Deeper Commentary
ACTS CHAPTER 21
21:1
And when we had parted from them and set sail, we
came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from
there to Patara- Luke so often mentions these details. Remember
that the Hebrew words for 'spirit' and 'wind' were identical. I have
argued that Paul's decision to go to Jerusalem and focus upon ministry to
the Jews was not the Lord's ideal intention for him; that was Peter's
task. But having decided to do it for the Lord, the Lord worked with him.
Just as God did regarding a physical temple and system of human kingship.
21:2 And having found a ship
crossing over to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail- The
idea is that they saw or noticed one. "We went aboard and set sail" could
imply it was just about to leave; they arrived just at the last minute. As
noted on :1, the Lord was confirming Paul in the path he had chosen,
whilst warning him that such a course was not ideal and would be
problematic. Whatever choices we make, they are confirmed by the hand of
providence; which is what gives intensity of meaning to all our choices.
21:3
When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on
the left we sailed to Syria- The kind of eyewitness language
and detail we would expect. The Bible is either inspired or a clever
forgery, and if the latter, then these kinds of eyewitness details would
have been hard to invent by a later hand. Especially bearing in mind that
there was little experience of long distance travel.
And landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo-
Nothing is chance in our lives. The seven days it took to unload and
probably sell the cargo was used to visit the ecclesia there. This
likewise [see on :1 and :2] was clearly meant to be, and reflects the
higher hand that works in the lives of those who seek to serve the Lord.
21:4- see on Acts 20:23.
And having found the disciples, we stayed there
seven days; and these said to Paul through the Spirit- It's not
clear whether the Spirit directly said that Paul should not go to
Jerusalem, or whether this was their interpretation of what was revealed
to them. Reading the text as it stands, Paul's going to Jerusalem would
have been rank disobedience. But it seems to me that he was being told of
the consequences of his plan, and yet he continued in it, and the Lord
worked with him in that choice. We encounter the same conundrum today when
we are told 'The Bible says that...'. There's a need to make a
differentiation between the specific text of the Bible, and human
interpretation of it. It was 'they' who told Paul not to go to Jerusalem-
not the Spirit directly.
That he should not set foot in Jerusalem- Paul was clearly told
by the Spirit that he “should not go up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4 AV). Yet
Paul chose to go up to Jerusalem, with the Holy Spirit warning him against
it in every city he passed through (Acts 20:23; 21:11). What are we to
make of this? Was a spiritual man like Paul simply out of step with the
Spirit on this point? Maybe- in the light of all we've seen above. It’s
possible to get fixated on a certain project and ignore God’s clear
testimony. Or it could be that Paul knew the Lord well enough to realize
that although God was telling him what would happen, he could still
exercise his own love for his brethren to the maximum extent. For it was
for love of his brethren and his dream of unity between Jew and Gentile
that he personally took the offerings of the Gentiles to the poor saints
in Jerusalem.
In Rom. 15:31 Paul asks the Romans to pray concerning his visit to
Jerusalem "that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not
believe". He was in struggle with God, wrestling God as Jacob did. On one
hand, Spirit guidance was clear; but he believed that through prayer and
human effort, a different outcome to that stated by the Spirit might be
possible.
21:5
When our time was up, we departed and went on our
way, and they all accompanied us, with wives and children,
until we were out of the city. And we knelt down on the shore and prayed-
The very same scene as at Troas. And Paul had stayed there seven days too
(:4 cp. 20:6). The period of seven days in Tyre was because of the
itinerary of the ship they were on (hence "when our time was up"). Clearly
the Lord's providential hand was at work helping Paul to see that He was
working with Paul according to a pattern. We too can perceive similarities
between events within our lives; the meaning attached to those events may
not be immediately clear, but all the same we come away with the abiding
impression that life is not random event but somehow, somewhere the Lord's
hand is there with us.
21:6 And we went on board the ship, and they returned home-
The pathos of the scene here has absolutely every mark of the eye witness
account. We can almost imagine Luke as he was writing, remembering the
last waves and hugs, the last sights of each other, as they walked away
from the mooring, and Luke and Paul walked the entrance plank onto the
ship.
