then the people in the audience said to Paul, "Revilest thou God's high priest?" (Act.23:4).

Paul did not feign ignorance; he truly did not know who the current high priest was, because he had left Judaism for good. He was never looking back, and he was not in any ways interested in being here and there at the same time. He looked away from all others and fixed his gaze on Christ. In his days as a Pharisee, he was acquainted with the high priest. Luke writes, "And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem" (Act.9:1,2). 

After years of being a Christian, he stood up to defend himself, and said, "As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished" (Act.22:5). The man who was collecting letters from the Jewish authorities to arrest and harass the followers of Christ is now unaware of who the current high priest was. Christ is all he knows now and all he wants to know. He was now sold out to Christ and desired to know nothing other than Christ and his redemptive work on the cross. Christ was Paul's new focus, main focus, and only focus. 

Let us narrow our interest in knowing Christ only and letting Him live His own life through us.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter