THE MESSAGE OF ACTS
A Commentary by John Stott
(Study 29-2)
THE MESSAGE OF ACTS
A Commentary by John Stott
(Study 29-2)
| Acts. 21:1-17.
5). On to Jerusalem. Acts 20:1-21:17. c). The guidance of the Spirit. Acts 21:18-23.35. Paul's arrest and self-defence. Acts. 21:18-23:25. b). Roman justice. Acts. 21:18-26. Paul meets James and accepts his proposal. Acts. 21:18-26. Paul meets James. (continued). Acts. 21:27-36. 2). Paul is assaulted and arrested. Acts. 21:1-17. 5). On to Jerusalem. Saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders had been an emotional scene, especially because they and Paul believed that the would never see one another again. Paul's party had had to `tear themselves away' from them. And now began the final leg of the journey to Jerusalem, for which again Luke obviously drew on his diary. He mentions three or four stops (Cos, Rhodes, Patara and perhaps Myra), followed by three landings (Tyre, Ptolemais and Caesarea). a) From Miletus to Tyre (21:1-6). After we had torn ourselves away from them, we (Luke again unostentatiously draws attention to his presence) put out to sea and sailed straight to Cos (1a), a small island due south of Miletus. The next day we went to Rhodes, a larger island to the south-east, whose city of the same name was situated at its north-easterly tip, and from there to Patara (16), due east of Rhodes, the Bezan text adding `and Myra', a bit further east still. Both Patara and Myra are near the southernmost promontory of the mainland of Asia Minor. Because `the harbour of Myra seems to have been the great port for the direct cross-sea traffic to the coasts of Syria and Egypt', wrote William Ramsay, `it may...be safely assumed that Myra was visited by Paul's ship'. Here we found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, on the Palestine coast, so that they transferred themselves to it, went on board and set sail (2). Their route now took them south-east into the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was a 400-mile voyage from Myra to Tyre. After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo (3). At the same time their search for Christians in the town was successful. Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days, either because the unloading (and perhaps re-loading) took that long or because their ship stopped there and they were waiting for another one. During this week the disciples *through the Spirit...urged Paul not to go on the Jerusalem (4). But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way (5a). I will return later to the apparent contradictory signals which were coming from the Holy Spirit about Paul's journey to Jerusalem. All the disciples and their wives and children accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray (5). It must have been another emotional parting. After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship and they returned home (6). b). From Tyre to Jerusalem (21:7-17). We continued our journey from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, called Acre since the Middle Ages, about twenty-five miles south of Tyre. Here we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day (7). Leaving the next day we reached Caesarea, a magnificent city built by Herod the Great to serve as the port for Jerusalem, and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist (so-called to distinguish him from Philip the apostle), one of the Seven (8). It was here at Caesarea that Philip had settled about twenty years previously (8:40). Since then his family had grown up: he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied (9). Luke does not tell us exactly how long Paul and his party stayed in Caesarea, but they will have had much to talk about with Philip and his daughters. Perhaps it was now that Philip revealed the facts about himself and Stephen, which Luke later incorporated into Acts 6-8. During their stay, another prophesy of great interest was given. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus (presumably the one who featured in 11:27ff.) came down from Judea (10). Coming over to us, he copied the miming practice of some of the Old Testament prophets, like Ahijah tearing Jeroboam's cloak into twelve pieces (1 Kings 11:29ff.), Isaiah going stripped and bare-footed for three years (Is. 20:3ff.) and Ezekiel laying siege to a drawing of Jerusalem (Ezk.4:1ff.). He took Paul's belt and tied his own hands and feet with it. This was not a short leather belt: `to bind himself hand and foot with such a girdle would have been an acrobatic performance'. It must rather have been a long piece of cloth which was worn as a girdle. Then Agabus said: `The Holy Spirit says, "In this way the Jews of Jersualem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles"' (11). This was the second prophesy which seemed incompatible with what the Spirit originally said to Paul; I will address this problem at the end of this chapter. When we heard this (Agabus' prophecy), Luke continues, we and the people there (he specifically includes himself) pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem (12). This time the apostle was outspoken in rejecting their pleas. Then Paul answered, `Why are you weeping and breaking my heart [NEB, "trying to weaken my resolution"]? