Hear My Defense

Acts 22:1-5 
1 “Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now.” 2 And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Then he said: 3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. 4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, 5 as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.

Paul spoke in the native tongue of the Jews is a foreign city, and they listened as he told who he was, including his religious upbringing and zeal for God as the crowd had also.  Then he spoke of his persecution of Christians to the death and seeking them out far and wide to stop this new way that seemed to replace the law (but actually fulfilled it in Christ).  So he began and they were listening to this point as he related their common background.  However, Paul would soon point to Christ and the gospel, and the ears would stop.  Even now we speak of human commonalities, yet the point of accountability to God becomes a stumbling block.