21:7- see on Acts 4:23.
And when we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we
arrived at Ptolemais; and we greeted the believers and stayed with them
one day- The entire journey emphasizes how Paul looked up the
believers in every town he visited, even though they were likely unknown
to him personally. The bonds of Christian fellowship were and are strong.
21:8
And the next day we departed, and went to Caesarea-
AV "We that were of Paul's company". This idea is found in 13:13 "Paul and
his company" (AV). We should not therefore assume that only Luke
accompanied Paul; there were other unrecorded brethren as well.
And entering into the house of Philip the
evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him- The
seven deacons of Acts 6:5 were appointed to minister practically to the
poor in the Jerusalem church. But because of his ground breaking work with
the Ethiopian eunuch, he was respected as "the evangelist". He clearly had
more than one calling. We note he was now living at Caesarea, not
Jerusalem, perhaps as a result of persecution in Jerusalem, or tensions
within the Jerusalem ecclesia regarding Gentiles. Perhaps he had quit the
church politics of the Jerusalem ecclesia and retired to Caesarea and
focused upon raising his four daughters in his house church, and they had
responded well to their upbringing.
21:9 Now this man had four
virgin daughters who prophesied- This is surely intended to
recall the prophecy of Joel, that this kind of thing would happen in the
last days. The prophecy has already been quoted in Acts 2. Yet it speaks
clearly of the last days. Again we see that from God's side, He had
enabled the last days and establishment of the Kingdom on earth in the
first century. But it was a lack of response by natural and spiritual
Israel which led to the major delay until our last days.
Understanding Corinth ecclesia as a series of house churches explains
Paul’s comment to the Corinthians that he ordained his guidelines to be
practiced in all the ecclesias (1 Cor. 7:17)- i.e. the house churches that
comprised the body of Christ in Corinth. He gives some guidelines for
behaviour that appear to contradict each other until we perceive the
difference between the commands to house groups, and commands about the
‘gathering together’ for special breaking of bread services. The role of
women is a classic example. 1 Cor. 14:34 says that women should keep
silent ‘in ecclesia’ [AV “churches” is a mistranslation]- i.e. a sister
shouldn’t teach at those special breaking of bread meetings when the house
churches ‘came together’ (1 Cor. 11:17,18,20). And yet within the house
groups, it’s apparent from other New Testament accounts and from what Paul
himself writes, that sisters did teach there (1 Cor. 11:5). Thus in the
house church of Philip, there were four women who ‘prophesied’, i.e. spoke
forth the word of God to others (Acts 21:8,9). This to me is the only way
to make sense of Corinthians- otherwise Paul appears to be contradicting
himself.
21:10 And as we stayed there some days, there came down from Judea
a certain prophet, named Agabus- Jews spoke of going up to Jerusalem,
and coming down from it. So this is not meant in a geographical sense.
"Agabus" meaning locust or grasshopper, he may have been a wandering
prophet, going around giving Divine messages as required; the type in view
in 2 John, who was to be welcomed and supported by the Lord's people as he
travelled around.
21:11- see on Acts 20:23; 21:4.
And coming to us and taking Paul's belt, he bound
his own feet and hands, and said: Thus said the Holy Spirit: So shall the
Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owns this belt, and shall deliver him
into the hands of the Gentiles- The kind of acted parable
beloved of Old Testament prophets (1 Kings 22:11; Is. 20:1-3; Jer. 13:1-7;
Ez. 4:1-6). The Lord had predicted that Peter would meet his end by having
his hands and feet bound (Jn. 21:18), and we wonder whether Paul again was
consciously trying to emulate Peter by seeking the same end.
21:12
And when we heard these things, both we and they
of that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem- Yet
Luke stayed loyal to Paul and accompanied him to Rome, although he felt
Paul was not taking the right course. We too can rightly stick with our
brethren even if we feel it is plain that their path is less than ideal.
21:13
Then Paul answered: What are you doing, weeping
and breaking my heart? For I am ready, not only to be bound, but also to
die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus- "Why make you
this ado and weep?" (Mk. 5:39) is unconsciously alluded to by Paul here.
