Acts 21

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?” asked Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton … To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Emerson might have added that the apostle Paul was misunderstood, by friends and foes alike. Three of these misunderstandings—and their consequences— are recorded in these chapters.

Paul had to tear himself away from the Ephesian elders, so great was his love for them. He and his party sailed from Miletus to Cos, then to Rhodes, and then to Patera, a total of three days’ journey. But Paul was uncomfortable with a “local coastal” ship that stopped at every port, so when he found a boat going directly to Phoenicia, he and his friends boarded it. It would be a voyage of about four hundred miles.

Tyre (vv. 3–6). This would have been Paul’s first contact with the believers in Tyre, though it is likely that his persecution of the Jerusalem believers helped to get this church started (Acts 11:19). The men had to seek out the believers, so it must not have been a large assembly, and apparently there was no synagogue in the town. They stayed a week with the saints while their ship unloaded its cargo and took on new cargo.

Paul had devoted a good part of his third missionary journey to taking up a love gift for the Jews in Judea. It was a practical way for the Gentiles to show their oneness with their Jewish brothers and sisters, and to repay them for sharing the gospel with the Gentiles (Rom. 15:25–27). There was in the church a constant threat of division, for the Jewish extremists (the Judaizers) wanted the Gentiles to live like Jews and follow the law of Moses (Acts 15:1ff.). Wherever Paul ministered, these extremists tried to hinder his work and steal his converts. Paul hoped that his visit to Jerusalem with the offering would help to strengthen the fellowship between Jews and Gentiles.

Now, Paul began to get messages from his friends that his visit to Jerusalem would be difficult and dangerous. Of course, he had already suspected this, knowing how the false teachers operated (Rom. 15:30–31), but these messages were very personal and powerful. In Tyre, the believers “kept on saying to him” (literal Greek) that he should not set foot in Jerusalem.

After a week in Tyre, Paul and his party departed. It is touching to see how the believers had come to love Paul, though they had known him only a week. The first stop was Ptolemais, where they visited the believers for a day, and then they sailed to Caesarea, their final destination.

Caesarea (vv. 7–14). The men stayed with Philip, one of the original deacons (Acts 6:1–6) who also served as an evangelist (Acts 8:5ff.). It was now some twenty years since he had come to Caesarea and made it his headquarters (Acts 8:40). Since Philip had been an associate of Stephen, and Paul had taken part in Stephen’s death, this must have been an interesting meeting.

While Paul rested in Caesarea, the prophet Agabus came to give him a second warning message from the Lord. Some fifteen years before, Paul and Agabus had worked together in a famine relief program for Judea (Acts 11:27–30), so they were not strangers. Agabus delivered his message in a dramatic way as he bound his own hands and feet with Paul’s girdle and told the apostle that he would be bound in Jerusalem.

As did the saints in Tyre, so the believers in Caesarea begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Surely the men chosen by the churches could deliver the love offering to James and the Jerusalem elders, and it would not be necessary for Paul to go personally. But Paul silenced them and told them that he was prepared (“ready”) not only to be bound, but also to die if necessary for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we must pause to consider whether Paul was right or wrong in making that trip to Jerusalem. If it seems improper, or even blasphemous, so to examine the actions of an apostle, keep in mind that he was a human being like anyone else. His epistles were inspired, but this does not necessarily mean that everything he did was perfect. Whether he was right or wrong, we can certainly learn from his experience.

On the con side, these repeated messages do sound like warnings to Paul to stay out of Jerusalem. For that matter, over twenty years before, the Lord had commanded Paul to get out of Jerusalem because the Jews would not receive his testimony (Acts 22:18). Paul had already written to the Romans about the dangers in Judea (Acts 15:30–31), and he had shared these same feelings with the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:22–23), so he was fully aware of the problems involved.

On the pro side, the prophetic utterances can be taken as warnings (“Get ready!”) rather than as prohibitions (“You must not go!”). The statement in Acts 21: does not use the Greek negative ou, which means absolute prohibition, but me, used “where one thinks a thing is not” (Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, by G. Abbott-Smith, 289). Agabus did not forbid Paul to go to Jerusalem; he only told him what to expect if he did go. As for the Lord’s command in Acts 22:18, it applied to that particular time and need not be interpreted as a prohibition governing the rest of Paul’s life. While it is true that Paul avoided Jerusalem, it is also true that he returned there on other occasions: with famine relief (Acts 11:27–30); to attend the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15:1ff.); and after his second missionary journey (Acts 18:22—“going up to greet the church” refers to Jerusalem).

