Trump Cards

The Apostle Paul had a trump card he could play. He was a Roman citizen by birth and as such could not be arbitrarily bound up or scourged or treated with brutality like those who were not citizens.

What’s interesting to me is that Paul didn’t always play his trump card. Of course he did in Acts 22 when the Roman Tribune, Claudius Lysias, was about to have him “scourged”. But in Acts 16 he didn’t. He allowed himself stripped of his clothes, beaten with rods, thrown into prison and bound in the “stocks”. All he had to do to prevent all of that was to say the simple words… “I’m a Roman citizen”.

So on one occasion he played his trump card and on another occasion he did not. I wonder why?

Let me suggest this, in Acts 16, Paul needed to be beat up and imprisoned so the Philippian Jailor and his family could be saved. He gave up his rights as a Roman citizen and allowed himself to be brutally beaten so he could save a man and his family.

In Acts 22 he had another mission that required him to use his rights as a Roman citizen. His mission was to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ to the Roman Caesar and a simple Jew could not do that. Only a Roman citizen could.

Sometimes it’s good to use our rights but at other times we need to give them up and the determining factor in that decision making process is which choice advances the cause of Christ? Choose wisely.