ACTS CHAPTER 22:1-22, “Paul Shares
His Testimony With The Mob”
By
Jim Bomkamp
1.
INTRO
1.1.
In our last study, we looked
at the events that occurred after Paul had gotten to Jerusalem, at the
conclusion of his third missionary journey, when some Asian Jews recognized him
in the temple and then grabbed him and began beating him and then a Roman
commander saved his life
1.1.1.
We saw from the story that
God is the One who is in control of our circumstances, even when things appear
to be upside and chaos rules the day
1.1.2.
We saw the incredible inner
strength that Paul had through Christ in the midst of this huge crisis and
trial that he was in
1.1.3.
We saw how that when we are
weak, then Christ will be strong in us if we will just look to Him in the midst
of our struggles
1.2.
In our study today, we are
going to look at this testimony of his conversion which Paul gives to the Jews
at the temple who had been trying to kill him
1.2.1.
In this study we will see
that Paul’s preaching to the people here is really a model for us to learn from
in how we should share with others our testimony of how we came to Christ
1.2.1.1.The account of Paul’s
conversion is recorded in the New Testament about four or five times, and this
means that it must be something that is significant for us to look closely at
1.2.1.2.This is an important study
because we Christians need to work on being able to communicate to
non-Christians our testimony of what the Lord has done in our lives, and do so
in such a way that they can see that it is the Lord (and He alone) who has done
the work in us
1.2.2. We will see from Paul’s life
that he is truly living what has been called ‘the exchanged life’ (where he has
died to self and Christ is living through him) for after being beaten up by a
mob who is seeking to kill him, he through the empowering of the Holy Spirit
sets aside all of his own personal concerns and preoccupations and in the love
of Christ shares his testimony of how Christ had come into his life and
transformed him upon the road to Damascus
2.
VS 22:1-2 - “22:1 “Brethren and fathers, hear
my defense which I now offer to you.” 2 And when they heard that he was
addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet; and he
*said,” - Paul appeals to his
listeners as brethren and fathers
2.1.
The Roman
Commander had gained control of the crowd and had his soldiers carry Paul to
safety, up at the top of the stairs in the theater. Having gotten permission to speak to the mob
from the commander, Paul determines to give a defense for himself and his life
and present ministry in Christ.
2.2.
We can just
imagine what this crowd standing before the apostle Paul looked like. Their eyes are bulging out from anger. They have torn their own garments in
frustration at him. They have even
thrown up dirt upon their heads. They
are convinced that Paul has blasphemed Jehovah, and therefore they are in a
fever pitch of zeal for God’s righteousness, as they had just been beating Paul
and were even now intending to find some possible way to murder him.
2.3.
To this mob,
Paul turns, and having complete composure of himself, with calmness and
gentleness he addresses this crowd as a Jew might tactfully and respectfully
address another Jew: ‘Brethren and
fathers’.
2.4.
When we think about what this mob has done to Paul in beating him and
dragging him off in order to stone him to death, prior to the Roman commander
intervening on his behalf, it is incredible to see the way in which Paul
addresses them as ‘brethren and fathers’ once he has been given a chance by the
commander to speak to them.
2.4.1.
There is a
powerful dynamic that we see in play giving Paul the ability to deal with this
situation in this way. It is obvious
that the Holy Spirit has filled and anointed Paul, and given him boldness, so
that he can speak the very words that He wants him to speak to them. Jesus had taught the disciples in Matt.
10:19-20 not to worry about having the right thing to say when they were
persecuted for their faith, “19 “But when they deliver you up, do not
become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in
that hour what you are to speak. 20 “For it is not you who speak, but it is the
Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.””
2.4.1.1.Since this dynamic of the Holy Spirit inspiring the
very words that we are to share when we are called upon to give our
testimonies, this does not mean that we are not to be prayerful and ask Christ
to give us the words to share. Just the
opposite is true. We need to be very
prayerful that we might be in communion with the Lord and receive from the Holy
Spirit those words He wants to give us to share with those who do not know
Christ, for this dynamic shall not come from us and our own energy and abilities
of the flesh.
