Acts 23:11.
While the oracle reported in Acts 18:9
was communicated to Paul through a vision trance, the following oracle was probably
mediated through a dream:
Narrative Setting: The following night
the Lord stood y him [epistas auto] and said,
Admonition: “Take courage [tharsei];
Reason: for [gar] as you have
testified [diemartyrō] about me at Jerusalem, so you must bear witness [martyrēsai]
also at Rome.”
Again the basic constituent elements
of the oracle of assurance are present: the admonition (here tharsei is
virtually synonymous with the more frequent mē phobou) followed by the
reason. The reason links the past activity of Paul to his future activity, thus
providing assurance that the present perilous circumstances in which he finds
himself cannot thwart the divine will. The literary function of this oracle,
which takes the revelation of Agabus in Acts 21:11 one step further, is to
reveal to the reader that Paul’s journey to Rome is fully in line with the will
of God. (David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient
Mediterranean World [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983], 267)