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus' (13). His words are almost identical with Peter's: `Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.' (Lk.22:33). The difference was that in the event Peter had faltered and failed (though in the end he suffered and died for Christ), whereas Paul was true to his word. When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said (not in a feeble resignation but in a positive prayer) The Lord's will be done' (14). After this we got ready, meaning either `we packed our baggage' (NEB) or `equipped horses' and went up to Jerusalem (15). Since the distance between Caesarea and Jerusalen was sixty-five miles, the journey would take two days, as the Bezan text says, and horses would be necessary. Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mnason, which was in Jerusalem, and where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples (16), i.e. probably `a foundation member of the Jerusalem church'. When we arrived in Jerusalem the brothers received us warmly (17). Acts 20:1-21:17. c). The guidance of the Spirit. Thus at last after many weeks of travel and suspense, and in spite of dire warnings, Paul arrived at his destination. But was he right to brush aside his friends who implored him to abandon his plan? What about those messages of the Holy Spirit through prophets? Are we to blame Paul for his obstinacy or admire him for his unshakeable resolve? At first sight the promptings of the Spirit appear to have been in direct conflict with each other. In Miletus Paul told the Ephesian elders that he was going to Jerusalem `compelled by the Spirit', in spite of the `prison and hardships' of which the same Spirit warned him (20:12-13). In Tyre, however, it was `through the Spirit' that certain disciples urged him (the imperfect elegon implies `again and again', JBP) not to go to Jerusalem (21:4), while in Caesarea Agabus began his prophesy with the formula `the Holy Spirit says' (21:11). But Paul ignored both messages. Refusing to be dissuaded (21:14), he continued on his way (21:5). How can we resolve this problem? Certainly not by concluding that the Spirit contradicted himself, telling Paul to go in chapter 20 and countermanding his instruction in chapter 21. Luke has too high a doctrine of the Holy Spirit to portray him as changing his mind. Even if 20:22 should be understood as referring rather to the compulsion of his own spirit than of the Holy Spirit, Paul still appears to go against the voice of the Holy Spirit in chatter 21. I think that we should begin by affirming that Luke believed Paul to be right in going to Jerusalem. Probably he attributes to the Holy Spirit both the decision of 19:21 and the compulsion of 20:22, since both of them were (en) to pneumati, `in the Spirit'. In addition we have already suggested that Luke sees Paul's journey to Jerusalem as the disciple following in his Master's footsteps. What then are we to make of 21:4 and 11? Some have argued that the references to the Spirit here simply mean that the speakers were *claiming* inspiration, without necessarily being inspired. But then we would have to interpret other references to the Spirit in the same ambiguous way. The better solution is to draw a distinction between a prediction and a prohibition. Certainly Agabus only predicted that Paul would be bound and handed over to the Gentiles (21:11); the pleadings with Paul which followed are not attributed to the Spirit and may have been the fallible (indeed mistaken) human deduction from the Spirit's prophecy. For if Paul had heeded his friends' pleas, then Agabus' prophecy would not have been fulfilled! It is more difficult to understand 21:4 in this way, since the `urging' itself is said to be `through the Spirit'. But perhaps Luke's statement is a condensed way of saying that the warning was divine while the urging was human. After all, the Spirit's word to Paul combined the compulsion to go with a warning of the consequences (20:22-23). So Luke surely intends us to admire Paul for his courage and perseverance. Like Jesus before him, he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, and (like Jesus again) the divine predictions of suffering did not deter him. What fortified Paul in his journey was the Christian fellowship which he and his travel companions experienced in every port. In Tyre they found disciples and stayed with them seven days (21:4). In Ptolemais they greeted their sisters and brother and stayed with them one day (7). In Caesarea they were accommodated in the home of Philip the evangelist and stayed with him `a number of days' (8,10). The disciples from Caesarea then personally escorted Paul and his party to Jerusalem, where they were to stay with the early Cypriot convert Mnason (16), and on arrival in Jerusalem the sisters and brothers `received them warmly' (17). It would an exaggeration to call this Paul's `triumphal entry' into Jerusalem. But at least his warm reception strengthened him