2.4.1.2.I remember the first time after coming to Christ that
I had decided that I needed to take to heart Christ’s command to go out into
the world and share the gospel to all creation.
I was in an A&W Root Beer stand in my home town drinking a mug of
root beer when a black friend walked in who used to be on one of the baseball
teams that I played on growing up. I
decided that I was going to share Christ with him, so I walked over to him. After we exchanged ‘hello’s’ he asked me what
I had been up to. Right then I was
prepared. I said to him exuberantly
(however in the power of my own flesh), ‘Going to church’. After saying those words, I suddenly began to
realize how strange I had sounded and acted at that moment, and my face turned
red and I just walked away. It was at
that very moment that Jesus’ words rang out in my heart about the Holy Spirit
giving us the words to witness. The next
day I had a couple of opportunities to share the gospel, only this time I
prayed constantly as I shared. Suddenly,
I began to see that people were hearing the truth and beginning to respond to
the gospel message. The Holy Spirit was
giving me the words to share and empowering those words to make them mightily
effective.
2.4.1.3.Even today though I still forget to be prayerful when
sharing often times. Just last week I
had the opportunity to share the gospel a couple of times, and I made the most
of the opportunities by sharing, however as I was preparing this message I became
convicted that once again I had not been prayerful as I was sharing, and I
think my opportunities could have gone very differently had I been more in
prayer during my sharing.
2.4.1.4.When we were living in Seattle just before moving out
to Green Bay to plant this fellowship, a friend of mine was pastoring
a fellowship that he planted in Washington state, and he had just started a
coffee house ministry with a vision of seeing kids come to Christ by having
Christian bands come and play on Friday and Saturday nights. He had just begun this ministry, and so I
thought that I would go over to his fellowship and encourage him in it one
Friday night. Well, I got there that
night and there were probably 35 kids that came and a couple of bands were to
play. The first band began playing and
finished it’s set, and then the second band set up and
began to play. Well, just after they
started to play this guy comes in the front door, and I could see when he first
walked in that he was a street person and that he was drunk. Well, as the band continued to play I noticed
that the guy was really getting into the music as he was dancing all around
right in front of me. Sometimes when the
band was playing the guy would raise his hands up like he was worshipping
Jesus, and he was always kind of gyrating all over about to fall over because
he was drunk. Well, I don’t normally
share the gospel with someone who is drunk because my experience is that if
they make a commitment while drunk they don’t stay with it, and they sometimes
don’t even remember what you shared with them.
Well, I began to pray for this guy first of all that God would sober him
up so that he could hear and understand the gospel, and secondly that I would
be able to share the gospel clearly with him and that he would understand it
and be saved. I really began to believe
that God was going to work in this man’s life in this way. Well, finally the band took a break, and the
guy immediately popped out of the building to smoke a cigarette. I followed him outside and began to share the
gospel with him, being very prayerful with each thing that I said. I don’t happen to remember what I share with
him, but when I was done I was telling him that he ought to give his life to
Christ, and to that he replied that he wanted to take a walk and think about
it. Well, I went back inside when the
band started playing, and after a little bit the guy came back into the
building. After the set the evening was
over and everyone was tearing down and getting ready to go home. Finally, the guy says to me and a bunch of
people there, “I want to ask Christ to come into my life. Right now!”
I was a bit stunned, but I told everyone to gather around in a circle
and we prayed and I led the guy in a prayer to ask Christ into his life. God had powerfully touched this man’s life,
and to this day he attends that church.
It even turned out that this man’s coming to Christ really encouraged
the whole church that it was worth while to have this outreach ministry for
kids. Now since that time there have
been several dozen others who have come to Christ through that ministry. Being prayerful in our sharing is such an
important thing for us to do.
2.4.2.
