Opening: Ever return from a trip or vacation and find a big problem at home?
Broken water line filling the basement for who knows how long? A home break-in?
No heat? What emotions do you have? Do some “ugly” words come out of your
mouth?
Scripture: Read Acts 21:17-36.
Insights:
- When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he reported to the Church leaders, who accepted him and saw God's hand in his work. They praised God for it.
- But Paul was faced a church with a problem. The Judaizers were at it again! They accused Paul of encouraging Jews to forsake their ancestral faith. This Paul had never done. True, he had insisted that the Jewish Law was irrelevant for the Gentile, but he never sought to draw the Jew away from the customs of his fathers.[1] It was ok for Gentiles to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.[2] But Jews were held to a different standard.
- The proposed solution to Paul: join four men in a Nazarite purification – you even pay for it all[3] – then Jews will see that you are ok. Paul was probably not very happy about it; for him the relevancy of things like that was gone by the grace of God through the Cross of Christ. But he did it because he felt that he should “become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”[4] It is the sign of a truly great person that can subordinate his or her own wishes and views for the sake of the Church.
- Paul's compromise led to disaster. It was the time of Pentecost. Jews were present in Jerusalem from all over the world and certain Jews from Asia were there[5], who no doubt knew how effective Paul's work in Asia had been. They had seen Paul in the city with Trophimus, an Ephesian Gentile who someone knew. The business of the vow had taken Paul frequently into the Temple courts and these Jews assumed that Paul had taken Trophimus into the Temple along with him, which was unlawful. It was so serious that even the Romans allowed the Jews to carry out the death penalty for this crime.
- What a riot. It was so bad that the Roman commander assumed that Paul was dangerous enough that he had him bound with two chains, not just one. Or maybe the commander was trying to protect Paul by chaining each arm to two soldiers.
Life
Questions:
- Luke points out that the seven days of the purification ceremony were nearly over. Just a little bit longer, and Paul would have been out of the limelight. Sometimes it seems that circumstances rule our world. What do you think about the possibility that God was using all of this for His purposes? Is it also in the realm of possibility that the circumstances of your life might also be vehicles for a work of God that you may not understand right now? Do you have one of those in your life today?
- The prophecies regarding Paul’s binding came true (see Acts 21:10-11). In the past, Paul had the freedom to go wherever the Holy Spirit led to preach the Gospel. From this point on, he would have to devise a new strategy for his work, since many years would be spent in prison. We can discover this true for us as well. Have you ever determined that you or the church would need a new strategy for doing the work God wanted done? What was it? How do you feel in the transition? Bound like in chains? Confused?
Prayer
Focus: That we would continue to trust God even when life
takes a sharp corner to the right.
[1] See Galatians 5:2
[2] Acts 21:25, also Acts
15:20-21
[3] Paul would pay for the
offering: a year old lamb for a sin-offering, a ram for a peace offering, a
basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil and a meat
offering and a drink offering. Pretty expensive!
[4] 1 Corinthians 9:22 (NRSV)
[5] Remember Acts 2?