to bear the crowd's shouts a few days later `Away with him!' (36) Acts 21:18-23.35. Paul's arrest and self-defence. So far Luke has portrayed his hero on the offensive, taking bold initiatives under the leading of the Holy Spirit to evangelize most of Asia Minor and Greece. But when Paul arrived in Jerusalem, his whole career abruptly changed. He was assaulted, arrested, bound and brought to trial. He found himself on the defensive. Following his three epic missionary journeys Luke describes the five trials he had to endure. The first was before a Jewish crowd at the north-west corner of the temple area 22:1ff.), the second before the supreme Jewish Council in Jerusalem 23:1ff.), the third and fourth in Caesarea before Felix and Festus, who succeeded one another as the procurator of Judea (24:1ff.; 25:1ff.), and the fifth, also in Caesarea, before King Herod Agrippa II (26:1ff.). These five trials, including in each case Paul's defence speech, together with the circumstances of his arrest (21:18ff.), take up six chapters in our bibles or nearly 200 verses. Why did Luke consider it necessary to go into such detail? Of course the material was readily available to him, since he was there throughout. He arrived in Jerusalem with Paul (21:15). and the next `we-section' (27:1ff.) shows that he sailed with Paul to Rome. During the two years of Paul's custody in Caesarea (24:27), Luke was a free man, and it is natural to assume that he remained in Palestine, gathering information for his two-volume work and personally interviewing some of its chief actors. But Luke had a better reason for giving such a comparatively full account of Paul's trials than the mere circumstance that he had firsthand material at his disposal. For, we remember, Luke was more than a historian; he was a theologian too. One of the major themes which he has been developing concerns the relations between Jews and Gentiles in the Messianic community. He has shown how Paul, called and commissioned to be the apostle to the Gentiles, has by now on three solemn occasions, in Pisidian Antioch, Corinth and Ephesus, left the synagogue and exchanged Jewish for Gentile evangelism (13:46; 18:6 and 19:8-9). It is not an accident that Luke's story begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome. In Acts 21-23, therefore, to which we have now come, Luke depicts the reaction to the gospel of two communities - of the Jews who were increasing hostile to it, and of the Romans who were consistently friendly to it. The two themes of Jewish opposition and Roman justice are interwoven in Luke's narrative, with the Christian apostle caught between them, the victim of the one and the beneficiary of the other. a) Jewish opposition Jewish opposition had been evident from the beginning. Luke shows no signs of anti-semitism; he is simply recording facts. So he documents how the Sanhedrin imprisoned first Peter and John, then all the apostles, and forbade them with threats to preach or teach in the name of Jesus (4:1 - 5:42), although he also draws attention to the caution, wisdom and justice of Gamaliel (5:34ff.). Then came Stephen's martyrdom (7:54ff.), and the Jewish persecution of the church in Jerusalem (8:1ff) and the erstwhile persecutor Saul of Tarsus (9:23ff.), which kept erupting during his subsequent missionary journeys (e.g. Acts 13:50; 14:2, 19; 17:4ff., 13; 18:6ff., 12ff.; 19:8-9; 20:3, 19). In Jerusalem, however, what had been sporadic outbursts became an implacable determination to get rid of him once for all, beginning with an attempt to lynch him (21:27ff), continuing with a hysterical demand for his death (22:22-23), and concluding with a secret plot under oath of more than forty men to murder him (23:12ff.). Luke's statement that, when the mob dragged Paul out of the temple, `immediately the gates were shut' (21:30), was surely more than a statement of fact. The slammed gates seemed to symbolize the final Jewish rejection of the gospel. Paul's policy of turning to the Gentiles had been justified. Luke seems also to be drawing a deliberate parallel between the sufferings (`passion') of Christ and the sufferings of his apostle Paul. We saw in the last chapter the similarity between their respective journeys up to Jerusalem. Now Luke takes it further, although of course Paul's sufferings were not redemptive like Christ's. Nevertheless, both Jesus and Paul (1) were rejected by their own people, arrested without cause, and imprisoned; (2) were unjustly accused and wilfully misrepresented by false witnesses; (3) were slapped in the face in court (23:2); (4) were the hapless victims of secret Jewish plots (23:12ff.); (5) heard the terrifying noise of a frenzied mob screaming `Away with him' (21:36; cf. 22:22); and (6) were subjected to a series of five trials - Jesus by Ananias, the Sanhedrin, King Herod Antipas and twice by Pilate; Paul by the crowd, the Sanhedrin, King Herod Agrippa II and by the two procurators, Felix and Festus. Acts. 21:18-23:25 b). Roman justice Luke's second and corresponding theme is Roman justice. He consistently presents the Roman authorities as friends of the gospel, not