After the things that this multitude had done to Paul, we might expect
him to express bitterness and anger towards the crowd, however Paul was a man
who had from the day of his conversion upon the road to Damascus surrendered
his own rights and claim to his life to Christ, and what his life was now about
was walking in obedience to Christ and fulfilling his calling by Christ.
2.4.2.1.In 1 Cor.
6:19-20,
actually speaking about how a Christian is to flee immorality of every form,
Paul writes about how our lives belong to Christ and not ourselves anymore, “19 Or do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom
you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For
you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
2.4.3.
Paul looked beyond the behavior of the people who were cruelly
persecuting him and even seeking to kill him and saw their need, for he had come
to that place in his life where he saw people as God sees them, and he did just
as Christ did upon the cross in praying for those who were torturing him when
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are
doing”.
2.4.3.1.I’ve had a few conversations
with my son through the years about the mean kids that he runs into at school
and around the neighborhood. He has
asked me a couple of times why these kids can be so mean and yucky. I’ve told him that what they are doing is
expressing their need for love and friendship in an inappropriate way. They are drawing attention to themselves by
the things that they are doing really because they want kids to like them and
they want friends. Deep-down inside they
want to be loved but don’t know how to have love in their lives. They are frustrated because they aren’t being
loved, and thus they do the things that they do. They do this even though they may not realize
that this is the reason they are doing it.
2.4.3.1.1.You see, it helps if we
realize that all people have this really deep-seated need to have real close
and intimate friends that love them.
2.4.3.1.2.All people need the love of
Christ in their lives. They need to have
their sins forgiven and to have their spirit renewed by and rejoined to the
Holy Spirit, the connection which was lost when Adam and Eve first sinned in
the garden of Eden and caused the fall of the human race.
2.4.3.2.Paul wrote in Rom. 5:8 about how God looked beyond
our sins and anger against Him and sent His Son into the world in order to meet
that need that all people have deep inside.
He wrote, “8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
2.4.4.
Paul was ‘prepared in heart’ to share Christ on this day with this
multitude, and thus he shared with them in such a clear and concise way.
2.4.4.1.In Col. 4:5-6, Paul wrote about how we
need to make the most of the opportunities that we have with people so that we
can be good witnesses and share the gospel when the opportunities arise, “5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders,
making the most of the opportunity. 6 Let your speech always be with grace,
seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to
each person.”
2.4.4.1.1.Knowing how to share
uniquely and effectively with each individual requires us to be in prayer and
in tune with the Holy Spirit.
2.4.4.2.In 1 Peter
3:15, Peter
exhorts us to always be ready, prepared in our hearts, to make a defense of the
hope that we have in Christ, “15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an
account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”
2.4.4.2.1.Paul was very gentle and
reverent in his sharing with this mob as is seen when he addresses them as
‘brethren and fathers’.
2.4.4.2.2.I have however seen many
Christians who are very blunt and tactless when they share Christ, telling
people, ‘Turn or burn!’, or, ‘Get right or get left!’, when they share with
them.
2.4.4.2.3.We need to give people
tactful and proper respect and share in love with them about Christ if we are
to be really effective as a witness.
2.4.4.3.Many times we are so caught
up in our own life and things that we are doing, that being so self-centered we
miss opportunities to share Christ with people when they do come up.
2.5.
The mob was
completely taken off-guard by Paul speaking to them in their native Hebrew
dialect, and addressing and appealing to them as, ‘Brethren, and fathers’ that
suddenly they found themselves listening intently.
2.6.
Paul was very
adept at communicating with people in their own language (as he did with them
even in their own Hebrew dialect), and in a way that “connected with them and their life experiences”.
2.6.1.
One author has written that if we want to have people
listen to us, then we should “speak to them in their own language”.
2.6.1.1.We Christians should get out of ourselves and learn
how to speak to each person in his own language.
2.6.1.2.We need to first of all become observers of people, so
that we understand their perspective.
2.6.1.3.Then, we need to learn how to communicate with them
according to their own perspective, and “speak their own language”.
2.6.2.
