Read it again
By professor E.M.Blaiklock MA DLITT
XLI.
ALMOST PERSUADED
Pease read Acts 26 again.
Is Acts 26:28 to be taken in a serious vein?
No!
In spite of a well-known evangelistic hymn based upon the text. The phrase translated
"almost" in the A.V. runs literally "in a little." In Eph. 3:3 it is translated "in a few words," or
'in brief," while common Greek usage attaches the expression to time. What Agrippa seems, then, to refer to is the presumption of one who, in a brief oration, would make him, with his wide, if entirely academic, interest in Judaism, suddenly "a Christian." Furthermore, it is unlikely that the term Christian had ceased to bear the pejorative meaning of its early usage. It seems, therefore, certain that Agrippa spoke in gentle irony. "With which few words, my friend, you are trying to persuade me, Agrippa, to become a Christian!" "Whether it be with few words or with many,'
" answers Paul,
"I could pray that both you and all my audience were such as I am, save in chains." Important manuscripts contain a variation in the infinitive and the principal verb which make a translation possible which runs like this. "With but little thou art persuading thyself that thou canst make me a Christian." The Greek is awkward, in spite of the antiquity of one of the authorities for this reading, and the variation probably came about because the early church found Agrippa's words as puzzling as we do.