Acts 24

Tertullus, it seems, is a hired mouth. His job is to present the case against Paul. There’s no indication of where he stands, personally, on the matter. He represents his clients and speaks on their behalf.

Jesus came from the city of Nazareth. He was a Nazarene, and some people called his followers Nazarenes.

The last sentence in verse 6, all of verse 7, and the first sentence in verse 8 are not included in some of the ancient manuscripts that many Bible experts say are most reliable. The theory is that an editor added them, possibly to fill in some of the obvious details already reported in the story.

Before people starting calling the followers of Jesus “Christians” (see Acts 11:26) they called them “followers of the Way.” Some wrote of it as “the way of the Lord.” Didache (Teaching), a Christian manual written in either the first or second century, spoke of “Two Ways.” There was the way that led to life and the way that led to death. When Jesus’s disciple, Thomas, asked how to get to where Jesus was going, so he could go too, Jesus said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. If you want to get to the Father, I’m the one who’ll take you there” (John 14:6).

The books of Law are the first five books in the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. They are anonymously written, but Jews taught that Moses wrote them. Sometimes “Law” refers to just the Jewish rules for living that appear in those books, especially in the book of Deuteronomy, which is a summary of the laws.

In Roman times, Asia did not refer to the Far East. It was the territory on what is now Turkey’s west coast. It was home to one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire: Ephesus.

The officer was a centurion, commander of a unit of about 100 soldiers.

Drusilla was a gorgeous teenager at the time, according to first-century Jewish history writer Josephus. This was her second marriage. She was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, ruler of the Jewish homeland from AD 41 to AD 44. Drusilla was born in AD 38. She married her first husband in an arranged wedding when she was 14 years old. As Josephus tells it, Felix convinced her to leave her husband and marry him. Bible scholars say she was probably almost 20 years old when she met Paul, sometime before the emperor fired Felix in about AD 58 for abusing his power.

The Greek word for Messiah is Christ.

Often translated as “righteous.”

See the footnotes for Acts 23:34-35.

Festus governed the Roman province of Judea (roughly the area of Israel) for about three years, from about AD 59 to AD 62. He had a reputation as a fair judge in disputes, according to first-century Jewish history writer Josephus.