1“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense which I now make to you.”
2When they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they were even more quiet.
He said, 3“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are today. 4I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, 5as also the high priest and all the council of the elders testify, from whom also I received letters to the brothers, and traveled to Damascus to bring them also who were there to Jerusalem in bonds to be punished.
6“As I made my journey and came close to Damascus, about noon suddenly a great light shone around me from the sky. 7I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ 8I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.’
9“Those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they didn’t understand the voice of him who spoke to me. 10I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ The Lord said to me, ‘Arise, and go into Damascus. There you will be told about all things which are appointed for you to do.’ 11When I couldn’t see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus.
12“One Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews who lived in Damascus, 13came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ In that very hour I looked up at him. 14He said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from his mouth. 15For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16Now why do you wait? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
17“When I had returned to Jerusalem and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance 18and saw him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive testimony concerning me from you.’ 19I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue those who believed in you. 20When the blood of Stephen, your witness, was shed, I also was standing by, consenting to his death, and guarding the cloaks of those who killed him.’
21“He said to me, ‘Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.’”
22They listened to him until he said that; then they lifted up their voice and said, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for he isn’t fit to live!”
23As they cried out, threw off their cloaks, and threw dust into the air, 24the commanding officer commanded him to be brought into the barracks, ordering him to be examined by scourging, that he might know for what crime they shouted against him like that. 25When they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and not found guilty?”
26When the centurion heard it, he went to the commanding officer and told him, “Watch what you are about to do, for this man is a Roman!”
27The commanding officer came and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?”
He said, “Yes.”
28The commanding officer answered, “I bought my citizenship for a great price.”
Paul said, “But I was born a Roman.”
29Immediately those who were about to examine him departed from him, and the commanding officer also was afraid when he realized that he was a Roman, because he had bound him. 30But on the next day, desiring to know the truth about why he was accused by the Jews, he freed him from the bonds and commanded the chief priests and all the council to come together, and brought Paul down and set him before them.
Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia and the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, appears five times in the Bible, each reference in the Book of Acts (9:11, 30; 11:25; 21:39; 22:3). In Acts 21:39, Paul accurately described Tarsus as "no mean (literally 'insignificant' or 'undistinguished') city." Paul accurately capsulated the importance of Tarsus in his day, as it was one of three cities (along with Athens and Alexandria) with vaunted medical schools and, according to Strabo, boasted an intellectual climate surpassing even Athens and Alexandria in culture and learning (Geog. 14.5.131).
Tarsus' natural features promoted its commercial growth. Located on both sides of the Cydnus River, twelve miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea, the city was accessible to sea-going vessels, allowing for extensive maritime trade. Located twenty-five miles south of the Cilician Gates, the only major pass through the Taurus mountain range, the city, commercially, was called a place where "east meets west." Although by legend the city was founded by Perseus and Hercules, the site was likely colonized by Ionian Greeks (some surmise that Tarsus is Tarshish, one of the sons of Javan, founder of the Greeks; Gen 10:4). The first written historical record is in the Assyrian annals of Shalmaneser III (859-824 B.C.), who referenced Tarsus on the Black Obelisk as a conquest. The city is also mentioned in the Assyrian annals of Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) and the Spartan historian-general Xenophon (Anabasis 1.2), who described the city as prosperous. Alexander thwarted the scorched-earth policy of the Persians initiated by Memnon, the Macedonian mercenary, by preventing the Persians from burning the city in 333 B.C., during his march through Asia Minor toward the Battle of Issus. Passing from Alexander's hegemony to the Seleucid dynasty, the city was renamed Antioch on the Cydnus under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.).
Pompey annexed the city for Rome in 67 B.C., with the famed Cicero serving as proconsul from 51-50 B.C. In the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey in 47 B.C., Tarsus renamed itself "Juliopolis." As the city sided with Mark Antony over Cassius, Antony rewarded it with "free city" status - exemption from taxation. Here Antony first courted Cleopatra in 41 B.C., where she arrived on her vessel arrayed as Aphrodite.
Tarsus' sophisticated and varied culture provided Paul the rearing and training to have the versatility to reach both Jew and Gentile, both the educated and mean, aristocrat and tradesman, eastern and western, and rich and poor. Tarsus was a center of Greek Stoic philosophy, hosted the latest in the arts, such as Cilician poets, was an east-west crossroads of trade, and whose citizens possessed Roman rights and citizenry. All this, combined with learning Jewish theology and Law at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), meant Paul was uniquely equipped with a level of remarkable versatility, both to comprehend and to communicate the Gospel, fructifying a powerful Apostleship (cf. 1 Cor 15:10).