In view of Paul’s statement in Acts 23:1, and the Lord’s encouraging words in Acts 23:11, it is difficult to believe that the apostle deliberately disobeyed the revealed will of God. God’s prophecy to Ananias (Acts 9:15) certainly came true in the months that followed as Paul had opportunity to witness for Christ.

Instead of accusing Paul of compromise, we ought to applaud him for his courage. Why? Because in going to Jerusalem, he took his life in his hands in order to try to solve the most pressing problem in the church: the growing division between the “far right” legalistic Jews and the believing Gentiles. Ever since the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15), trouble had been brewing, and the legalists had been following Paul and seeking to capture his converts. It was a serious situation, and Paul knew that he was a part of the answer as well as a part of the problem. But he could not solve the problem by remote control through representatives; he had to go to Jerusalem personally.

Jerusalem (vv. 15–17). A company of believers left Caesarea and traveled with Paul to Jerusalem, probably to celebrate the feast. It was a journey of sixty-five miles that took at least three days by foot—two days if they had animals. What fellowship they must have enjoyed as they recounted what God had done in and through them! What a great encouragement it was for Paul to have these friends at his side as he faced the challenge of Jerusalem.

The city would be crowded with pilgrims, but Paul and his party planned to live with Mnason, “an early disciple,” who lived in Jerusalem and had been visiting Caesarea. Was he perhaps converted under Peter’s preaching at Pentecost? Or did his fellow Cypriot Barnabas win him to Christ (Acts 4:36)? We are not told, but we do know that Mnason was a man given to hospitality, and his ministry helped Paul at a strategic time in the apostle’s ministry.

We could wish that Dr. Luke had told us more about that first meeting with the church leaders in Jerusalem. James and the other leaders did receive them gladly, but how did they respond to the gift from the Gentiles? Nothing is said about it. Were some of them perhaps a bit suspicious? A few years later, the Roman writer Martial would say, “Gifts are like hooks!” and perhaps some of the Jerusalem elders felt that way about this gift. Certainly the legalistic wing of the church would question anything that Paul said or did.

Apparently that first meeting was devoted primarily to fellowship and personal matters, because the second meeting was given over to Paul’s personal report of his ministry to the Gentiles. The Jerusalem leaders had agreed years before that Paul should minister to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7–10), and the elders rejoiced at what they heard. The phrase “declared particularly” means “reported in detail, item by item.” Paul gave a full and accurate account, not of what he had done, but of what the Lord had done through his ministry (see 1 Cor. 15:10).

You get the impression that the legalists had been working behind the scenes. No sooner had Paul finished his report than the elders brought up the rumors that were then being circulated about Paul among the Jewish Christians. It has well been said that, though a rumor doesn’t have a leg to stand on, it travels mighty fast!

What were his enemies saying about Paul? Almost the same things they said about Jesus and Stephen: he was teaching the Jews to forsake the laws and customs given by Moses and the fathers. They were not worried about what Paul taught the Gentile believers, because the relationship of the Gentiles to the law had been settled at the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15). In fact, the elders carefully rehearsed the matter (Acts 21:25), probably for the sake of Paul’s Gentile companions. The leaders were especially concerned that Paul’s presence in the city not cause division or disruption among the “thousands of Jews … zealous of the law” (Acts 21:20).

But, why were so many believing Jews still clinging to the law of Moses? Had they not read Romans and Galatians? Probably not, and even if they had, old customs are difficult to change. In fact, one day God would have to send a special letter to the Jews, the epistle to the Hebrews, to explain the relationship between the old and new covenants. As Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse used to say, “The book of Hebrews was written to the Hebrews to tell them to stop being Hebrews!” It was not until the city and the temple were destroyed in AD 70 that traditional Jewish worship ceased.

Paul did warn the Gentiles not to get involved in the old Jewish religion (Gal. 4:1–11), but he nowhere told the Jews that it was wrong for them to practice their customs, so long as they did not trust in ceremony or make their customs a test of fellowship (Rom. 14:1— 15:7). There was freedom to observe special days and diets, and believers were not to judge or condemn one another. The same grace that gave the Gentiles freedom to abstain also gave the Jews freedom to observe. All God asked was that they receive one another and not create problems or divisions.

It seems incredible that Paul’s enemies would accuse him of these things, for all the evidence was against them. Paul had Timothy circumcised before taking him along on that second missionary journey (Acts 16:1–3). Paul had taken a Jewish vow while in Corinth (Acts 18:18), and it was his custom not to offend the Jews in any way by deliberately violating their customs or the law of Moses (1 Cor. 9:19–23). However, rumors are not usually based on fact, but thrive on half-truths, prejudices, and outright lies.

