Stopover in Tyre
Acts 21:1-6
In his usual style, Luke gives a detailed account of the voyage from Miletus near Ephesus to Tyre on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The trip included a stop at the islands of Cos and Rhodes.
The harbor at Rhodes adjoined a famous picturesque city by the same name. About two hundred years earlier, it had boasted a seaside statue over a hundred feet tall known as the Colossus of Rhodes, which the ancients listed among the Seven Wonders of the World. This mammoth tower of stonework depicted the sun god Helios standing aloft, possibly wielding a torch and a javelin. In Paul's day, the ruins left by an earthquake were still so impressive that they attracted sightseers from all over the Greco-Roman world.1
From Rhodes, the company of travelers went to Patara, back on the mainland. Now they had a choice. They could continue their slow eastward progress along the coast, or they could go directly to Tyre in the southeast. Since Paul was in a hurry, he decided to take the faster but riskier route. They boarded a ship bound for Tyre and braved the dangers of a voyage across open sea. At last, after passing to the south of Cyprus, they came to their destination, where the ship found moorings and unloaded its cargo.
It was probably during his voyage to Tyre that Paul wrote his epistle to Titus. He may have dictated it to Luke as both men were confined aboard ship and deprived of other work. The point of its dispatch may have been one of the cities he passed through before coming to Jerusalem. Nowhere does Scripture reveal who was entrusted with delivering the letter.
Just as Paul had written Timothy an epistle of practical advice soon after conferring upon him the oversight of a major ministry, the churches in Ephesus, so he wrote Titus a similar epistle soon after leaving him behind to manage God's work in Crete. The two letters are full of parallel instructions. In both, he reviews the qualifications that men must meet who wish to receive an office in the church (1 Tim. 3:1–14; Titus 1:5–9); he describes how believers should relate to authority (1 Tim. 2:1–3; Titus 3:1–2); he directs the young man to take a firm stand against the aberrations from true religion that often gain a foothold among the Jews (1 Tim. 1:3–11, 19–20; 4:6–7; 6:3–5; Titus 1:9–16; 3:9––11); etc.
Paul’s words to Titus offer stern exhortation to exercise strong leadership in a difficult field of ministry, for the Cretans were a people of proverbially low character. They were liars and manipulators, and many who made a profession of faith were insincere (Titus 1:10–13). The corrective was to insist that "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts," they "should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world" (Titus 2:12).
Delving Deeper
Epistle to Titus
Although the epistle contains few references to its larger setting, those we find are consistent with placing it during Paul’s journey to Jerusalem.
- He speaks of having left Titus in Crete (Titus 1:4). From Paul's perspective as he traveled, Crete was a place that he had recently left behind.
- We have no evidence that Titus accompanied him to Jerusalem.
- From the contents of the epistle, we infer that before Titus went there, Crete had already been evangelized, but without establishment of organized local churches (Titus 1:5). Who did the missionary work can only be speculation. A side trip to Crete does not seem to fit anywhere into Paul's career. Perhaps the island came under the preaching of Peter, or Peter and Silas, or even Apollos. Another possibility is that the team of Barnabas and Mark went to Crete after they furthered God's work on another island, Cyprus (Acts 15:39).
- Paul directs Titus to meet him in Nicopolis, where he intends to spend the coming winter season (Titus 3:12). Although other cities bore the same name, he is probably speaking of the Nicopolis just north of Actium on the western coast of Greece.5 Just before leaving his three years of labor in Ephesus, "Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome" (Acts 19:21). Although in the interim between this declaration and the Epistle to Titus, he spent perhaps a whole year or more in Macedonia, Illyricum, and Achaia, he apparently does not feel that his work there was finished. The urgent need to deliver the money he had collected for the poor in Jerusalem forced him to leave the region sooner than he wished. His present plan is therefore to revisit Achaia, targeting a city on the southwest side of the peninsula. He is now headed to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, early in the summer. Sailing to Nicopolis before winter sets in seems a realistic plan.
- He expects to send Artemas and Tychicus to take over the ministry in Crete (Titus 3:12). Artemas is otherwise unmentioned in the New Testament, but Tychicus was one of the church delegates who traveled with Paul to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4). Paul is thinking how to engage him in further ministry after they reach the city.
- He asks Titus to help Zenas and Apollos move forward on their journey (Titus 3:13). It is possible that they too were bringing money for the poor in Jerusalem.
After reaching Tyre, Paul and his party went into town and soon found fellow believers. Since Tyre was not far from Palestine, it is likely that a church had been founded there many years before. The believers in Tyre were overjoyed to see the great apostle and his companions, and they gladly hosted them for seven days.
During the visit, some of the disciples in Tyre were moved by the Spirit to remind Paul of a warning that he had heard often before. As he said to the Ephesian elders, "And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me"—literally, "await me"6 (Acts 20:22-23). In our earlier discussion of these words, we explained how the Spirit was directing Paul. He meant that although Paul should take money to the poor in Jerusalem, he certainly faced opposition and imprisonment in that city unless he took necessary precautions. But now the warning became more pointed. The writer Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveals that the Spirit for the first time not only warned Paul about the danger in going to Jerusalem, but summarily ordered him not to go. The Lord must have judged that the certainty of trouble ahead had not persuaded Paul to proceed with enough caution. Therefore, to protect Paul, the Lord issued him the simple command not to enter Jerusalem at all—a command with only two possible responses, either obedience or disobedience.
This was a critical moment in Paul's life. Notice the exact wording here. The disciples said to Paul "through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem." It could not be clearer. God told Paul not to go. But what did he do? After seven days, Paul and his company resumed travel to the place that God had set off-limits. Unless we recognize that Paul was setting his own desire above God’s will, we cannot understand what happened to him later.
