Mobbed but Undaunted

9. As to mob violence, what parallel is there between the experiences of Paul and those of Jehovah’s Witnesses today?

⁹ Jehovah’s Witnesses have often maintained integrity to God in the face of mob violence. (For example, see the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, pages 180-90.) Jews from Asia Minor similarly fomented mob action against Paul. (21:27-40) Seeing Trophimus the Ephesian with him, they falsely accused the apostle of defiling the temple by taking Greeks into it. Paul was about to be killed when Roman tribune Claudius Lysias and his men quelled the riot!

Later the Lord had told Paul: “Get on your way, because I shall send you out to nations far off.” Those words fell like a spark in a forest. Shouting that Paul was not fit to live, the crowd threw their outer garments about and tossed dust into the air in anger.