How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Acts 26:28 → 1 Kings 20:7

Echo

Later text

Acts 26:28BSB

Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Can you persuade me in such a short time to become a Christian?”

Earlier text

1 Kings 20:7BSB

Then the king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and said, “Please take note and see that this man is looking for trouble, for when he demanded my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold, I did not deny him.”

+ 1 more earlier text

Earlier text

1 Kings 20:7BSB

Then the king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and said, “Please take note and see that this man is looking for trouble, for when he demanded my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold, I did not deny him.”

Significance

Agrippa's famous reply to Paul — "Can you persuade me in such a short time to become a Christian?" (Acts 26:28) — has been linked to a Septuagintal turn of phrase in the exchange between Ahab and his elders (1 Kings 20:7). The parallel is purely linguistic, a shared idiom rather than any appeal to the meaning of Kings; Luke is not interpreting that narrative. What matters theologically is the moment itself: confronted with the truth of the prophets and the risen Christ, Agrippa deflects with a half-serious question, and Paul answers with earnest longing that all his hearers "may become what I am, except for these chains" (Acts 26:29). The scene captures the tragedy of almost-persuasion — the gospel pressed home, the heart holding back — and Paul's undimmed hope that even a king might behold Christ and be saved.

Found via: G.K. Beale & D.A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007)
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): None