The disciples in Tyre were saddened by Paul's departure. All of them, including whole families with their women and children, walked with him out of the city to the seashore. There they all knelt down and prayed for his welfare. But he was not deterred from his goal. With Luke and probably the rest of his former traveling mates, he said goodbye and took ship toward Ptolemais, the next stopping place in his journey to Jerusalem.
We have come to a shocking bad turn in Paul’s career.7 But although he veered down a dangerous course after it was forbidden by God’s explicit command, God did not remove him from his place as apostle to the gentiles. The reason is that God understood Paul's motivation. He knew that the force pushing Paul to Jerusalem was self-sacrificing love. Therefore, as we will see, He was patient in dealing with Paul, to the extent of giving him the same command more than once. And after Paul chose to disobey, God never subjected him to the full extent of chastening that he deserved.
Tarrying in Caesarea
Acts 21:7-9
A less puzzling and more literal translation of verse 7 is, "And having completed the voyage from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais."8 To reach this city, the ship carrying Paul and his companions went southward twenty-five miles (40 km.).9
Here also there were believers who received Paul, and Paul remained with them one day. Then his delegation went further south another thirty miles (48 km.) to Caesarea,10 principal seaport for Jerusalem and seat of Roman government for the province of Judea. Since it took them only one day to traverse thirty miles to another coastal city, they must have gone by ship.
Delving Deeper
Date of Paul's arrival in Caesarea
From Luke's generous supply of details concerning Paul's last trip to Jerusalem, we can come to a very close count of how many days it required. We said earlier that Paul left Philippi in Macedonia right after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The last day of the feast was 3 May. Crossing the Aegean Sea to Troas required five days (Acts 20:6). Then in Troas he spent seven days (Acts 20:6). The journey from Troas by foot and boat to Mitylene probably took two days (Acts 20:13–14). After another three days, the travelers reached Miletus (Acts 20:15), where Paul devoted perhaps five days to waiting for the Ephesian elders and then to giving them final words of counsel (Acts 20:17–18, 38). It took only three days to sail onward to Patara (Acts 21:1–2). From there, the long stride forward to Tyre was perhaps accomplished in five days. After seven days in Tyre (Acts 21:4), he spent another day going to Ptolemais, and there he remained one day (Acts 21:7). Finally, after another day's travel, he came to Caesarea. From this point onward, Luke gives no more information about time elapsed, except to say that he stayed in Caesarea "many days" (Acts 21:10).
The sum of days inclusive of 4 May and the day when he entered Caesarea is 40. The date for termination of this time span is 12 June. The Feast of Pentecost fell on 16 June.11 The difference of four days would have been the same in any year besides 58, since, by the reckoning of the Pharisees who controlled celebrations, the interval between the second day of Unleavened Bread, whatever its date, and the Feast of Pentecost was always fifty days.12
Delving Deeper
Another trophy for Luke
Luke's record of Paul's last journey to Jerusalem abounds with accurate detail. Every city and every body of land that enters the story is correctly named and properly situated on the map. Every day's progress covers the right distance. The whole journey from Philippi to Jerusalem fits, with only a little tolerance for delays, into the allotted time of fifty days.
Such an impeccable account could only come from one of two sources: either a writer telling a tall tale yet having travel experience similar to the journey he imagines, or a writer remembering an actual journey. The latter is a far more plausible source, considering that the journey being retold is merely the setting of a larger drama filled with characters who behave exactly like real people. The central character, Paul, is a showcase of realism, for in his words and conduct, and even in his surprising moments, he matches the Paul we meet elsewhere, whether in his own epistles or earlier in the Book of Acts. Moreover, he has more individuality than could have been conceived in the writer's own imagination. For example, compared with the writer of the narrative sections, Paul has a sharply different style of language. The writer's style (as seen also in his Gospel) tends to be clipped and matter-of-fact, whereas Paul's, as seen in his speech to the Ephesian elders, tends to be redundant and warm, even impetuous.
In Caesarea, Paul was entertained by a leader since the early days of the church. He was Philip the evangelist, the same man who introduced the gospel to Samaria, who won the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ, and who evangelized other cities along the coast before settling permanently in Caesarea. There he had evidently devoted himself somewhat to family life, for now he was the father of four virgin daughters. These were renowned for their gift of prophesying. Eusebius, whose Church History comes from the late third or early fourth century AD, cites Philip’s daughters as one source used by Papias,13 whose writings dating from about 100 AD preserve oral traditions of the church.14
Pondering a Question
Women as prophets
In the nation of Israel before the coming of Christ, many women held the office of prophet (Exod. 15:20; Judg. 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14; Isa. 8:3; Luke 2:36). At Pentecost, the same office became the common possession of all believers, both men and women (Acts 2:17-18). That is, anyone filled with the Holy Spirit is able to prophesy. The proof is that on Pentecost, all of the 120 people who had been waiting in the Upper Room, both men and women, prophesied in foreign tongues to the crowds drawn by the strange happenings. As we learn here in Acts 21, those members of the early church who distinguished themselves as prophets included the daughters of Philip.
How can we reconcile the exercise of a prophetic role by these women with Paul's prohibition against women speaking in church (1 Cor. 14:34-38; 1 Tim. 2:11-15)? We dare not ignore these passages, or dismiss them as expressions of antiquated prejudice. What does he mean? In my opinion, he is not referring to every kind of speech, but rather is singling out particular kinds of speech that can lead to problems.
In the cited passage from First Corinthians, the earlier of the two epistles, we judge from the context (1 Cor. 14:1–33) that Paul is combating the disorder and confusion that troubled a worship service when it mainly consisted of people speaking as they felt led. Very likely, since women are more talkative than men, such a service was dominated by women expressing feelings and impressions arising at the moment of speech. Thus, forbidding their participation was initially a measure designed to move the Corinthians toward services that were more structured, under the control of male leaders with prepared messages.
But to understand how we today should apply Paul’s directions in First Corinthians, we must compare Scripture with Scripture. In First Timothy, a later epistle, Paul clarifies what he expects in all churches. He prohibits women from engaging in three specific kinds of speech during an assembly of the saints.