When I share
my testimony with people I try to be careful to tailor it each time to the
person I share it with. I leave out some
details or explain how God worked in my life in a little bit different way
depending upon with whom it is that I am sharing. I do this because I have found that with
people who have not gone through the lifestyle I went through with all of the
drugs and alcohol, and so forth, that if I include all of the details about
that stuff in my testimony that when I am done they haven’t really related to
my experiences and thus they can’t imagine how Christ might change their life
since they haven’t had those experiences.
They don’t see their need for Christ since they haven’t hit ‘rock
bottom’ as I had in my life.
3.
VS 22:3 - “3
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated
under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our
fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today.”” - Paul begins his testimony by telling the
people where he is from
3.1.
Paul’s
defense to this Jewish mob is just his testimony of what the Lord had done in
his life.
3.2.
In his
defense, Paul seeks to express to the people present how he can relate to them
and where they are at this moment in time.
3.3.
Paul shares
with the multitude his credentials as a Jew who was truly a ‘Pharisee of
Pharisees’:
3.3.1.
He tells them
that he too is a Jew, though he was born out of the mother land, in
3.3.1.1.Paul knew in saying this that his being raised as a
Jew in a Gentile land might cause some to question his Judaism.
3.3.2.
He tells them
that he grew up in
3.3.2.1.Gamaliel
was a teacher in
3.3.3.
He was also
educated ‘strictly according to the law’ of Moses.
3.3.4.
Just as they
are now, he too has always been ‘zealous for God’.
3.3.4.1.Paul explains to them that he was just as zealous for
God as they are right now in persecuting him, or more so.
3.3.4.2.Paul goes on to say that he showed his zeal by hunting
down Christians and persecuting them to the death.
3.4.
We Christians
need to learn from Paul how to communicate with people in such a way as to
relate experiences from our own life with which they will be able to intimately
relate to. Then, when we relate how that
the Lord saved us out of our situation, the people we are communicating with
will realize that they too need the Lord to save them out of the same
situation.
4.
VS 22:4-5 - “4
“And I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women
into prisons, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can
testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for
4.1.
Now, Paul
begins to reveal to this mob how it came about that the Lord intervened in his
life.
4.2.
Paul’s story
is very convincing, especially since he was not seeking to become a Christian, nor to learn more about the life of Jesus. Rather, the Lord appeared to him and spoke to
him, at a point in time when he least expected this to happen.
4.3.
Paul calls to
account the ‘high priest’ Ananias as one who can testify about the truthfulness
of his account of his upbringing, as well as can the ‘Council of the elders’ in
4.4.
Paul had
received ‘letters to the brethren’ which had been intercepted by the Jewish
leaders, and with these letters he was going to Damascus in order to find the
Christians who had written them, so that he could imprison, kill, or punish
them for their faith.
5.
VS 22:6-8 - “6
“And it came about that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about
noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, 7 and
I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting Me?’ 8 “And I answered, ‘Who art Thou,
Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’
9 “And those who were with me beheld the light, to be sure, but did not
understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me.” - Paul continues his story and tells them about
that moment when Christ appeared to him while on the road to
5.1.
We have read
Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion earlier in the book of Acts, and this is
the first of two accounts that Paul himself gives of the events of his
conversion. It is interesting to hear
what happened in his own words.
5.2.
The events of
Jesus’ appearing to him do not need to be commented on here, however it is
interesting that Paul relates that the people who were with him did not see
Jesus, only he saw Jesus.
5.2.1.
They also did
not hear His voice, they only heard a sound.
5.2.2.
An apostolic
test is that one must have personally seen and talked with Jesus, and only Paul
had that experience on this day.
5.3.
When we
Christians take the opportunity to share our testimony with others, we need to
be wise so as to share things that demonstrate the credibility of our
experiences, just as Paul here in this story shares how that Christ appeared
unexpectedly to him as he was going to persecute more Christians.
5.3.1.
Paul’s
sharing here demonstrated that it had to be the Lord that had done these things, it was not because of any ability or activity that
he was doing that caused these events.
6.
