Acts 22:22-23:11New International Version
Paul the Roman Citizen
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. 25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”
26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I am,” he answered.
28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.”
“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.
29 Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
That Roman citizenship - worth a lot in those days.
It's a shame that our American citizenship is not honored with the same deference here in out own country. Nowadays, especially if one is conservatively minded, you are more apt to be considered guilty and deserving of punishment simply for desiring America to be great.
ReplyDeleteWhich begs the question. Why is the US Military not guarding our southern borderto stop an invasion of illegal aliens?
ReplyDeleteJpaul
Silly boy, it's because you are being replaced by people they can control.
DeleteVictor Davis Hanson has a very interesting lecture about the death of American citizenship along with a book with a similar title.
ReplyDelete