Acts 26:11

"I also did this in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them."

Key Reflection

Paul acknowledges his previous actions as a persecutor, emphasizing that even someone with authority from religious leaders could be transformed by encountering Christ's truth. This self-revelation underscores the power of divine grace to change the deepest convictions and behaviors.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

Verse 11. And I punished them oft, etc. See Ac 22:19. And compelled them to blaspheme. To blaspheme the name of Jesus, by denying that he was the Messiah, and by admitting that he was an impostor. This was the object which they had in view in the persecution. It was not to make them blaspheme or reproach God, but to deny that Jesus was the Messiah, and to reproach him as a deceiver and an impostor. It is not necessarily implied in the expression, "and compelled them to blaspheme," that he succeeded in doing it; but that he violently endeavoured to make them apostatize from the Christian religion, and deny the Lord Jesus.

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