VS 22:9-10 - “10 “And I
said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise and go on into
6.1.
Paul relates
the reason for his being ‘apprehended’ by Jesus so unexpectedly: he was being ‘appointed’ for a ministry.
6.2.
God is the One
who is totally sovereign. He can do
whatever He wants to do. Therefore, we
should not be surprised that the Lord worked in this way in Paul’s life by
‘apprehending’ him. If we look in the
Old Testament will see that God called people who were unsuspecting.
6.3.
In Paul’s
asking the Lord what He wanted him to do, Paul demonstrates his total
submission to Christ and His plan for his life.
6.3.1.
A person does
not receive salvation through Christ until they come to that place where the
surrender their life to Christ and be willing to do His will. We have looked a few times in this study
about what Jesus said was a requirement for those who wanted to be His
followers. He told them that they had
to, ‘deny themselves, take up His cross, and follow Him’. When a person commits himself in this way to
the Lord and trusts in Christ and His work upon the cross alone to save him,
then and only then he has received salvation.
6.3.1.1.When I was in high school there was a brief moment in
time when a girl that I liked invited me to her Youth For
Christ Bible study, and I attended and made a pseudo-conversion to
Christianity. I surrendered the areas of
my life to God that weren’t that important to me, however I held back much from
the Lord. I repented of some sins but
not all. It wasn’t until January of 1973
when just before my 19th birthday that I finally committed myself
completely to Christ and told Him that I would go wherever He sent me and do
whatever He wanted me to do. That was
when I finally had been ‘saved’ and knew I had eternal life.
6.3.2.
Let me ask
you the question though, have you told the Lord, ‘What
would you have me to do?’ Have you
surrendered your life to Christ and asked Him as your Master what He wants you
to do?
6.3.3.
As a
Christian, do you ‘daily’ ask Christ what He would have you to do? We Christians need to ask the Lord ‘daily’
what He is wanting us to do in our life and be willing to follow Him wherever
He leads us.
6.3.4.
It seems
often that Christians are walking around as if they are on ‘auto-pilot’. They are going around making plans and going
places without really praying for the Lord’s leading, and perhaps just assuming
that the Lord must be leading them.
7.
VS 22:11 - “11 “But since I could not see
because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who
were with me, and came into
7.1.
The fact of
being initially stricken blind by the light of seeing Jesus must have lent
great credibility to Paul’s story. This
would not appear to be anything that anyone would make up.
8.
VS 22:12-13 - “12
“And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and
well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, 13 came to me, and standing
near said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very time I
looked up at him.” - Paul tells the
crowd of how God used a God fearing Jewish man named Ananias to work through in
healing him
8.1.
Paul
introduces this man Ananias in such a way that this Jewish mob would feel
comfortable with him, and feel a certain affinity with him as well.
8.2.
It is
interesting that Ananias had such great faith so as to call Paul, ‘Brother
Saul’, seeing as how Paul had been in the process of greatly persecuting
Christians at this time.
8.3.
The
miraculous healing of Paul by Christ as a result of the ministry of Ananias
must have lent further credibility to Paul’s testimony.
9.
VS 22:14-15 - “14 “And he said, ‘The God of our
fathers has appointed you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and
to hear an utterance from His mouth. 15 ‘For you will be a witness for Him to
all men of what you have seen and heard.” -
Paul tells the crowd of the things that Ananias told him prophetically
about his calling
9.1.
The Lord used
Ananias to confirm to Paul what the Lord had already told him he was to do for
Christ’s service.
9.2.
Paul tells
the crowd that had an appointment and commission from Christ to:
9.2.1.
‘know His will’,
9.2.2.
‘see the
Righteous One’ (and thus qualify to be an apostle)
9.2.3.
‘hear an utterance from His mouth’. Those who are called by God must have an
understanding of His will.
9.2.4.
‘be a witness
for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard’
10.
VS 22:16 - “16 ‘And now why do you delay? Arise,
and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’” - Paul tells the crowd that Ananias told him
that he should be baptized right away
10.1.