If this is a conscious allusion, it seems out of context. But as an
unconscious allusion, it makes sense.
21:14- see on Acts 20:23.
And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased,
saying: The will of the Lord be done- I don't take
this as a mere passing comment of resignation. Rather did the brethren
perceive that Paul was being shown the consequences of serving the Lord
one way, but chose to do the Lord's will in another way- by going to
Jerusalem and pursuing his mission to the Jews which the Lord preferred
Peter to focus upon. They accepted Paul's choice and wished for the Lord's
will to be further developed. Paul was not in that sense going against the
Lord's will, but doing it. It would be "done" by the choice he made. We
wonder whether Paul wrote to the Ephesians, using the same words, thinking
of his own struggles to understand not only the Lord's will, but how he
could best fulfil it: "understand what the will of the Lord is" (Eph.
5:17). Luke and other early brethren seemed to have had the Gethsemane
record in mind in their sufferings, as we can also do (Acts 21:14
= Mk. 14:36).
21:15
And after these days we took up our baggage-
Paul took up his baggage at Ephesus and went on to Jerusalem (Acts 21:15
RV); the baggage would have been the bits and pieces raised by the donors
to the Jerusalem Poor Fund. Those who couldn’t send money had sent what
little they could spare in kind- presumably clothes and even animals, or
goods for re-sale in Jerusalem.
And went up to Jerusalem- This must be understood in the
context of how the "we" had repeatedly urged Paul not to go up to
Jerusalem. They went with him from loyalty to a friend and brother who had
taken a path they did not consider wise; but still they travelled it with
him. And we can take a lesson from that. The whole picture records the
disciples loyally going up to Jerusalem with the Lord, despite their deep
misgivings as to His wisdom in doing so.
21:16
And there went with us also some of the disciples
from Caesarea, bringing with them- Some texts read 'brought us
to', which makes sense if Mnason had a house in Jerusalem where he lodged
the group.
One Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom
we should lodge- Perhaps this was as it were his Christian
additional name, given as a sign of respect for how long he had held the
faith. Such terms, like "the evangelist", reflect a culture of respect and
"honour to whom honour" amongst the early believers, which we would do
well to copy. Likewise perhaps the mention of the fact he was "from
Cyprus" might be in respect of the fact that like many Jerusalem Levites,
he had had land there, in order to 'get around' the legislation about
Levites not owning land in Israel, and had sacrificed it for the Lord's
sake. Given the brevity of the records, there can be surely no incidental,
pointless addition of background material. Such details surely have
meaning, even if we cannot in our age and at our distance immediately
discern it.
21:17 And when we arrived in Jerusalem- Luke was a Gentile (so
Col. 4:11 implies). Note how the other Gospel writers speak of the sea
of Galilee, whereas the more widely travelled Luke refers to it only as a
lake. While Paul was in prison in Caesarea for two years, Luke was a free
man (Acts 21:17; 24:27). It seems that during that period, Luke may
have spent the time travelling around the areas associated with Jesus,
interviewing eye witnesses- especially Mary, the aged mother of Jesus,
from whom he must have obtained much of the information about His birth
and Mary’s song. His preaching of the Gospel in Luke and Acts is made from
his perspective- the fact that salvation is for all, not just Jews, is a
major theme (Lk. 2:30-32; 3:6; 9:54,55; 10:25-34; Acts 1:8; 2:17).
The brothers received us gladly- This appears in contrast with
the spirit of :18. So perhaps the "brothers" in view were those in
Mnason's home; see on :16.
21:18
And the following day Paul went with us to James;
and all the elders were present- Presumably there were now no
other apostles present in Jerusalem or they would have been mentioned.
They had either fled persecution, been cast out of the church over the
Gentile issue [note Philip, one-time deacon of the Jerusalem church, was
now running a house church in Caesarea], or were away on missionary work.
