Acts 26:4-7

The essence of the controversy surrounding Paul’s ministry and teaching, he explained, was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel, namely, salvation through a Messiah. This promise included personal spiritual salvation as well as national deliverance and blessing that the Hebrew prophets had predicted. The agent of this salvation would be a Savior whom God would anoint and who would arise from the dead. Paul’s conclusions concerning that Savior were the basis for the Jews’ antagonism against him.

Paul said that it was because of his Jewish heritage, not in spite of it, that he believed and preached what he did. The Jewish hope finds fulfillment in the Christian gospel. It was, therefore, ironic that the Jews, of all people, should have charged him with disloyalty.

"Paul is arguing that he has been consistent in his loyalty to the Jewish hope, whereas Acts 26:7-8 imply that his opponents are strangely inconsistent; what the people earnestly desire, the focus of their hope, is rejected when it arrives." [Note: Tannehill, 2:318.]

When Paul referred to his nation (Acts 26:4), he may have had the province of Cilicia or the Jewish community in Tarsus in mind. Personal maintenance of ritual purity and strict tithing marked the lives of Pharisees primarily (Acts 26:5). Paul’s mention of the 12 tribes of Israel (Acts 26:7) shows that he did not believe that 10 of the tribes became lost, as some cults today claim, for example, Herbert W. Armstrong’s teachings, and British Israelism (cf. Acts 2:9; Matthew 19:28; Luke 2:36; Luke 22:30; James 1:1; Revelation 7:4; Revelation 21:12).