Acts 24:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Believing,” he says, “all things written in the law.” By this he expresses that no man who believes in the future resurrection, which they themselves accept, could ever do what they accuse him of doing.

He did not say that they believe in the writings of the prophets, for they did not believe. Rather, he says that he believes all things, not they.

How is this so? It would take long to speak of it now. Paul said so much, and did not mention Christ. Yet by the word “believing” he also indicates Christ.

He dwells more on the teaching concerning the resurrection, which was also accepted by them and removed from him any suspicion of sedition.

"I truly serve the God of my fathers, believing." When Paul, after being called to be Christ's Apostle, says that he serves the ancestral God, he thereby shows that the God of the Old and New Testaments is one and the same. By "the Way" he means the faith or the tradition.

The defensive speech of the Apostle Paul had a stronger effect on the procurator. Felix dismissed the accusers, promising to reconsider the case when the tribune Lysias came. Until then he granted the prisoner Paul even greater freedom than he had enjoyed before. He ordered the centurion assigned to him not to restrain him, and not to forbid any of his own people to serve him or come to him (vv. 10-23).

As for the second point, he does indeed belong to a particular society. Yet it is the same kind of society as that to which they themselves belong. He worships God, whom he, as a Jew, was taught from childhood to worship. He openly accepted all Holy Scripture and believed, as most of them did, in the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Because of this very faith, he always strove to have a pure conscience before both God and men.

“But this I confess to you,” that is, I declare to you, openly and sincerely reveal and proclaim, “that,” and so forth.

Having removed the first accusation, the apostle now proceeds to refute the second accusation, that he is a representative of the Nazarene heresy, that is, a leader of Christianity, verse 5. He refutes this accusation in greater detail than the first.

He quite sincerely acknowledges himself to be a follower of that teaching, more precisely, of that Way. This means the whole set of rules that determines the way of life called Christian; cf. Acts 22:4; Acts 9:2 and parallels.

This teaching is called Christianity. He denies only that it should be called a heresy. “They call it” means, my enemies call it so, but in reality it is not a heresy.

The confession of faith made by the holy Apostle Paul is expressed in general, yet quite definite, features, insofar as this was needed to show his innocence.

He confesses that he adheres to that teaching which the Jews call a heresy, the Nazarene one. Yet this teaching is fully in accord with the true service of the forefathers and prophets, beginning with Moses.

The essential doctrine of this confession is faith in the resurrection of the dead and in heavenly recompense. This is also what the accusers believe.

“See,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “they presented him as an opponent of the law. But in his defense he shows himself devoted to the law.