- They should not ask questions (compare 1 Tim. 2:11 with 1 Cor. 14:34–35), presumably of a male teacher. The danger is that they will, or will appear to, exalt him above their own husbands or fathers. In other words, he is cautioning against a male teacher or preacher usurping a husband’s or father’s place.
Besides preventing an improper shift of authority, the Holy Spirit guiding Paul's instructions undoubtedly had other purposes as well, anticipating problems that might someday trouble the church. One problem that could emerge would be a scheming woman who captured the heart of a pastor or other church leader by showing admiration for his wisdom. Perhaps she would proceed by seeking private counsel, but her opening gambit might be public questions or conversations. Another potential problem would be a man posing as sincere who attained high stature in the church and then used his place to lure women into adulterous relationships. His opening gambit might be seemingly impressive words of wisdom in answer to their questions raised either in public or in private. - Women should not assume authority over men. Paul is excluding women from the role of pastor or deacon.
- Women should not teach men.
Yet these prohibitions leave room for many other kinds of public speech. In many historic churches women have been encouraged to give testimonies, to address the church with reports of their special ministries, to provide vocal solos and other kinds of special music, to teach other women as well as children and teenagers, and to voice prayers in prayer meetings. When done by the power of the Spirit, these are all prophetic ministries.
The Coming of Agabus
Acts 21:10-14
The task of giving Paul a last warning, by far the most dramatic he ever heard, fell to a well-known prophet, Agabus, the same man who had stood up years ago in the church at Antioch and predicted a famine that soon came to pass (Acts 11:28). The Lord sent Agabus all the way from Judea (here referring to the inland region traditionally dominated by Jews rather than gentiles15) to intercept Paul in Caesarea as he was approaching Jerusalem. Perhaps Luke recorded the earlier incident so that when Agabus reappears here in Acts 21 to confront Paul, we would view him as having the credentials of a true prophet—that the source of his message to Paul was not his own mind, but the mind of God.
When the prophet found Paul, he took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet with it.
Pondering a Question
Whose hands and feet were bound?
The translation is ambiguous, since it leaves unclear whether the antecedent of "own" is Paul or Agabus. The Greek wording leaves no doubt. "Agabus; . . . having come to us, and having taken the girdle of Paul, and having bound the hands and the feet of himself . . . ."16 The person whose hands and feet were bound was Agabus. How he could have accomplished this by himself is difficult to replay in our imagination, but the text does not exclude the possibility that he enlisted somebody's help.
Agabus said that the Jews would treat Paul in the same manner. They would bind him and deliver him into the hands of gentiles. No doubt everyone understood that he meant the Romans, since they held the reins of government. Within the prophecy lurked suggestions of an even darker outcome than mere confinement in jail. Since the words presented no glimmer of later release, perhaps Paul was being warned that his loss of freedom would be the prelude to martyrdom. How Paul should have responded was obvious. Many times during his career, the Spirit had made him aware of danger ahead, and he had responded correctly by sidestepping it somehow, usually by changing his plans. He had understood that he should not allow the devil to cut short his fruitful ministry. For at least several months before Paul reached Tyre, the Spirit had again been showing him a grave peril further down the road, this time in the den of vipers at Jerusalem. As in the past, to protect the great work he could still accomplish through God’s power, he should have taken any steps necessary to avoid the danger. But he was refusing to exercise good judgment. His longing for a ministry to fellow Jews had made him careless of his own life. Therefore, beginning at Tyre, God changed His message to Paul. Instead of urging caution, He simply made it clear that Paul should go no further. The prophecy of Agabus reinforced this command, for Paul was expected to recognize two implications: first, that his stubborn mindset made imprisonment by the Romans a certain outcome in Jerusalem, unavoidable by any quantity of fervent prayer; second, that since the result would be great curtailment of his usefulness as an apostle, entering Jerusalem was contrary to God’s will.
After hearing the message of Agabus, everyone present understood readily enough what God was telling Paul. So they all turned to him and pleaded that he listen to God’s command. Luke says "both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem" (v. 12). The reference to "we" informs us that Luke as well as others traveling with Paul did their best to steer the apostle from his reckless course. But also "they of that place"—of Caesarea—fervently warned Paul against going to Jerusalem. The local residents that Luke has mentioned just a few verses earlier are the four daughters of Philip as well as the great evangelist himself. Luke is emphasizing that a loving rebuke of Paul’s intentions proceeded not from Agabus alone, but from all the prophets of God who stood around Paul on this occasion.
Yet Paul refused to listen. He told his friends to stop breaking his heart with their weeping. In his own defense, he said that he was ready to suffer more than bondage for Christ’s sake. He was ready even to die. We see here that Paul was not being completely honest with himself. He spoke of the certain outcome before him as suffering for Christ. Indeed, he had for many years endured much loss and hardship and pain for Christ’s sake. But what he would soon suffer would not really be for Christ, but for his own misguided love of the Jews. He would be sacrificing himself on the altar of an unholy love—unholy because it provoked Paul to behavior that God had forbidden.
When all of Paul’s friends could not dissuade him from going to Jerusalem, they at last stopped trying to change his mind. They accepted his determination as final and resigned themselves to what would surely happen. From the Holy Spirit they knew that he would meet trouble and become a prisoner of the Romans. But since he was determined to go, they accepted it as God’s will and prayed for the best. How can God’s will be opposed to God’s will? They meant that God had chosen to let Paul have his own way. He could have stopped Paul by circumstances, or He could have reshaped Paul's thinking without consent of Paul's free will, but rather He gave Paul control over his own life so that he might learn the folly in all his pious excuses for disobedience.
Pondering a Question
How could such a man of God so flagrantly disobey God? What was his motivation? Why was he not afraid of God's wrath?