21:19
And when he had greeted them, he
related one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles
through his ministry- Such an orderly presentation of missionary
history was made with Luke present (:18 "us"). Surely here we have a hint
as to the historical background to the book of Luke-Acts. Luke and Paul
presented it as an explanation to the Jerusalem elders; hence Luke opens
Volume 1 by saying that he is presenting an orderly chronological account
of Gospel events. But as always, the emphasis is upon what God and His Son
had done through them. This is a major theme of Luke in Acts [see on 1:1]-
that the Lord was working through the ministries of His people. It would
also explain why the focus of Acts is upon Paul when clearly there were
other preachers also active. The book was initially an explanation and
account to the Jerusalem elders of the work of Paul- for it was he whom
they were so concerned about. Paul had no accountability to them- if at
all, he would have been accountable to the Antioch ecclesia from whence he
had initially departed to the mission field. But he graciously goes along
with their concerns.
21:20- see on Acts 8:1.
And they, when they heard it, glorified God; and
they said to him: You saw, brother, how many thousands there are among the
Jews of those that have believed; and they are all zealous for the law-
Paul uses the same words in his defence, stating that he like them had
been zealous for the law, but had been persuaded otherwise by the Lord
Jesus (22:3; also in Gal. 1:14 about his former life in Judaism). The
implication could be that the same crowds baying for his blood were in
fact the crowds of the ecclesia of Jerusalem Jews who had accepted Christ.
This was the degree to which the church slid back into Judaism; and is an
essay in the power of legalism in the church. The Jerusalem Jewish
Christians had initially been persecuted and many had fled into dispersion
in Asia Minor, as Peter's letters make clear. Why was there now a
Christian church in Jerusalem? They had clearly compromised with the
synagogue system. And had succumbed to the rising wave of Jewish
nationalism and xenophobia in Jerusalem. It can develop to fanatic
extents, calling for the death of brethren of Paul's calibre. It may also
be that by using this term about his former life, Paul was tacitly
recognizing that his political compromise to those brethren had been
wrong- see on :21 and :22. He had given the impression of being "zealous
for the law", and now he plainly states that zeal for the law was the
characteristic of his pre-Christian life, and he had changed as a result
of encountering the Lord Jesus.
21:21
And they have been informed concerning you, that
you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses-
Paul's intended mission was to the Gentiles and Peter's to the Jews. But
here we have a fair summary of what Paul actually did; and it wasn't the
Lord's ideal wish. If only he had followed the Lord's intention, then this
whole situation with the Jerusalem ecclesia and the subsequent events
which led to his arrest and imprisonment... simply wouldn't have happened.
We too can save ourselves much grief by going the Lord's intended way for
us.
Telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according
to our customs- Paul should have quietly pleaded guilty, because his
letters show this was indeed his position. But in a desperate attempt to
placate the legalists, he went along with them- resulting in a chain of
events which led to his imprisonment. We too need to be honest with our
brethren about our positions regarding fellowship issues and other hot
topics of our times, even if we know they strongly disagree. Attempting to
compromise and misrepresent our positions is not only dishonest but
results in much grief all around. Brethren assume we have a position which
we do not- and then get bitter with us when they realize we actually don't
hold the position which we apparently espoused for the sake of political
peace. Whilst a degree of pragmatism is required in all human
relationships, we must learn the lesson from Paul at this point- for his
pragmatism and resignation of principle led to a chain of events which was
seriously damaging for him and the Lord's work. If he had not then gone
into the temple to demonstrate his Jewish orthodoxy, the riot, arrest and
subsequent imprisonment would never have occurred. See on :20 Zealous
for the law.
21:22 What then? They will
certainly hear you have come- The whole thing smacks of the kind
of church politics which have blighted the body of Christ in our age. The
elders feared the imagined reaction of others, and so they asked Paul to
do something which was more a result of their fears than their genuine
convictions; and Paul gave in, leading to serious damage to his ministry
as he lay incarcerated for years as a result of the chain of events which
then happened. And in the end, the Jerusalem church slid into the apostasy
of legalism and returned to Judaism. Nothing good came out of all that
fearful compromise.
