Acts 24:5

Acts 24:5. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow. The Greek word rendered ‘a pestilent fellow,' literally signifies ‘a plague or pestilence.' But it is used by Demosthenes, as here, to designate a designing, dangerous person.

A mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world. The ‘world' here means the Roman orbis terrarum, in other words, ‘the Roman Empire,' which, in the days of Paul, embraced so vast an area in the East as well as the West. This charge of teaching sedition was no new one. The Jews of Thessalonica, when they arrested Jason and other friends of Paul, accused the apostle and his companions of being ‘those who had turned the world upside down.... doing things contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, Jesus' (see chap. Acts 17:6-7). It was the same accusation which had in old days worked upon Pilate when the Master stood before him. The jealous Roman governors were always ready to give ear to any information respecting alleged treason against the Majesty of the state.

And a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. This was really in the eyes of the Jews the offence which Paul had committed. It was here urged by the Sanhedrim advocate Tertullus, before a Roman tribunal, as an offence against the laws of the Empire, inasmuch as the prisoner was an acknowledged chief of a worship not licensed and approved by the slate, and an introducer of strange gods.

This is the only passage in the New Testament where the word ‘Nazarenes' is used to denote ‘the Christians.' We know it was the ordinary Jewish appellation by which the disciples of Jesus were then known. They (the Jews) could not of course use the ordinary term ‘Christians,' by which name the disciples of Jesus were known among Pagans. ‘Christ' was to every Jew a sacred name, and to these blinded ones still remained a title unappropriated. They were eager to call ‘the Crucified Lord' the Nazarene, the citizen of a nameless city; and they chose the dishonoured title as the heritage of those who called Him Master and Lord, styling them ‘Nazarenes.' The name is still used as the designation of the Christians by Jews and Mohammedans.