It is beyond question that Paul went to Jerusalem in direct violation of a divine command. Among those we esteem as great saints, he was not the first who failed God. Abraham, the friend of God, said that his wife Sarah was his sister. Why? He distorted truth to save his own skin. Moses, who spoke with God face to face, demeaned God through an impulsive display of temper while he was miraculously bringing water from a rock, and as punishment he lost the right to enter the Promised Land. David, the man after God's own heart, lusted after Bathsheba. Peter, chief of the twelve disciples, denied Jesus several times when Jesus was on trial. The list goes on. The Bible is at great pains to show us the weakness that clings to the best of men. It does not want us to turn mere men into objects of adoration. The only one we should adore is God. The Bible shows us that even Paul—Paul, the spiritual father of all gentile believers, the apostle unequaled in his selfless devotion to the work of God, the man who rose from unpromising beginnings as the chief of sinners to such heights of spirituality that he could say, "For me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21)—even Paul at the climax of his years of ministry was, nevertheless, still imperfect. The chief of sinners was still a sinner.
A reader who learns in Acts 21 of Paul's sad decision to go forward into Jerusalem will remember that the same man had proved himself fallible on other occasions as well. He and Barnabas had fallen into sharp dispute over whether they should use Mark again (Acts 15:36–41)—a dispute based on inattention to the Holy Spirit, who wanted these apostles to part company and undertake two missionary journeys instead of one.
Still, how was it possible for a man like Paul to pursue his own will in flagrant disregard of God's will? The key is certain comments that Paul makes in his epistle to the Romans (Rom. 10:1; 9:1-3). These explain why Paul proceeded to Jerusalem. He was not content with taking the gospel to the gentiles. Even dearer to him than the lost among the gentiles were the lost among his own people, the Jews. We must remember that in Jerusalem he still had members of his own family (Acts 23:16). Perhaps also some friends and colleagues during his early years were still there. It is unlikely but possible that even his beloved teacher, Gamaliel, was still alive. He mourned at the terrible judgment that awaited all Jews who rejected their Messiah. He felt a deep kinship with them not only because he had the same blood and heritage, but also because he knew that except for the grace of God, he would stand in their place. He too would be a hater of the truth in Christ. His love for the Jews was so great that he was willing, as he said in Romans, to be accursed for their sake. What did he mean? In other words, he was willing to go to hell if, as a result, many Jews might be saved. He really meant it, and he proved that he meant it by going to Jerusalem over God's objections.
Yet he probably did not believe that God would be angry with him. Perhaps he thought that God's command not to go was only to spare him from further suffering—that the prohibition came from a loving Father who thought that Paul had already suffered enough. And in such a prohibition, Paul saw an implied permission to go if he was willing to pay the price. He decided in favor of going because he truly believed that by sharing his testimony with the Jews in Jerusalem, he could bring many of them to salvation.
He would later learn, however, that it had been a huge mistake to cast God’s direction aside. It was not for Paul to guess at God's reasons and override God's command. If he had cooperated with divine leading, he would have left a far greater legacy of gospel work. He would have gone to Rome sooner, preached there as a free man, stayed longer perhaps, and then proceeded to Spain for another round of fruitful ministry. His inspired words in Romans 15:28 show the Lord’s true plan for his life. He never realized his full potential because he stepped out of God’s will. His wrongheaded detour to Jerusalem was a clear setback for the early church.
Far from accomplishing any good purpose, this detour was nothing but an exercise in futility. He was brought before the Sanhedrin, but instead of presenting a strong witness for Christ, he greatly embarrassed himself (chap. 23). Almost his first words were a fleshly outburst against the high priest—a terrible blunder leaving him no alternative but to apologize for breaking the law.
Scripture reveals Paul's disobedience and omits any account of his martyrdom because it does not want us to exalt him overmuch. It wants us to view Christ as the only hero of the New Testament. The true story of Paul is useful as a corrective for hagiolatry (worship of human beings entitled saints in a special sense, like St. Paul or St. Peter), perfectionism, and other aberrations from sound teaching.
Paul now would be the first to advise that we recognize his error in going to Jerusalem. It is recorded in Scripture to teach us better judgment in comparable situations.
Getting Practical
Misguided love
How often has Satan used the same tactic to draw a good man or a good woman into folly! He exploits a misguided love. He persuades the person of tender heart to waste his energies on hopeless efforts to reform the incorrigible. The time comes when it is necessary to give up on a resolute sinner and adopt pursuits that will yield profit for eternity. Remember that the Lord rebuked Samuel for making himself miserable with continuing intercession for Saul, who had become a hopeless case (1 Sam. 16:1).
Pondering a Question
Why did Paul stay many days in Caesarea?
Luke says that Paul and his team of companions remained in the city "many days." The wording seems a strong clue that Luke’s later summation, "And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done," gives only a glimpse of what happened. It is, after all, inconceivable that after hearing Agabus prophesy Paul’s imprisonment, the apostle’s dear friends and companions made little effort to change his plans—that their pleading with him to reconsider did not go beyond a brief exchange of words. At the very least, they would have urged delay to allow more prayer, in the hope that as Spirit-filled believers, the whole group including Paul would reach consensus concerning God’s will. Consequently, the travelers spent many days in Caesarea before they were ready to leave. As it turned out, they did reach consensus, although it was predicated on Paul’s refusal to change his mind.
If our estimates have been correct, Paul arrived in Caesarea on 12 June late in the day. The feast was coming up soon, on the sixteenth. We will show later that with the fastest means of transport under the best conditions, the journey from Caesarea to Jerusalem required at least two days. Thus, to reach the capital before the end of the day preceding the feast, the company had to depart from Caesarea no later than the early morning of the fourteenth. We see that Paul’s schedule permitted a halt in Caesarea of only one day. Instead, they remained there "many days." By lingering so long, they could not have reached Jerusalem by the sixteenth whether they arrived in Caesarea at the time we computed or a few days earlier.
One conclusion of this spiritual drama is that all the travelers evidently missed the feast.