Ananias
immediately calls Paul to make a public confession of his faith by being,
‘baptized’.
10.2.
Ananias does
not tell Paul that the water will wash away his sins, for water cannot wash
away sins. Rather, it is by ‘calling on
His name’ that Paul’s sins shall be washed away.
11.
VS 22:17-21 - “17 “And it came about when I
returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I fell into a trance,
18 and I saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste, and get out of Jerusalem quickly,
because they will not accept your testimony about Me.’ 19 “And I said, ‘Lord,
they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to
imprison and beat those who believed in Thee. 20 ‘And when the blood of Thy
witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving, and watching
out for the cloaks of those who were slaying him.’ 21 “And He said to me, ‘Go!
For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”” - Paul tells the crowd that after coming to
Christ for salvation that he had a vision from Christ that told him to get out
of
11.1.
In order to
further demonstrate to the angry mob the authenticity of his conversion
experience, Paul now relates an incident which happened not too long after his
conversion when the Lord spoke to him as he ‘was praying in the temple’ and had
fallen ‘into a trance’, and, He told him to quickly get out of Jerusalem since
the Jews would not accept his testimony.
11.1.1.Paul argued with the Lord and told Him that the people
should accept his testimony since he had been so
zealous for God as a persecutor of the Christians. However, the Lord told him emphatically,
‘Go!’
11.1.1.1.Paul had not yet realized that just because you know
the truth and God has done great things in your life, that
it does not automatically mean that people will hear and give heed to your
sharing of your Christian testimony and the gospel.
11.1.1.2.Note that the Lord immediately told Paul that his
calling was to go ‘far away to the Gentiles’.
11.2.
Paul relates
here that he had been holding the coats of those who were stoning Stephen, the
first martyr of the church, and Ken Ortiz claims that this signified that Paul
was in charge of this stoning and approved of each man who participated in the
stoning, as he would collect their coats and send them forth to do this.
11.2.1.This detail of Paul’s having been in charge in this
incident yields further credibility to his Christian testimony.
11.3.
The angry mob
had not yet gotten control of their emotions at this point, although they had
been listening to Paul’s testimony with intent and intrigue. So, when Paul mentioned the word ‘Gentiles’,
this elicited all of the emotions which they had had in the first place in
wanting to murder Paul in the theater.
11.3.1.Paul was determined to share his God-given conviction
that the Gentiles were equal and fellow-heirs with the Jews through Jesus Christ, however this Jewish crowd who was filled with
prejudice and hatred towards Gentiles did not want to hear that message at all.
12.
VS 22:22 - “22 And they listened to him up
to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such
a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!”” - The crowd now again went out of control in
rage towards Paul and yelled out that he should be killed for his blasphemy
12.1.
Having heard
Paul mention the word ‘Gentiles’, to whom he knew he was called by the Lord,
the angry mob again went into an uproar, saying that Paul should be put to
death.
12.1.1.They were also ‘crying out’, ‘throwing off their
cloaks’, and ‘tossing dust into the air’.
12.2.
What we see
here is that after Paul has spoken to them under inspiration of Christ,
appealing to them as ‘brethren and fathers’, and then sharing under the
powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, the people do not receive his testimony.
12.2.1.Again, it was the people’s
prejudice against the Gentiles which kept them from being able to receive this
message from Paul.
12.2.2.When people do not receive our testimony of Christ, it
is not because we are not just where God wants us to be, and that God has used
us. After all, Noah was a preacher of
righteousness who had no converts, as was Jeremiah. Jesus, the only unique Son of God, the One
who Paul describes in Hebrews chapter 1 as, ‘the radiance of His glory and
the exact representation of His nature’, had many who turned away from Him
during His ministry, and in fact even one of His most inner group of disciples
betrayed Him to the Jews to be crucified.
12.2.3.In Campus Crusade they used to tell us that it was our
responsibility to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and it was
God’s responsibility to produce fruit according to His perfect will and timing.