1 And Paul, fixing his eyes on the council, said, Brethren, I have walked in all good conscience with God unto this day.
For this cause I also exercise [myself] to have in everything a conscience without offence towards God and men.
I am thankful to God, whom I serve from [my] forefathers with pure conscience, how unceasingly I have the remembrance of thee in my supplications night and day,
as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the elderhood: from whom also, having received letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus to bring those also who were there, bound, to Jerusalem, to be punished.
For I am conscious of nothing in myself; but I am not justified by this: but he that examines me is the Lord.
But Paul, knowing that the one part [of them] were of the Sadducees and the other of the Pharisees, cried out in the council, Brethren, *I* am a Pharisee, son of Pharisees: *I* am judged concerning the hope and resurrection of [the] dead.
But we have rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor falsifying the word of God, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Acts 23
Commentary on Acts 23 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 23
The close of the foregoing chapter left Paul in the high priest's court, into which the chief captain (whether to his advantage or no I know not) had removed his cause from the mob; and, if his enemies act there against him with less noise, yet it is with more subtlety. Now here we have,
Act 23:1-5
Perhaps when Paul was brought, as he often was (corpus cum causa-the person and the cause together), before heathen magistrates and councils, where he and his cause were slighted, because not at all understood, he thought, if he were brought before the sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he should be able to deal with them to some good purpose, and yet we do not find that he works at all upon them. Here we have,
Act 23:6-11
Many are the troubles of the righteous, but some way or other the Lord delivereth them out of them all. Paul owned he had experienced the truth of this in the persecutions he had undergone among the Gentiles (see 2 Tim. 3:11): Out of them all the Lord delivered me. And now he finds that he who has delivered does and will deliver. He that delivered him in the foregoing chapter from the tumult of the people here delivers him from that of the elders.
Act 23:12-35
We have here the story of a plot against the life of Paul; how it was laid, how it was discovered, and how it was defeated.