Journey to Jerusalem
Acts 21:15-16
Luke says that when the time for departure came, "we took up our carriages." The meaning of the word translated "took up our carriages" is uncertain, but likely indicates that they "packed up and left."17 To conclude that it refers to departure on horseback would be unwarranted. In Roman times, stirrups had not yet been invented, so for this and other reasons, long-distance travel on horseback was uncommon except for soldiers and couriers. Yet the word of uncertain meaning clearly implies that Paul and the people with him found some means of carrying their baggage. Possibly it was mules or other pack animals,18 but far more likely it was carriages. Along major roads, travel by carriage was a common practice of the wealthy.19 So the KJV may be giving a true picture of what happened. Since the road for the remaining journey to Jerusalem was a major highway, horse-drawn vehicles probably could be rented both at the outset and at stations along the way. Doubtless Paul’s delegation had sufficient funds to secure these for the sake of both speed and comfort.
A large company of disciples traveled with Paul, including Luke (whose presence is implied by his use of the terms "we" and "us"), the men from Greece and Macedonia who were bearing contributions to the church in Jerusalem, and a group of disciples from Caesarea. Another fellow traveler was Mnason of Cyprus, who was returning to his home in Jerusalem.
He is identified as an "old disciple." The meaning is not that he was aged, although perhaps he was, but that he had followed Christ since the early days of the church. He was the one who would provide lodging when they all reached their destination. It would have been difficult after arrival to arrange same-night accommodations for such a large party including many gentiles, so they made preparations beforehand. Mnason, whose name may be a Grecized form of Manasseh,20 was evidently a Jew who had no qualms about putting gentiles under his roof. It is thus reasonable to suppose that he was one of the Hellenistic Jews who were such a strong presence in the church during the years after Pentecost.21
With good vehicles on a good road, Paul and his friends were probably able to pass the sixty-four miles (103 km.)22 from Caesarea to Jerusalem in only two days.
Reception at Jerusalem
Acts 21:17-20
In Jerusalem, Paul received a warm welcome from all the brethren who saw him, and on the very next day after arrival he went for private consultations with James and the elders of the church. James had established himself as church leader many years earlier, probably even before the Jerusalem Council. Then, Peter was still present in the city, but now he was gone. Now, none of the original twelve apostles remained. This we surmise from Luke's failure to mention any of them.
Pondering a Question
What happened to the original Twelve?
In obedience to Christ's command to evangelize the "uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8), they probably scattered far and wide. Early documentary evidence concerning their travels is scanty, but later traditions place them almost everywhere.23 A strong tradition with some historical backing credits Thomas and Bartholomew with work in India.24
James and the elders were delighted to hear Paul's report of all the gentiles who had been brought into the church through his ministry. They glorified God for the great increase of redeemed souls. The church in Jerusalem was prospering also. Its membership had not shrunk since the apostles left, but still numbered many thousands.
James's Proposal
Acts 21:21-27a
Although the leaders in Jerusalem gave Paul a warm welcome, they voiced a particular concern. A story was circulating that Paul was being false to his Jewish heritage—that he was encouraging Jewish believers in the churches he founded to forsake the law and live like gentiles. The believers in Jerusalem found the story scandalous, for they were all zealous to keep the law and uphold the traditions rooted in Moses. The story went so far as to accuse Paul of teaching Jews that they should give up circumcising their baby boys. James and the other elders were therefore afraid that Paul's coming might trigger conflict in the church. They said, "What is it therefore?" In other words, "What should be done?" They cautioned Paul that they did not have much time to avert a crisis. Soon everyone in the church would hear that Paul had arrived and would gather to see him. Then, unless the explosive charges against Paul were defused, there would be contention and division.
The governing body meeting with Paul recommended that he take steps immediately to prove that he respected and observed Jewish traditions. Four men in the church had taken a vow, and church leaders wanted Paul to help these men fulfill its requirements. First, he needed to join them in a purification rite. Second, he needed to pay all their expenses. Paul consented to the proposal, and on the very next day he joined the men in ceremonial cleansing. Then the whole group entered the Temple and declared to the proper official the planned date for completing the days of purification. After this date arrived, the four men intended, as their last duty in fulfillment of their vows, to present offerings and also, according to James, to shave their heads.
Pondering a Question
Why did the men need purification before entering the Temple, and how did they obtain it?
The purification rite that Paul and the other men underwent before they entered the Temple the first time was simply standard procedure for all Jews. Notice what one church historian has written.
By the time of Christ, ceremonial cleanliness by water had become institutionalized into a purity ritual involving full immersion in a mikveh (or miqveh), a "collection of water." Mikveh purification was required of all Jews before they could enter the Temple or participate in major festivals. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converged on Jerusalem for Passover and other major feasts. One hundred mikvehs, attesting to the need for water purification before entering into Temple rites, have been found by Hebrew University’s Benjamin Mazar around the wall adjacent to Herod’s Temple. Mikvehs, resembling large bathtubs or small garden ponds, have been found in Jericho and elsewhere in Israel.25
Outside the Temple near the eastern end of the southern wall was a "ritual bath complex for those coming to the Temple, prior to their entry into the sacred enclosure."26
The necessity of purification before going into the Temple was especially incumbent on Jews arriving from foreign countries, because in rabbinic law, a person became unclean simply by contact with "earth from a foreign country."27
The procedure that Paul followed has provoked endless debate. The main reason is that our knowledge of Jewish religious practice has gaps in it, despite the copious rabbinical writings in our possession. What we can deduce from James's proposal to Paul is two indisputable facts: (1) that four men had already taken a vow, and (2) it must have been a Nazirite vow (discussed in an earlier lesson28). Otherwise there would be no reference to shaving their heads. Under Pharisaical rules, such a vow was binding for at least thirty days. But when launching into further interpretation, scholars go in different directions. Some view as decisive the fact that Paul participated in a purification ritual lasting seven days, exactly what the law mandated for anyone wishing to escape from severe defilement (Num. 19:11).