21:23 Therefore do what we tell you: We have four men who have
taken a vow- The "therefore" reflects how urgently they felt the need
to placate the Judaists. Paul did what he was told, even although it was
wrong and based around pleasing men. I sense he made this misjudgement not
because he was browbeaten by these brethren, although he was pretty much
alone before them; but because he like them was desperate at all costs to
ingratiate himself to the Jerusalem church and reconcile and convert the
temple cult. Those desires became such an obsession that they clouded his
better judgment. The "vow" was apparently a Nazirite vow.
21:24- see on Acts 18:18.
These take and purify yourself along with them,
and pay their expenses- Paul was clearly not poor at
this time; or probably it was known that he was bringing funds to
Jerusalem on behalf of the Gentile churches. See the note on "baggage" on
:15. It was considered a work of piety to relieve needy Jews from the
expenses connected with short term Nazirite vows, as Paul does here. Adam
Clarke notes: "It was also customary for the richer sort to bestow their
charity on the poorer sort for this purpose; for Josephus, Ant. lib.
xix. cap. 6, sec. 1, observes that Agrippa, on his being advanced
from a prison to a throne, by the Emperor Claudius, came to Jerusalem; and
there, among other instances of his religious thankfulness shown in the
temple, Ναζαραιων ξυρασθαι διεταξε μαλα συχνους, he ordered very many
Nazarites to be shaven, he furnishing them with money for the expenses of
that, and of the sacrifices necessarily attending it". The idea of the
Jerusalem poor fund was that Paul would relieve needy believers who had
been affected by recent famines. But we get the impression that this noble
intention got caught up in church politics; the funds were spent on temple
sacrifices to prove that poor Jewish Christians had achieved legal
obedience in ending their vows, and Paul was publicly demonstrating his
support of such legalism.
That they may shave their heads; and
all shall know that there is no truth in the things of which they have
been informed concerning you, but you yourself also walk orderly, keeping
the law- Note how hurtful this must have been, since Paul was
bringing funds for their ecclesia which he had collected at the cost of
damaging his relationship with the likes of Corinth. He meekly obeyed,
perhaps it was playing a part in the politics in the church, although he
had written to the Colossians and others that there was no need for any to
be circumcised nor keep the Law, indeed these things were a denial of
faith in Jesus. Paul later uses the same word to describe how we are to
'walk' not according to the Law but the Spirit (Gal. 5:25; 6:16; Phil.
3:16); perhaps this was written from prison with a glance back at the fact
that he was imprisoned exactly because he had attempted to impress others
by how he walked according to the Law, which had led to the riot and his
subsequent incarceration. He likewise uses the term 'keeping the law' in a
negative sense in Rom. 2:26 and Gal. 6:13.
21:25 But concerning the Gentiles that have believed, we wrote,
giving judgment that they should keep themselves from things sacrificed to
idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication-
The "we" could suggest that this was the same group of elders as at the
time of the Acts 15 agreements. But that was now some years ago, and
surely some of those brethren had died. So the Jerusalem elders were
arguing from a position of inherited authority, claiming that they had
effectively done what their predecessors had done. This is a dangerous
attitude as it resigns personal responsibility and principle. Paul had
written to the Corinthians that food sacrificed to idols could be eaten;
so he should have now said up front that he no longer accepted that point,
or at best, considered it to apply only to a limited circle of Gentile
converts.
21:26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple- Paul's purification of himself may have been for different reasons than the four men under the Nazirite vow. It was customary for orthodox Jews returning to Jerusalem from Gentile lands to purify themselves in the way Paul does here. Again, given his understanding of uncleaness and the end of the Mosaic concepts of pure and impure, it was really a great denial of principle for him to do this. We must ask all through: 'What would have happened if Paul had been true to himself and his beliefs?'. He would not have entered the temple, recognizing that as Stephen had taught him in his last breaths, there is now no sacred space. The true temple is the church. He would not have bothered even trying to demonstrate obedience to the law. He would have told the Jerusalem brethren what he had written and taught to others about the law of Moses. He would have given them the funds for the poor- and continued on his way to the Gentiles, seeing he was called to witness to the Gentiles and not the Jews. But he insisted upon his obsession with pleasing and converting orthodox Judaism. And everything went so badly wrong as a result. He had already by this point written the letter to the Galatians [probably during his extended stay in Ephesus]. There he had rebuked Peter for caving in to pressure from the Jerusalem Jewish-Christian brethren. And now he does just the same.