foes. We have already had occasion to notice this. It is not just that the first Gentile convert was a Roman centurion, Cornelius, or that the first convert of Paul's missionary journeys was the Roman proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus (13:12). It is rather that, whenever they had the opportunity, the Roman authorities defended the Christian missionaries. For example, in Philippi the magistrates actually apologised to Paul and Silas for having beaten and imprisoned them, Roman citizens, and came personally to the prison to escort them out of it (16:35ff.); in Corinth Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia, refused even to listen to Jewish accusations against Paul and dismissed the case (18:12ff.); and in Ephesus the town clerk declared the Christian leaders innocent, rebuked the crowd for public disorder, and sent them home (19:35ff.). Now, in Jerusalem and Caesarea, Claudius Lysias, the military tribune, took Paul under his protection. He twice rescued him from being lynched by bringing him into custody (21:33ff.; 22:24); he quickly exempted him from a brutal examination by torture, on discovering that he was a Roman citizen (22:25ff.); and he protected him from the murder plot by transferring him to the procurator's jurisdiction in Caesarea (23:23ff.). This protection by Roman justice is even more clear in Paul's trials. Although he was accused by the Jews, he was tried and exonerated by the Romans. The same had been true of Jesus. Luke finds a third parallel here. What he is at pains to demonstrate is that, although the Jews brought accusations against Jesus and his apostle Paul, the Romans could find no fault in either. In the case of Jesus, Luke records a threefold statement of Pilate that in his opinion Jesus was innocent. To the chief priests and the crowd he said. `I find no basis for a charge against this man' (Lk. 23:4). To the same people, after Jesus had been tried by Herod, Pilate said: `I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. Neither has Herod...'. (Lk. 23:14-15). And when the crowd kept shouting, `Crucify him!', Pilate spoke to them for the third time: `Why? what crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty' (Lk.23:22). The parallel in the case of Paul is impressive. Luke is not pronouncing Roman justice to be perfect (for he mentions the readiness of Felix to be bribed, 24:26), but asserting that Paul had not offended it. It is not only that he declared his own innocence (`I have done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar.' 25:8), but that his judges agreed with him. Claudius Lysias, in his letter to Felix, affirmed that `there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment' (23:29). The procurator Festus told King Agrippa: `I found he had done nothing deserving of death' (25:25). And Agrippa, when the series of trials were over, summed up in these words: `This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.... This man could have been set free, if he had not appealed to Caesar' (26:31-32). Thus three times in the case of Jesus, and three times in the case of Paul, the accused was declared not guilty in a court of law. Sir William Ramsay made much of this in his St Paul the traveller and the Roman citizen (1895): `It is beyond doubt that, on our hypothesis, the amount of space assigned to Paul's imprisonment and successive examinations marks this as the most important part of the book in the author's estimation.' Ramsay went on to argue that, when eventually Paul stood before Caesar, he was acquitted, as the Pastoral Epistles indicate, and that his trial, with its `formal decision by the supreme court of the Empire', `was really a charter of religious liberty, and therein lies its immense importance'. He concluded that Luke attempted a third volume documenting the trial in Rome, the acquittal, the apostle's resumed missionary labours, and his subsequent arrest, imprisonment and death under Nero. For Ramsay believed that Luke was writing during the reign of Domitian, `when Christians had come to be treated as outlaws or brigands, and the mere confession of the name was recognized as an offence'. In such a situation, the Acts was `not an apology for Christianity; it was an appeal to the truth of history against the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning Emperor'. Whether or not we can accept all the details of Ramsay's reconstruction (including the date of Acts and Luke's intention to write a sequel), we must surely agree over Luke's objective. He deliberately sets out to demonstrate the innocence in the eyes of Roman law of both Jesus (Luke's Gospel) and Paul (the Acts), and to draw attention to the precedent which the outcome of their trials had established for the legality of the Christian faith. Luke's purpose has shown the church of all subsequent times and places how to behave under persecution. It must be able to show that accusations of crimes against the state and against humanity (which were often alleged in the early centuries) are groundless; that it is innocent of offences against the law; and that its members are