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"St. Paul was tried on a charge of breaking the Law at the instance of the Jews, before
a ruler who had set those laws at defiance, and who yet is flattered by them" (3-9).
From Drusilla Felix had probably heard of the Messianic hope of Israel, and of the
new "heresy" that claimed that Jesus was the Christ. And so we read that Felix "sent for
Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ". The expression here: Tes eis
Christon pisteos ("The unto Christ faith") is a striking one. According to the revised
texts the name "Jesus" should also be added.
We have no means of knowing the length of time occupied by the Apostle, or the line
of approach he adopted. He may have appealed to the O.T. Scriptures for the benefit of
Drusilla, or he may have approached his subject along the lines of Acts 17: The veil,
however, is lifted for a moment in verse 25, and we read that "as he reasoned of
righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled" (Acts 24: 25).
The word dialogismos ("reasoning") is used in an evil sense in the N.T. and is
forbidden by the Apostle himself in several places (Rom. 1: 21; 14: 1; I Cor. 3: 20;
Phil. 2: 14; I Tim. 2: 8). We must be careful, however, not to jump to false conclusions.
"Reasonings", dialogismoi (plural), are repudiated by the Apostle in five passages in his
epistles, but "reasoning" (dialegomai) is actually used of him ten times in the Acts and is
twice translated "preaching" (Acts 20: 7, 9). The last occurrence of dialegomai in the
Acts is this reference in chapter 24:, where Paul "reasons of righteousness, continence,
and judgment to come".
The man who listened to this "preaching" of the "faith unto Christ Jesus" was a
Roman libertine, and the woman a profligate Jewish princess. Farrar says of Felix:
"He had been a slave, in the vilest of all positions, and the vilest of all epochs, in the
vilest of all cities . . . . . Ample and indisputable testimony, Jewish and pagan, sacred and
secular, reveals to us what he had been."
It was to this man that the Apostle spoke of a judgment-seat, where there is no respect
of persons, and where the Judge Himself knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. In
verse 25 we read that "Felix trembled", but the "convenient season" never materialized,
and the evil past held him in its grip. He "communed" with the Apostle on several
occasions after this, but, finally, upon his recall to Rome, he violated the law in the
endeavour to placate the Jews, and left Paul bound.