He had written to the Galatians of how the law was "the weak and beggarly elements" and wrote with such invective against Judaizers. So now at this point we see Paul perhaps at his weakest point during his Christian race. He caves in on the very principles he had had revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. Just as the whole scene was reminiscent of that concerning Stephen, so it also recalled Peter's failure with the Jerusalem church, going along with things which were contrary to his own personal experience of revelation from the Lord. This is all so true to human experience. We see brethren cave in on the very principles they have fought so hard to uphold. And we also see brethren in later life going out on tangents, and ending their days "in Christ" but alienated and in very difficult personal situations. And this is what happened with Paul. The rest of his life was spent in prison, increasingly isolated, and failing to achieve his goals- of preaching succesfully to both Jew and Gentile.
The lesson is, to be honest with our brethren. To be true to
our Lord, and to ourselves. To state and live by the principles we know to
be true, rather than falling into the very strong temptation to say and do
what we know others expect from us. And this is particularly true over the
vexed issue of fellowship, which was essentially the issue facing Paul at
this point.
Declaring the fulfilment of the
days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them-
He 'kept going into the temple' (Gk.). "The days" were seven days (:27).
Whilst the law did not stipulate a minimum term for a Nazirite vow, there
is evidence that usually the minimum term was 30 days. So this vow was not
being done for very genuine reasons but rather just to demonstrate Paul's
loyalty to the law and Jerusalem temple cult. And Paul along with the four
men made this vow ("himself along with them"). The whole thing smacks of
tokenism rather than sincerity, and Paul suffered for it, in that the
sequence of events triggered by it affected the rest of his life.
21:27
And when the seven days were almost completed, the
Jews from Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the crowd-
Paul had only recently arrived from Asia; it could be that a group of Jews
followed him not only from city to city in his missionary work, but had
even followed him to Jerusalem. This was the extent of Jewish opposition
against his ministry to them.
And laid hands on him- God has recorded Paul's life in Acts in
such a way as to show the similarities between him and Christ; thus the
Spirit records that men "laid hands on" Paul, just as it does concerning
the Lord Jesus (Mt. 26:50).
21:28 Crying
out: Men of Israel, help! This is the man that teaches all men everywhere
against the people and the law, and this place, and moreover he brought
Gentiles also into the temple and has defiled this holy place-
We can read this as conscious slander. But see on :29 They supposed.
I suggest they rehearsed their fears and [il]logical deductions in their
minds to such a point that they became actually convinced this had
happened. They saw him with one Gentile, and assume that Gentile had been
brought into the temple; and that therefore the other three men seen with
him in the temple were therefore also Gentiles. Josephus claims that
Gentile entry into the temple was a capital offence. It would've been
highly unlikely that Paul would even have got Gentiles beyond the Jewish
temple guards. The whole conclusion was improbable in the extreme. But
this is where legalistic quasi-logical deduction and supposition lead to.
The accusations they make against Paul are the very ones which were
being made by the Jewish Christians in the Jerusalem ecclesia (:21). This
is another reason for thinking that the crowds of Jerusalem Jews baying
for Paul's blood included legalistic, Judaistic members of the Jerusalem
church. If, as I currently believe, Paul wrote Hebrews from Italy (ponder
Heb. 13:24), then we see his utter grace in even bothering to reason with
them and urge them not to return to Judaism.
21:29
For they had previously seen with him in the city
Trophimus the Ephesian- Seeing the Jews who made the problem
were from Asia (:27), they perhaps were from Ephesus and knew Trophimus.
Whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the
temple- “Supposed” is the verb nomizo, a form of the
noun nomos, 'law'. Their legalistic reasoning led them to over
interpret facts and draw endless apparently logical conclusions- but they
came to a false conclusion as a result of their legalistic devotion to
logical deduction. The same mentality is seen in legalists today, who seem
highly prone to all manner of conspiracy theories and irrational
deductions.