conscientious citizens, that is, submissive to the state in so far as their conscience permits them. Then the freedom to profess, practise and propagate the gospel will, inasmuch as it lies with the church, be preserved, and the only offence which Christians give will be the stumbling block of the cross. Acts. 21:18-26. Paul meets James and accepts his proposal. We have already noted that, when Paul and his friends arrived in Jerusalem, they received a genuinely warm welcome. (17). Now, however, Luke explains the tension underlying this welcome (18ff.). The next day, without any delay, Paul and the rest of us, who had accompanied him from Corinth, including Luke, went to see James. James was still the recognized leader of the church in Jerusalem and indeed of the world-wide Jewish Christian Community, especially now that the apostles Peter and John seem to have left the city. Not that James was alone when he received Paul and his friends, for all the elders were present (18). Since the Jewish Christians now numbered `many thousands' (20), a large number of elders must have been needed to pastor them. Paul greeted them (19a). In depicting Paul and James face to face, Luke presents his readers with a dramatic situation, fraught with both risk and possibility. For James and Paul were the representative leaders of two Christianities, Jewish and Gentile. This was not of course their first meeting. It was at least their fourth. For Paul had called on James during his first visit to Jerusalem years previously (Gal. 1:18-19), and again when he went there fourteen years after that (Gal. 2:1,9). Then they had both been prominent figures at the Jewish Council (15:12ff.). During the intervening years, however, the movements they led had grown considerably under God's good hand. Indeed, as they greeted one another now, each was flanked by sample fruits of their respective missions, Paul by his companions from the Gentile churches, and James by the elders of the Jerusalem church. Some people were doubtless asserting that the doctrinal positions of James and Paul were incompatible, as they had done before the Jerusalem Council (15:1-2), Paul teaching salvation by grace, and James salvation by works. Hence later Luther's uneasiness, which led him to dub the Letter of James an `epistle of straw'. It is not that he wanted to exclude it from the canon, but that he felt he could not include it among the `chief' books which unambiguously teach justification by faith alone. So when Paul and James faced each other in Jerusalem, there could have been a painful confrontation. But both apostles were in a conciliatory frame of mind. Take James first. When Paul reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry (19, i.e. not what Paul had done with God's help), James and his elders not only heard this, listening attentively to Paul's account, but they praised God together (20a). No murmur of disapproval was heard. As in the case of the conversion of Cornelius (11:18), the evangelization of Greeks in Antioch (11:22-23) and the first missionary journey (14:27; 15:12), the evidence of God's grace towards Gentiles was indisputable, and the only appropriate response was worship. The joyful praise of James and the elders was not even grudging; it was spontaneous and genuine. But Paul was also anxious to be conciliatory towards the Jewish Christian community, and showed it in two ways. The first, which for some reason Luke mentions only later in 24:17, was the presentation to the Jewish church of the offerings given by the Gentile churches of the west. It seems to me likely that Paul made this at the beginning of his visit to James. Perhaps it partly accounts for the warm reception of verse 17. Certainly the collection was of great importance to Paul. Not only had he been preoccupied with it for several years, but he had even postponed his intended visit to Rome and Spain in order first to deliver it personally in Jerusalem (19:21; cf. Rom. 15:23ff.). The offering was important in itself, and an expression of loving Christian responsibility to the poor (e.g. Acts 11:27-30; 20:35; Gal. 2:10; 2 Cor.8:9ff.). `The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil' (1 Tim.6:10); but the use of money can be a tangible token of love. The chief significance of the offering, however, lay in its symbolism. It exemplified the solidarity of Gentile believers with their Jewish sisters and brothers in the body of Christ. That is why representatives of the Gentile churches had travelled all the way from Corinth in order to share in presenting their gifts, and were even now present with Paul. Further, the offering was a humble acknowledgement of reciprocal indebtedness. True, the Gentile churches `were pleased' to give, out of love, but also (Paul wrote) `they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessing, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings' (Rom. 15:27). It is surely because of the symbolic nature of the offering that Paul was so concerned about it. He was anxious that it should not be misunderstood, as an unwelcome paternalism perhaps, or as an attempt to buy favour, and