The leaders suggested that Paul demonstrate publicly his reverence for the Jewish law. All they asked was that he identify himself with four men under a Nazarite vow (Num. 6), pay for their sacrifices, and be with them in the temple for their time of purification. He agreed to do it. If it had been a matter involving somebody’s personal salvation, you can be sure that Paul would never have cooperated, for that would have compromised his message of salvation by grace, through faith. But this was a matter of personal conviction on the part of Jewish believers, who were given the freedom to accept or reject the customs.

Paul reported to the priest the next day and shared in the purification ceremony, but he himself did not take any vows. He and the men had to wait seven days and then offer the prescribed sacrifices. The whole plan appeared to be safe and wise, but it did not work. Instead of bringing peace, it caused an uproar, and Paul ended up a prisoner.

In the temple, separating the court of the Gentiles from the other courts, stood a wall beyond which no Gentile was allowed to go (note Eph. 2:14). On the wall was this solemn inscription: “No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught so doing will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.” The Romans had granted the Jewish religious leaders authority to deal with anybody who broke this law, and this included the right of execution. This law plays an important role in what happened to Paul a week after he and the four Nazarites began their purification ceremonies.

Some Jews from Asia saw Paul in the temple and jumped to the conclusion that he had polluted their sacred building by bringing Gentiles past the barricade. It is likely that these Jews came from Ephesus, because they recognized Paul’s friend Trophimus, who came from Ephesus. With their emotions running at full speed, and their brains in neutral, these men argued: (1) wherever Paul went, his Gentile friends went; (2) Paul was seen in the temple; therefore, his friends had been in the temple too! Such is the logic of prejudice.

They seized Paul and would have killed him had the Roman guards not intervened in the nick of time. (At least one thousand soldiers were stationed in the Antonia Fortress at the northwest corner of the temple area.) The temple crowd was in an uproar, completely ignorant of what was going on. The scene reminds you of the riot in Ephesus. (Compare Acts 21: with Acts 19:29, and Acts 21: with Acts 19:32.) It required the chief captain (Claudius Lysias, Acts 23:26), two centurions, and perhaps two hundred soldiers to get the mob under control and to rescue Paul. The captain actually thought Paul was an Egyptian rebel who was wanted by the Romans for inciting a revolt (Acts 21:38). This explains why he had Paul bound with two chains (see Acts 21:11).

When Claudius interrogated the people, they could not explain what caused the riot because they did not really know. The original troublemakers must have escaped during the great excitement, knowing that they could not actually substantiate their charges. Since Claudius could get no help from the people in the temple, he decided to interrogate Paul, so his soldiers carried Paul from the court of the Gentiles up the stairs into the barracks. As Paul was borne away, the crowd shouted angrily, “Away with him!” This again reminds us of our Lord’s arrest and trial (Luke 23:18, 21; John 19:15).

At this point, Paul decided it was time to speak up, and the captain was amazed that his dangerous prisoner could speak Greek. When Paul asked for permission to address the Jews, Claudius consented, hoping that perhaps he would get enough information for an official report. He never did (see Acts 23:23–30). Paul spoke to the Jews in their native Aramaic, and this helped quiet them down. He was never able to finish his speech, but he did get to explain three important aspects of his life and ministry.

His early conduct (22:3–5). Paul had been a leading rabbi in his day (Gal. 1:13–14), so he was certainly known to some of the people in the crowd. Note how Paul piled up his Jewish credentials: he was a Jew, a native of Tarsus, brought up in Jerusalem, trained by Gamaliel, a follower of the law, a zealous persecutor of the church, and a representative of the Sanhedrin. How could his countrymen not respectfully listen to a man with that kind of record!

Instead of accusing them of participating in a riot, he commended them for being “zealous toward God.” (He had used a similar approach with the Athenians; Acts 17:22.) He admitted that he too had been guilty of having people arrested and bound, and even killed. The Christian faith was known as “the way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 24:14, 22), probably a reference to our Lord’s statement, “I am the way” (John 14:6).

His wonderful conversion (22:6–16). Luke recorded Paul’s conversion experience in Acts 9, and Paul would repeat the account later for Felix and Agrippa (Acts 26:1–32). It is difficult to imagine a comparable crowd today quietly listening to that kind of a testimony. However, people in that day expected miraculous things to happen and were no doubt fascinated by Paul’s story (see Acts 23:9). Also, Paul was on official Sanhedrin business when these events took place, which at least gave it some aura of authority.

