Acts 22:18-21

Acts 22:18-21 Paul now reveals that the Lord had predicted two things. First, that the Jews would persecute him (just like they were doing on this day) and secondly that preaching to the Gentiles the message of salvation in Jesus was not his own opinion or some eccentric idea, but was. direct command from heaven. "Paul's second point was that those features of his faith which had changed, especially his acknowledgment of Jesus and his Gentile mission, were not his own eccentric ideas. They had been directly revealed to him from heaven, the one truth in Damascus and the other in Jerusalem" (Stott p. 348). Paul had not fallen away, but rather it is clear that Paul still serves the same God of their fathers, which means that his hearers are not in line with God's will at the present.

If given time Paul would probably have proceeded to explain that he had not brought. Gentile into the temple area that was reserved for Jewish men, but once Paul mentioned his commission of going to the Gentiles the mob cut his sermon short.