that its acceptance should not be misinterpreted as a kind of capitulation by Jewish Christians to Paul's pro-Gentile stance. This is why he urged the Roman Christians to pray with him that his `service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there' (Rom. 15:31). He wanted to express their fellowship in Christ by giving the gift; would the Jewish Christians reciprocate by receiving it? Luke concentrates, however, on the second example of Paul's conciliatory spirit, namely the positive way in which he responded to the proposal James put to him. This arose because of the existence of both Jewish believers (20) and Gentile believers(25). The question was how could they be helped to live together in amity, especially in view of Jewish Christian scruples about law observance. James and the elders (said to Paul: `You see, brother (a touching, because unself-conscious, acknowledgement of their unity in God's family), how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them zealous for the law (20), (that is, "staunch upholders" of it (NEB, JBP,JB)). They have been informed {in fact misinformed) that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles (in the diaspora) to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs' (21). What exactly was James concern, then? First, it was not about the way of salvation (James and Paul were agreed that this was through Christ, not through the law), but about the way of discipleship. Secondly, it was not about what Paul taught Gentile converts (he did teach them that circumcision was unnecessary (e.g. 1Cor. 7:19; Gal. 6:15), and James and the Jerusalem Council had said the same thing), but about what he was teaching `the Jews who live among the Gentiles' (21) Thirdly, it was not about the moral law (Paul and James were agreed that God's people must live a holy life according to God's commandments e.g. Rom. 7:12; 8:4; Jas. 1:25; 2:8), but about Jewish `customs' (21). In a word, should Jewish believers continue to observe Jewish cultural practices? The rumour was that Paul was teaching them not to. Acts. 21:18-26. Paul meets James So `what shall we do?' James asked Paul. The law-zealous Jewish Christians `will certainly hear that you have come (22), so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow (23). Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law' (24), or `are a practising Jew' (NEB). The reference to the four Jewish Christians shaving their heads indicates that they have taken a Nazirite vow (Nu.6:1ff.; cf. Acts 18:18ff.). James's proposal in relation to them was double. First, Paul should `join in their purification rites'. Commentators are not agreed about what James had in mind. Perhaps he wanted Paul to identify himself with the four either at the conclusion of the thirty-day period of their vow or on some special ritual necessary because they had contracted defilement during the same period, Or it may mean that Paul had a seven-day purification ceremony of his own to undergo because during his long absence from Jerusalem the Jews regarded him as having become levitically unclean. Secondly, James proposed that Paul should `pay their expenses', which could have been quite substantial. Having referred to the scruples of the Jewish Christians (20-24). James turned to the corresponding responsibility of the Gentile Christians. `As for the Gentile believers,' he said, the controversy had been settled some years ago at the Council of Jerusalem, as Paul knew well, for `we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality' (25; cf. 15:20, 29) - four cultural practices, as I argued in chapter 11. Paul agreed with James's proposal, and began as soon as possible to comply with it. The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them (26). We can only thank God for the generosity of spirit displayed by both James and Paul. They were already agreed doctrinally (that salvation was by grace in Christ through faith) and ethically (that Christians must obey the moral law). The issue between them concerned culture, ceremony and tradition. The solution to which they came was not a compromise, in the sense of sacrificing a doctrinal or moral principle, but a concession in the matter of practice. We have already seen Paul's conciliatory spirit in accepting the Jerusalem decrees and circumcising Timothy, Now, in the same tolerant spirit, he was prepared to undergo some purification rituals in order to pacify Jewish scruples. James seems to have gone too far in expecting Paul to live `in obedience to the law' (24) in all matters and at all times, if that is what he meant. But Paul was certainly ready to do so on special occasions, for the sake of evangelism for example (1 Cor. 9:20) or - as here - for the sake of Jewish-Gentile solidarity. According to his conviction Jewish cultural practices belonged to the `matters indifferent', from which he had been liberated, but which he might or might not himself practice according to the circumstances. As F.F.Bruce neatly put it, `a truly emancipated spirit such as Paul's is not in bondage to its own emancipation'. But James manifested a similarly sweet and generous mind both by praising God for the Gentile mission and by accepting the offering from the Gentile churches. It is not a *quid pro quo*, almost a bargain, as some commentators have represented it (`We will identify with you by accepting the Gentile offering, if you will identify with us by accepting Jewish observances'). It was rather a sensitive, mutual Christian forbearance. The unbending prejudice and fanatical violence of the unbelieving Jews, which Luke describes next, stand out in ugly contrast. Acts. 21:27-36. 