And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind!"
Acts 26:22-24

Festus, the new Governor, had just arrived from Rome. He felt like a fish out of water; he knew the laws of Rome, but found himself immersed in some kind of a controversy about the Jewish religion, and whether somebody named Jesus, who had been crucified some thirty-two years before, was alive or dead. The only thing he could make out was that the local authorities were apparently demanding a death penalty for this guy named Paul, because he insisted that Jesus was alive.

So Festus brought in a local expert. King Herod Agrippa was a loyal Roman but understood these strange people and their customs. Maybe he would be able to explain what this was all about.

So as Festus listened, Paul told his story to Herod Agrippa: how the Lord Jesus had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and commissioned him to take the message of salvation to the Gentiles.

Festus was amazed. This Paul was obviously an intelligent, well-educated man but he was talking about seeing visions from heaven and a man who had risen from the dead appearing to him as God. Paul was apparently harmless, Festus decided, but he was clearly nuts; such things don’t really happen.

Agrippa’s reaction was quite different. When Paul asked him directly whether he believed the Bible, he retorted, "In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?" Some translations render his words as, “You almost persuade me to be a Christian!”)

There will be some to whom your testimony of what God has done in your life, of answered prayers, and of why you believe the Bible to be true, will sound like raving lunacy. There will be others who will respond with a hungry heart and say with longing, “You almost convince me to believe.”

Either way, no one but God can awaken a true and living faith in the human heart. Just be faithful in telling what you know to be true. Don’t worry about how they will respond; that’s not up to you.

Lord, there are cynics out there who think I’m nuts; there are fanatics who want to shut me up by whatever means is at their disposal, and there are hungry hearts, longing for the truth, wishing they could believe.
Lord, reveal Yourself to them. Let them know You, too. Amen.

Pastor Dan Giles