Acts 25 · a question people ask
"I appeal to Caesar!" (25:11). Why did Paul appeal?
The chapter gives Paul's own words and no other reason. Festus had asked him, "Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged by me there concerning these things?" (25:9). Paul answered that he was standing "before Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be tried" (25:10), and said, "if none of those things is true that they accuse me of, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!" (25:11). In Rome, later, Paul tells it in his own words: "But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation." (28:19). These are Paul's own words, and these notes add no reason to them.
The verses
“But Festus, desiring to gain favor with the Jews, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged by me there concerning these things?” But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also know very well. For if I have done wrong and have committed anything worthy of death, I don’t refuse to die; but if none of those things is true that they accuse me of, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!””
“But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation.”