When the governor motioned for him to speak, Paul replied: "I know that for a number of years you have been a judge over this nation; so I gladly make my defense. You can easily verify that no more than twelve days ago I went up to Jerusalem to worship. My accusers did not find me arguing with anyone at the temple, or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or anywhere else in the city. And they cannot prove to you the charges they are now making against me. Acts 24:10-13

In the iconic radio, and then television show, Dragnet, LAPD detective Sgt. Joe Friday was famous for the words, “Just the facts.” He said these words to those he was interviewing when their statements got side-tracked from, well, the facts!

Paul’s accusers front-loaded their testimony with slanderous (and false) statements about him. When he had opportunity to answer the charges, he rightly and wisely refrained from returning evil for evil by making any personal attack statements about those who had verbally assailed him. Instead, Paul stuck with, “just the facts.” He simply stated that the charges were false, while pointing out that his prosecutors had no facts to substantiate their accusations.

The natural urge in most of us is to answer personal attacks with retaliatory personal attacks. Let us learn from Paul (and a host of proverbs) not to make things more personal than is prudent and simply stick with “just the facts.”