And when we came to Rome, [the centurion delivered up the prisoners to the praetorian prefect, but] Paul was allowed to remain by himself with the soldier who kept him.
Paul's long journey as a prisoner ends here. He enters the capital of the empire alive, and the guard takes charge of him. The verse is short, but it raises the questions that shape the rest of the book. Who held him? How much freedom did he have? And why did the great witness of the gospel enter Rome in chains?
Some translations add a line here about "the captain of the guard." The title names a real Roman post.
"Captain of the guard" in Acts 28:16 is the Greek word stratopedarches, which strictly means "commander of a camp." Here it means the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the officer who took charge of state prisoners at Rome.
Paul passed from one officer's charge to another's, and he entered a city ruled by the man he had appealed to.
At last Paul entered Rome. What must he have felt as he walked through the grandest capital in the whole world! On the throne sat Nero, a monster of lust and cruelty, who had murdered his own mother and his wife. And it was to Nero that Paul had appealed. On arriving at Rome, the courteous Julius handed him over to the Captain of the guard, the praetorian prefect. This officer's duty was to hold in custody every accused person who had to be tried by Caesar.
Compare translations and you will find the middle of the verse missing in some. The reason lies in the oldest copies.
In Acts 28 it is admitted that the middle part of verse 16 rests on doubtful authority, and so does the whole of verse 29. The best witnesses stand against both, not only in the manuscripts but in the ancient versions.
Either way, the second half of the verse is not in doubt. Paul lived apart from the other prisoners, under a single guard.
Paul had written to the Christians in Rome about the visit he hoped to make.
So Paul arrived at Rome. His circumstances were very different from the ones he had pictured when he wrote ahead about what he planned to do (see Romans 15:22-32). Yet he did come to them with a certain measure of joy, by the will of God, and he came marked by "the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ." God's hand was still over him. Though he was a prisoner, he was allowed to live by himself under guard, and this gave him a measure of liberty for service and testimony.
He had asked God long before for this visit to the believers at Rome. The chain did not cancel it.
These had been his desires (Romans 1:10-13), and every one of them is answered (Acts 28:15-24). He sees them, he takes courage, and through preaching he gathers fruit there as well as among other Gentiles.
Paul was not treated like the other prisoners.
When they came to Rome, the centurion let Paul live outside the prison, in the custody of a soldier, while the rest of the prisoners went to prison. Paul was no ordinary prisoner, as their trust in him shows. But the soldier was in effect a captive audience for the gospel!
The favour still had a hard edge.
However, Paul was allowed to live in his own rented house with a soldier to guard him. It was no small trial to be chained as a prisoner night and day and have no privacy.
The chain fixed him in one place. He used the place.
For two years he lived in Rome under light arrest, guarded by a soldier, in his own rented room. All that time he knew that martyrdom awaited him. He knew how to turn that humble room into a pulpit. There he preached the Kingdom of God and taught the things that concern the Lord Jesus Christ. There and in that occupation we see the last glimpse of that loved and honoured man.
Christians were already in the city; what was new was the way its foremost preacher entered it.
It is not that God had done no work there already. Many souls before this were calling on the name of the Lord, both Jews and Gentiles, as the letter to the Romans lets us see. But the great witness of the gospel was to enter Rome as a prisoner. If he was released later, he came back, a prisoner again, to die at Rome for Christ. It was indeed a solemn picture of what Rome would always prove to be to the gospel of God.
- Chain — The custody was real. A praetorian prefect held the empire's state prisoners, and Paul wore a chain day and night with no privacy.
- Concession — Within that chain came unusual favour. Other prisoners went to prison. The centurion trusted Paul to live on his own under one guard.
- Confirmation — Behind that favour was God's hand. It gave him room for service and testimony.
- Captive audience — The guard chained to him could not walk away. The rented room became a pulpit for the kingdom of God.
- Consequence — Every desire of Romans 1:10-13 was answered: he arrived, he took courage, he gathered fruit. And the great witness of the gospel entered the world's capital in chains.
And it came to pass after three days, that he called together those who were the chief of the Jews; and when they had come together he said to them, Brethren, *I* having done nothing against the people or the customs of our forefathers, have been delivered a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans,
Paul reaches Rome as a prisoner, and within three days he calls for the leading Jews of the city. The nation that had tried to kill him gets his first invitation — and he comes to them with no charge to bring against them.
Paul's rule was "to the Jew first." In Rome it decided who he saw first, and this is the last time the book shows it:
And now, for the very last time in this book, it is "to the Jew first." The great Apostle's first service in Rome was not to the church. He called the leading Jews together.
Paul had every reason to be finished with his own nation. He was not:
Once more we see how Paul's heart still clings to Israel, despite all he has suffered at their hands. In this he is surely not unlike his blessed Master. Only three days pass after he reaches Rome before he sends for the leading Jews, to explain his position to them. They have forced him to appeal to Caesar. But he has no thought of standing before Caesar as the accuser of his nation.
Jerusalem had already refused his message. Rome was a fresh attempt:
True, they had not received his testimony at Jerusalem. But perhaps they would receive it at Rome. They had not given him a place in the East; perhaps they would in the West. In any case he would try. He would not abandon Israel, though Israel had rejected him.
Paul tells them only that he came to Rome as a prisoner. He could have said far more:
He could have exposed their plot to murder him while he was in Roman hands. Made public in Rome, that fact would have served him as fully as it ruined the Jews. But not a word escapes him except unselfish love. He says he had no charge against those who had sought his death so relentlessly.
Paul says he has done nothing against his people or the customs of their fathers. Take the charges away, and one real offence is left:
He made it plain that he had no wish to accuse his nation. His whole offence in Jewish eyes had to do with the "hope of Israel" — that is, the long promised Messiah.
How did an innocent man end up in Rome at all?
He was brought to Rome to answer charges made against him by the Jews in Palestine. The charges were so groundless that even the Roman Governor was ready to set him free, but the Jews opposed his release. His only crime has been his firm faith in the promises of God to Israel through the Messiah.
Paul says the Romans hold him as a prisoner. He saw another hand behind the chain:
In the opening verse of Ephesians 3, Paul calls himself "a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles." Divine grace enables him to view his imprisonment in the light of God's will, and not a murmur escapes his lips. It was the same when he first arrived at Rome, and interviewed the chief of the Jews.
The chain did not end his work. It moved him from one hearing to the next:
The effect of the captivity is to bring him into the place of testimony. He testifies before the Jews, who refuse grace to the Gentiles, and before Lysias, Felix, Festus, Agrippa, and Nero. But he is a prisoner all the time, and he works at Rome as a prisoner. (Paul's gospel was a prisoner at Rome from the first day.)
- Three days. Paul's first move in Rome is to send for the leading Jews — the last time in Acts that he acts on his rule, "to the Jew first."
- Love first. The nation that had sought his death still holds his heart; he refuses to arrive in Rome as his people's accuser.
- Silence first. He could have destroyed them by naming the plot to murder him. He says nothing about it and claims no charge against them.
- Innocence first. He has done nothing against his people or their customs. Even the Roman governor was ready to free him. The one real offence in Jewish eyes is the promised Messiah.
- Chains last. He treats his imprisonment as God's will, not as a grievance. The chain became his platform for testimony, right up to Nero.