Delving Still Deeper
The period of seven days
Most scholars take the position that the seven days measure the purification rite performed by Paul to rid himself of gentile contamination.29 They believe that Pharisaical policy required him to go through the whole cleansing process mandated by Mosaic law for anyone who had touched a dead body, a man's bone, or a grave, or who had come into a tent where a dead body was lying (Num. 19, especially vv. 11–12, 16–19). A person defiled in this way was unclean seven days. To become clean again required sprinkling on days three and seven with a special preparation called "water of separation."
Several problems undermine this position:
- Mosaic law distinguished two degrees of uncleanness. Anyone who violated the restrictions already mentioned contracted uncleanness for seven days. But anyone who merely touched someone with seven-day uncleanness became unclean only until evening (Num. 19:21–22). Rabbinic law recognized these two grades of uncleanness.30 The question is, what grade did a Jew contract by association with gentiles, their things, and their world? When treating "earth from a foreign country," the Mishnah states that it conveys "uncleanness by contact and carrying, but not by overshadowing."31 Earth is where dead people are buried. Yet gentile earth is not defiling like a tent overshadowing a corpse. The implication is that such earth is not a source of first-grade defilement—that defilement by contact is only second-grade. Gentile contamination was generally of this sort. It follows that Paul did not need to go through a purification rite lasting seven days.
- A mob attacked Paul "when the seven days were almost ended" (literally, "when the seven days were about to be completed"32). When Paul later spoke in his defense, he said that at the time of his arrest by the mob, he was already "purified" (Acts 24:18). Indeed, he achieved purification even before his first visit (v. 24). How could he be considered purified if the worst grade of uncleanness still clung to him?
- It seems unlikely for many practical reasons that the priests would have imposed a weeklong purification rite on all foreign pilgrims who wanted to attend a feast in Jerusalem.
Our position, which we have just defended, is that the seven-day ritual required to escape from severe defilement (Num. 19:11) was unnecessary in Paul's case. How then should we understand the seven days that he and the other men observed? We will build our interpretation on a foundation of two facts.
- The four men had already taken a Nazirite vow.
- The days that had to be fulfilled before they presented final offerings are called "days of purification." The Greek phrase so translated33 also appears in Numbers 6:5 of the Septuagint,34 where it renders the Hebrew phrase corresponding to "days of . . . separation" in the KJV.35 The reference is to a Nazirite's term of special dedication to the Lord. We may justly surmise that in Paul's day, among Greek-speaking Jews familiar with the Septuagint, the phrase bore the same meaning.
Consequently, the most natural interpretation of the seven days does not support the speculation that Paul was seeking relief from gentile contamination. Nor does it support one scholar's speculation (which he in later years rejected) that the four men were going through the seven-day exercise required of any Nazirite who broke his vow (Num. 6:9–12).36 The truth is much simpler. The Nazirite vow of these four was due for completion in another seven days.
On the eighth day, each would bring to the Temple an offering of two lambs, a ram, a basket of unleavened bread, cakes, wafers, and other food and drink (Num. 6:14-15). To pay for all these very expensive offerings was an obligation that Paul had taken upon himself. Giving financial aid to any of the poor who wished to enjoy the privilege of being a Nazirite was widely viewed as an especially commendable act of charity.37
Yet Paul took upon himself another obligation as well. Throughout the seven days, he would make a public display of close fellowship with the four men, no doubt intended to emphasize solidarity between the churches abroad and the church in Jerusalem. On the next day after talking to James and the elders, Paul escorted the four Nazirites to the Temple, there (literally) "declaring the [intended] fulfillment of the days of the purification, until was offered for each one of them the offering."38 It is very possible that Paul not only announced when the vow would terminate, but also made arrangements for final sacrifices. Indeed, it is not improbable that he gave advance payment, this serving as strong, immediate testimony that he wanted Jews to uphold their traditions. Then every subsequent day until offerings were made, he planned to join the men again for worship at the Temple.
Why did Paul cooperate with the leaders of the Jerusalem church? Among the Jews, he always behaved like a Jew so as not to offend them, in keeping with his policy of being all things to all men (1 Cor. 9:19-22). The issue that racked the church years before was not whether the law was binding on Jews, but whether it was binding on gentiles. Paul at that time strongly defended his practice of exempting gentiles from the law, and the entire council assembled at Jerusalem, including James, agreed with him. Now James reaffirmed his support for the ruling years before. But he said, in essence, that although he stood with Paul in granting gentiles freedom from the law, he expected Paul to stand with him in maintaining the law as a rule of life for the Jews. He spoke of a Jew who kept the law as walking orderly. By implication, he thought that a Jew who broke the law was walking disorderly.
Getting Practical
Danger in disobedience
In Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem, we see all the dangers in disregarding the clear leading of God. He had not been there more than a day or so when he found himself under pressure to compromise his own convictions. He did not quarrel with Jews who wanted to live according to Moses, but he did not feel that he was personally obliged to maintain all the rituals, dietary restrictions, and special days decreed by Old Testament ceremonial law. In the passage we have already cited from First Corinthians, written well before his last visit to Jerusalem, he said, "For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law" (1 Cor. 9:19–21). He meant that he threw Mosaic standards aside when he sought to win gentiles. Likewise Peter, when he moved in gentile company, abandoned strict observance of ceremonial law, although when ambassadors from James came to Antioch, he reverted to his Jewish identity in an attempt to avoid their censure. Paul publicly rebuked him for putting on a pretense (Gal. 2:11-14).
Not only did Paul himself ignore the ceremonial law when it hindered outreach to gentiles, but he also allowed Jewish converts to exercise their own discretion. In his epistle to the Romans, also written before his last trip to Jerusalem, he said, "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks" (Rom. 14:5-6). Similar advice in his later epistle to the Colossians specifies that one optional day was the Sabbath (Col. 2:16-17). We can be certain that the expected readers of both epistles included Jewish converts. And he clearly told them that whether they maintained or forsook Jewish ceremonial law fell in the realm of personal freedom. Either course was permissible so long as their purpose was to honor the Lord.
