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Chapter 26 picks up where 25 left off. Paul was standing before Festus, Agrippa, and Berenice and was about to defend himself against his Jewish accusers.
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Paul expressed his joy that he had the chance to defend himself before Agrippa, because Agrippa was familiar with the customs of the Jews.
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He recounted his upbringing, how from his youth he had been in adherence to the strictest party of the Jewish faith and had lived as a Pharisee.
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He told Agrippa about his past life, how he had punished, imprisoned, and killed Christians.
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Paul described his zeal for persecuting Christians as a “raging fury.”
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But everything changed when his zeal took him to Damascus.
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He recounted how Jesus spoke to him in a “light from heaven, brighter than the sun.”
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Paul was convinced he was doing the right thing by persecuting Christians, but Jesus showed him he had been misled.
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Jesus told Paul he was to be God’s “servant and witness” to turn people from “darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.”
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Paul told Agrippa he was obedient to God’s call, and began immediately to preach in Damascus, then in Jerusalem, and in all the region of Judea.
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It was on account of Paul’s conversion and redirected zeal that the Jews hated him and tried to kill him in the Temple.
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Paul preached only what “the prophets and Moses said would come to pass,” that Jesus would die, resurrect, and would be a light to Jews and Gentiles.