21:30 And all the city was
moved- The same word used later in accusing Paul of creating
dissension (24:5). A division caused by others about Paul was thus made
Paul's fault. People likewise falsely accuse the Lord Jesus, and His
followers, of causing division when they are merely at the centre of
division made by unbelievers.
And the people ran together, laid hold on Paul and
dragged him out of the temple- The very same words used about
what happened to Paul in Philippi (16:19). Circumstances repeated in his
life, as they do in ours, reflecting the same Divine hand at work with us
in different places and situations down the years, but always with the
same hallmarks.
And immediately the doors were shut- Both into the court of
the Gentiles, and also from there into the court of the Israelites, thus
cutting off Paul from any help. The door into the temple would therefore
likely have had to be broken down by the Gentile Romans to get to Paul-
all full of symbolism! The Roman guard was stationed in the tower of
Antonia on the North West of the temple area, and they would have seen
what was going on in the court of the Gentiles from above.
21:31 And as they were seeking to kill him- Paul's physical
sufferings over the course of his ministry were significant. They would
already have inflicted major damage on his body before the soldiers saved
him from death itself. And there would have been the psychological damage
inflicted after each trauma.
News came to the chief captain of the garrison
that all Jerusalem was in an uproar- In the tower of Antonia.
See on :30 The doors were shut.
21:32
And he took soldiers and centurions and ran down
to them; and they, when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers,
stopped beating Paul- From the tower of Antonia overlooking the
court of the Gentiles. The details given here are all so internally
cohesive that it's hard to doubt that this is the true word of God and no
clever fabrication of a later hand.
21:33
Then the chief captain came near, laid hold of him
and commanded him to be bound with two chains, and inquired who he was and
what he had done- Fulfilling the prophecy of Agabus in 21:11.
There is no other record of those words being fulfilled. The chains were
therefore presumably on his hands and feet as Agabus had predicted, rather
than to two soldiers as many suppose. Hence he was "carried" into the
Antonia castle (:34). Again the internal cohesion of the record is nothing
short of Divinely inspired.
21:34
And some among the mob shouted one thing, some
another; and when he could not know the certainty because of the uproar,
he commanded him to be brought into the fortress of Antonia-
“Shouted” is the word used by Luke for the shouting for the Lord's
crucifixion (Lk. 23:21). As with each of us, Paul was brought to know the
essence of his Lord's sufferings.
21:35
When he reached the stairs, he had to be carried
by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob- This is
religious legalism come to its full term. The mob was pushing forward the
ones in front in a mad desire to kill Paul, regardless of his Roman
protection.
21:36
For the mob followed after, crying out:
Away with him!- Again, Paul like us was being taught the
Lord's crucifixion experiences (Lk. 23:18; Jn. 19:15).
21:37
And as Paul was about to be brought into the
fortress, he said to the chief captain: May I say something to you? And he
said: Do you know Greek?- The soldier was so persuaded that his
assumption about Paul being an Egyptian was correct that he was shocked. A
theme of the whole incident is the dogmatism arrived at from false
inference and illogical deduction and presupposition, by both Jews and
Gentiles.
21:38
Are you not that Egyptian, who some time ago
stirred up sedition and led out into the wilderness four thousand men that
were terrorists?- Josephus mentions this incident and gives the
figure of 30,000 (Wars 2.17, 6 and 13,5; Antiquities 20.
8,10). This is reason enough to accuse Josephus of gross exaggeration and
to question his reliability.
21:39
But Paul said: I am a Jew, of Tarsus in Cilicia, a
citizen of no mean city; and I beg you, please let me speak to the people-
This seems rather proud, especially when we learn that Tarsus was famed
for being a proud city. She inscribed upon her coins: “Tarsus, the
Metropolis, First, Fairest and Best” (W. Barclay, Ambassador For
Christ p. 25).
21:40 And
when he had given him leave, Paul, standing on the stairs, beckoned with
the hand to the people; and when there was made a great silence, he spoke
to them in the Hebrew language, saying- The silence may have been from surprise that
Paul had been given this privilege of addressing the crowd. We sense
Paul’s great zeal to use every and any opportunity to get the gospel over
to the largest possible audiences. We would likely not have risked more
exposure and provocation.
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter 