Yet James asked Paul to put on a show suggesting that he did regard Jewish tradition as binding. By going along with James, Paul entered a compromising position which was nothing other than hypocritical.
The lesson for us is that one step away from God leads us irresistibly to another. We soon find ourselves lost in a maze of compromises that are hard to escape.
Delving Deeper
James's portion of guilt
In the same incident, we see not only Paul as blameworthy, but also James. By imposing upon Paul his own imperfect understanding of freedom in Christ, James made Paul an actual prisoner.
A trap was being laid for Paul. If he had responded with true wisdom, reckoning his own personal safety as a priority, he would have declined to remain in the city for any reason however spiritual or practical it seemed. The right option after delivering the money was to leave the city as soon as possible. But a very wise man failed on this occasion to be wise, for he lingered in a dangerous place just to make a hypocritical show of his Jewishness. It was huge folly, and he paid a dear price for it.
Riot and Arrest
Acts 21:27b-30
While Paul tarried in Jerusalem to assist the four believers who had taken a Nazirite vow, many foreign Jews who had come to observe the Feast of Pentecost were still roaming the streets and Temple precincts. Paul was accompanying the men as they went to the Temple daily during their days of separation and offerings, but somehow he escaped being noticed until the last or nearly last day. Then some Jews from Asia Minor spotted him. It so happened that these were Jews hostile to Paul, who hated him because they had rejected the gospel he preached. In their eyes, he was a traitor to his religion and nation. It was their passionate conviction that he was promoting a false messiah, and they deplored his teaching that entrance into the Kingdom of God came through Jesus, not Moses. Therefore, when they found Paul defenseless in their midst, they saw an opportunity for vengeance. They cried out accusations and, gaining the backing of a mob, they grabbed hold of him. The accusations reveal how deeply they hated the apostle. They said that in his teaching he attacked the Jews, the Jewish law, and the Jewish Temple.
Paul's arrest shortly after Pentecost in AD 58 was a pivotal moment in his career. The date was approximately 25 June.
Pondering a Question
Were there any grounds for the charges brought against Paul?
The charges were preposterous! They were a smokescreen for the real grievance. What the Jews resented was that Paul offered a way of salvation that did not require men to become Jews, or keep the Jewish law, or attend the Jewish Temple. He did not attack anything. He merely offered a religion that ignored all grounds for Jewish pride. He put all men on an equal footing before God—in essence, declaring that God loves gentiles as much as Jews.
Whereas these accusations were all distortions, the Jews brought another that was simply a lie. They shouted that Paul had desecrated their beloved Temple by bringing in uncircumcised gentiles. Although gentiles were admitted to the outermost court, known as the Court of the Gentiles, they were denied entrance to the inner courts, known as the Holy Place.39 Signs posted outside this second enclosure warned gentiles not to go farther, lest they be put to death.40 As we said earlier, even the Romans acknowledged that the Jews had the right to impose the death penalty on any gentile, not excluding any Roman, who violated their Temple.41
The only basis for the lie was that in the city outside the Temple, some of the rabble-rousers had seen Paul with Trophimus, a gentile from Ephesus. Trophimus had come with Paul all the way from Corinth (Acts 20:4), and afterward he remained his faithful helper (2 Tim. 4:20).
The excitement at the Temple quickly spread to the whole city. People heard that the precious seat of their religion had been profaned by wicked men, and they rushed from all districts to vent their wrath on the perpetrators. In their unreasoning fury they wanted blood. So, the multitude that soon gathered must have roared with approval when men dragged Paul out of the Temple for the obvious purpose of killing him. The probable meaning is that they removed him from the Holy Place to the Court of the Gentiles.42 To restore order within the Temple (in the narrow sense excluding the outer court), the authorities shut the inner doors, thereby forcing the crowd to remain outside.
The mob holding Paul made no effort to assure justice. There was no pretense of a trial. Yet they did not kill him outright. They delayed giving him fatal wounds so that their wrath might take pleasure in beating him up.
Getting Practical
Staying on safe ground
Paul's course of disobedience has now brought him into serious trouble. The lesson for us is that when we walk outside God's will, we leave the envelope of his protection. We expose ourselves to attacks of the evil one that we could have avoided. God gives us many promises of watch care, but they are all contingent on remaining close to him, as close as a nestling to its mother when it lies under the shadow of her wings (Ps. 91:1-4).
Except for going to Jerusalem, Paul would never have become party to an unnecessary vow, implying a devotion to the Mosaic law that he did not share. Except for joining in the ritual required by the vow, he would never have been caught by murderous hands.
Soldiers to the Rescue
Acts 21:31-36
The Romans kept a close eye on the Temple because there was always the danger of a riot. The Jews were a discontented people, resentful of the Roman presence and brimming with desire for independence. They were easily aroused to passion in defense of anything Jewish. So, from a hundred-foot high turret rising from the Fortress of Antonia built against the northwest corner of the Temple, the Romans kept a lookout for any disturbance that might erupt among the masses below.43 It is also possible that Roman sentries patrolled the tops of the colonnades lining the Temple compound.44 Such vigilance was based on experience. In the past, the crowd of worshipers had sometimes turned into a frenzied mob. Security was especially tight during festivals, because not only were the crowds larger, but they were filled with foreign Jews on pilgrimages to the holy city. Their religious zeal ran high, so any call to lash out in defense of the things they held sacred found them receptive.
