Acts 24:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See: they presented him as an opponent of the law, but in his defense he shows himself devoted to the law. Confirming what he has said, he adds this. That this is true is witnessed by the accusers themselves. Therefore he says, “Therefore I myself always strive to have a blameless conscience before God and men.” Perfect virtue exists when we give men no occasion for sin, and when we strive to be irreproachable before God.

We manifest perfect virtue when we give men no occasion for scandal, and when we strive to be blameless before God.

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.

Passing to the practical expression of this whole confession in the moral life, the apostle testifies that, as a confessor of such faith, he struggles, cares, and labors always to have a blameless conscience before God and men.

Thus, with purity of conscience, his outward actions also would be blameless and would cause scandal to no one.

“For perfect virtue exists when we neither give people occasion for sin, nor cease striving to be irreproachable before God” (Chrysostom).

Thus the apostle confesses himself to be one of the followers, not the leader, of Christianity. He affirms that in its teaching it agrees with the Old Testament confessed by the Jews and is founded upon it.

Consequently, the accusation against him on this point is not an accusation at all. Belonging to Christianity is not a fault.

Defining the essence of life in Christ, the Apostle Paul says that he strove always to have a pure conscience, which he is presumed to have had; see Acts 23:1.

At the same time he points to one form of his virtue, namely beneficence, and specifically toward his own people.

Thus his whole life and the activity of his last days are living witnesses. He is not a stirrer of the people, nor their plague, but a healer, nourisher, and benefactor.

He inclined to beneficence even those among whom he lived in a distant foreign land.

“What a contrast between Paul’s patriotic love for his people and the malicious slander of his enemies against him. The apostle says ‘my people’ because the alms came from the Greek and Macedonian Churches (see Rom 15:25-26).