2). Paul is assaulted and arrested a). Paul is assaulted by the Jews. (21:27-32) It was connection with the seven-day purification ritual, and near its end, that Paul was in the temple. He was recognized by some Jews from proconsular Asia, probably from Ephesus itself. They seem also to have recognized Trophimus the Ephesian (29). They provoked the worshipping crowd to frenzy by two accusations. The first of these was a misunderstanding, for they represented Paul as teaching everybody everywhere `against our people and our law and this place' (28a). `It is ironical', Howard Marshall justly comments, `that this should have been the charge against Paul at the time when he himself was undergoing purification so that he would not defile the temple!'. The charge was similar to that laid against Stephen, who was accused by false witnesses of `speaking against the holy place and against the law' (6:13). But the Jews misunderstood both Stephen and Paul, just as they had misunderstood Jesus. Jesus spoke of himself as the fulfilment of the temple, the people and the law, and Stephen and Paul followed suit. This was not to denigrate them, however, but to reveal their true glory. The second accusation, that Paul had brought Greeks into the temple area and so defiled it (28b), was simply untrue. It was not a deliberate lie, Luke charitably adds, but rather an assumption on their part (29). They had seem Trophimus (whom they knew to be a Gentile) with Paul in the city, and had jumped to the conclusion that Paul had also brought him into the temple's inner court, which was forbidden to Gentiles. Gentiles were permitted to enter only the outer court, the Court of the Gentiles. Beyond this, and preventing access into the Court of Israel, there was `a stone wall for a partition', four and a half feet high, `with an inscription which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death'. This is Josephus' description, and he added that there were many such inscriptions, written in Greek and Latin, at equal distance from each other. F.F.Bruce adds: `Two of these notices (both in Greek) have been found - one in 1871 and one in 1935 - the text of which runs: "No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the temple and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death."' Titus, (the Roman general and later Emperor) reminded the Jews that the Romans had even given them `leave to kill such as go beyond it (sc. the barricade), though he were a Roman'. Paul was surely thinking of this barrier when he wrote of `the dividing wall of hostility' between the Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14). The combination of these two accusations - the one a half-truth and the other an untruth - was enough to bring people `running from all directions' (30), who proceeded to seize Paul, drag him out of the inner court, and try to kill him. Fortunately, soldiers of the Roman garrison, always on the lookout for public disorder in Jerusalem, saw what was happening and rescued him in the nick of time. Their barracks were in the fortress of Antonia, which Herod the Great had built in the north-west corner of the temple area. The garrison usually consisted of a thousand men. In charge of them was a *chiliarchos*, which can be translated `military tribune', `commander of the Roman troops' (NIV) or `colonel of the regiment', (JPB). At this time we know that he was Claudius Lysias (23:26). Hearing that the city was in an uproar, he rushed down personally with some officers and men, and the rioters at once gave up beating Paul. b) Paul is arrested by the Romans. (21:33-36) It is noteworthy that the same verb *epilambanomai* is used both of the mob `seizing' Paul (30) and of the commander `arresting' him (33), although they had opposite objectives. The crowd were bent on lynching him, and the military tribune on taking him into protective custody. It is a striking example of Luke's aim to contrast Jewish hostility and Roman justice. When the commander failed to discover who the prisoner was and what he had done, because of the hubbub, he had him taken, indeed (owing to the mob's violence) carried, into the barracks. Meanwhile, the crowd was shouting, `Away with him'. just as nearly thirty years previously another crowd had shouted about another prisoner (Lk. 23:18; cf. Acts 22:22). |
These studies are part of the
ministries of the John Stott web site at
http://www.JohnStott.org Interested
readers should refer to
John Stott's original work for a complete citation
(The Message of Acts - ISBN 0-85110-962-4 -
published by Inter-Varsity Press)
.