Soldiers posted to watch the Temple saw the uproar centered on Paul, helpless in angry hands, and immediately they informed their superiors. The news went straightway to the commander of local forces. As we learn later, he was Claudius Lysias, identified in our English translation as "chief captain of the band." The band refers to a Roman cohort, a military contingent of substantial size, containing a thousand men when fully staffed.45 Luke identifies Claudius’s actual rank as chiliarch (χιλιαρκος,46 Greek rendering of Latin tribunus47). A chiliarch or tribune was somewhat higher than a mere centurion. Indeed, Claudius had centurions under his command (v. 32), each responsible for about a hundred men. In response to the alert, he called out the contingents under two or more centurions and led them into the Temple compound.
They entered the compound by running down. Although the fortress where they had been stationed was elevated above the outermost court, two downward flights of stairs furnished ready access.48
The soldiers raced to the center of the disturbance and found a mob in the act of beating up Paul. When Paul's angry tormentors saw the soldiers coming, they let go of him immediately and retreated from superior force. They knew that resisting Roman arms was suicidal.
Claudius took custody of Paul and, on the assumption that he was some ordinary criminal or nuisance, ordered that he be bound in chains. But to be sure that he understood the nature of the trouble, he asked the bystanders who Paul was and what he had done. The answer was a chaos of voices offering conflicting and confusing explanations. At last, having determined that he could not get a satisfactory answer from the crowd, the commander ordered his men to take Paul to the fortress. There he would investigate the matter and find out the true cause of the commotion.
When the soldiers started off with their prisoner, they found that to make progress was difficult. The mob pressed them so aggressively on all sides that they could push their way through only by using brute force. To protect Paul, they picked him up and carried him. Yet they could not escape from the mob, who followed behind, screaming with fury, "Away with him."
Urgent Discussion
Acts 21:37-40
When they reached the stairs, Paul asked the commander if he could speak with him. Claudius was greatly surprised to hear his captive use Greek. He must have assumed that Paul was a lower-class Jew of the sort who could speak only Aramaic. Then, after a quick search through his memory of wanted men still at large, Claudius offered a guess as to Paul's identity. If he was a Greek speaker, perhaps he came from the colony of Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria, Egypt. Perhaps he was even that Egyptian Jew who a few years ago had fomented a revolt against the Roman rulers of Judea. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, this Egyptian had come to Jerusalem in AD 54 and presented himself to the people as a prophet with miraculous powers. He said that if they followed him to the Mount of Olives, he would command the city walls to fall down, much as the walls of Jericho had fallen down at Joshua's command, and his followers would then be able to march into the city and take it from the Romans. Josephus says he assembled a force of 30,000, who waited on the mount for the walls to collapse. But what they soon beheld instead was an advancing force of soldiers sent by the Roman ruler Festus to crush the revolt. Although the attackers quickly succeeded in killing four hundred and capturing two hundred, the leader of the rebels escaped, and at the time of Paul's arrest, the Romans were still looking for him.49
Claudius's version of the incident is no doubt more accurate than Josephus's. The followers of the Egyptian probably numbered 4000 rather than 30,000. Claudius called them "murderers"; literally, "dagger men" or "assassins" (Latin sicarii, derived from the word for dagger).50 He meant that they were forerunners of a group then emerging known as the Assassins (Sicarii), a secret society pushing the nation toward the full-scale rebellion a few years later that provoked the Romans to destroy Jerusalem. We today would call this society a terrorist organization. They specialized in assassination targeting Romans or Roman sympathizers. Their favorite ploy was to find their victim in a crowd and stab him unobserved.51
When the commander tried to draw from Paul an admission that he was a notorious rebel, Paul vehemently denied it. He said that he was a respectable Jew from an honorable place, the city of Tarsus in Cilicia, renowned as a center of Greek culture and learning. He then respectfully sought permission to address the crowd. The commander, who was in all probability a good judge of men, could see that Paul did not look like a villain. He seemed rational and kindly, not wild and fierce. Very quickly Claudius decided that Paul was likely a good man worthy of his trust. So, on the chance that Paul himself might be able to quiet and disperse the crowd, Claudius let him speak.
Paul stood forward on the stairs and motioned to the crowd to be silent. In this incident as well as in several others recorded in the Book of Acts, we see that many popular pictures of Paul are not true to life. His enemies in Corinth said of him that "his bodily presence [was] weak, and his speech contemptible" (2 Cor. 10:10). But we need not accept this as a fair judgment. Perhaps they were comparing him with Greek orators boasting a splendid physique honed in the gymnasium and a flashy delivery refined in courses on rhetoric. We discover the real Paul by watching him on the steps of the fortress. There he was anything but weak. To bring an unruly crowd of thousands to silence and then to command their attention for a prolonged speech required strength of both presence and voice.
After succeeding in gaining silence, Paul addressed the crowd in the "Hebrew tongue." This was the usual way of identifying the language known to all, Aramaic.52 Very similar to Old Testament Hebrew, it was the common tongue of non-Greek speakers in the Roman world east of the Mediterranean, including Palestine and Syria. It was also widely used in the Persian (Parthian) Empire.53 If Paul had used true Hebrew, probably most of the crowd pressing forward in the court below the stairs—whether foreign pilgrims, Galileans, or even Judeans—would not have understood him.
Delving Deeper
Itinerary
The first stages of Paul's journey were daylong trips from one harbor to the next along the conventional route keeping close to the southern coast of Anatolia (that is, Asia Minor). On the first day his ship went fifty miles (80 km.) from Miletus to Cos, on the second it went seventy-five miles (121 km.) from Cos to Rhodes (assuming it went fairly straight instead of hovering near the coast), and on the third it went sixty miles (97 km.) from Rhodes to Patara.2
The much longer stage across open sea, from Patara to Tyre, was considerably more hazardous, but the boat carrying his party would have been a more substantial craft, doubtless a merchant ship designed to transport goods over the shorter but more difficult shipping lanes joining distant shores. Altogether, the passage covered about 400 miles (620 km.),3 which, under favorable conditions, could be achieved in five days.4 When Paul disembarked, he stood in a free city north of provincial Judea.