At one point during his ministry, the Apostle Paul was at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He was accused by some Jews of bringing a Gentile into the courts where only Jews were allowed. He hadn’t, but they thought he did and a riot started. When Roman soldiers pulled him out of the crowd to flog him, Paul said, “You’d do this to a Roman citizen?” (Acts 22). The penalty for abusing a Roman citizen without a trial was severe, so instead the terrified soldiers sent him under armed guard to be tried by the governor of the region. What makes this story especially interesting is that seven years earlier, in the city of Philippi, Paul was arrested, flogged, and imprisoned for teaching about Jesus – but he never said a word about his Roman citizenship. Why would he claim his citizenship at the Temple Mount, but choose to remain silent in Philippi, a city much more Roman than Jerusalem? Follow Paul into the prison of Philippi and discover with the early church what it means to be the message of Jesus, no matter the cost.