In his testimony, Paul affirmed that Jesus of Nazareth was alive. Paul saw His glory and heard His voice. The people listening in the temple courts knew the official Jewish position that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor who had been crucified and His body stolen from the tomb by His disciples, who then started the rumor that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Of course, Paul himself had believed this story when he was persecuting the church.

The men with Paul saw the bright light, but were not blinded as he was, and they heard a sound, but could not understand what was being said (Acts 9:7). Imagine Paul’s amazement to discover that Jesus was alive! Instantly, he had to change his whole way of thinking (repentance) and let the risen Lord have control.

Note Paul’s wisdom as he identified himself with Ananias, a devout Jew who kept the law and who called him “brother.” Note also that Ananias attributed Paul’s great experience to “the God of our fathers.” In quoting Ananias, Paul gave reason for his listeners to accept his salvation experience and his call to service. Paul had seen “the Just [Righteous] One,” which was a title for Messiah (see Acts 3:14; 7:52). Paul was now commissioned by God to take His message to “all men.” This would include the Gentiles, but Paul did not say so until later.

Acts 22: in the King James Version seems to suggest that baptism is required for the washing away of our sins, but such is not the case. In his Expanded Translation of the New Testament, Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest puts it, “Having arisen, be baptized and wash away your sins, having previously called upon His Name.” We are saved by calling on the Lord by faith (Acts 2:21; 9:14), and we give evidence of that faith by being baptized. According to Acts 9:17, Paul was filled with the Spirit before he was baptized, and this would indicate that he was already born again. It is the “calling,” not the baptizing, that effects the cleansing.

Certainly many of Paul’s listeners knew about the new “Christian sect” that had sprung up, the baptisms that had taken place, the stoning of Stephen, and the miracles that these “people of the way” had wrought. Paul was not speaking to ignorant people, because these things had not been “done in a corner” (Acts 26:26).

His special calling (22:17–29). After his conversion, Paul had ministered in Damascus and then had gone to Arabia, perhaps to evangelize and to meditate on God’s Word (Acts 9:19–25; Gal. 1:16–17). When Paul did return to Jerusalem, the church leaders did not accept him until Barnabas interceded and got him in (Acts 9:26–29). Note how Paul again emphasized the Jewish elements in his experience, for the Jews would be impressed with a man who prayed in the temple and had a vision from God.

The Lord told Paul to leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people would not receive his witness. By obeying this command, Paul saved his life, because the Hellenistic Jews had plotted to kill him (Acts 9:29–30). But first, Paul debated with the Lord! He wanted to show the Jews that he was a new person and tell them that Jesus was the Messiah, and He was alive. If Paul won some of them to the Lord, it would perhaps help to compensate for all the damage he had done, especially in the killing of Stephen.

The Lord’s command was, “Depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles” (Acts 22: nkjv). Paul was about to explain why he was involved with the Gentiles, but the Jews in the temple courts would not permit him to go on. No devout Jew would have anything to do with the Gentiles! Had Paul not uttered that one word, he might have later been released, and perhaps he knew this. However, he had to be faithful in his witness, no matter what it cost him. Paul would rather be a prisoner than give up his burden for lost souls and for missions! We could use more Christians like that today.

When Claudius saw that the riot was starting again, he took Paul into the barracks for “examination by torture.” The apostle had already mentioned that he was born in Tarsus, but he had not told them that his citizenship was Roman. It was unlawful for a Roman citizen to be scourged. We do not know how people proved their citizenship in those days; perhaps they carried the first-century equivalent of an ID card.

Claudius must have been shocked that this little Jewish troublemaker who spoke Aramaic and Greek was actually a Roman citizen. “With great sum I obtained this freedom,” Claudius boasted, indicating that he had gotten his citizenship by bribing the Roman officials, for it could not be actually purchased. But Paul was ahead of the Roman captain, for he had been born into freedom and Roman citizenship, thanks to his father. How Paul’s father obtained his freedom, we do not know. We do know that Paul knew how to make use of his Roman citizenship for the cause of Christ.

The soldiers had made two mistakes, and they were quick to undo them: they had bound Paul and had planned to scourge him. No doubt Claudius and his men were especially kind to Paul now that they knew he was a Roman citizen. God was using the great power of the empire to protect His servant and eventually get him to Rome.

Paul’s entire time in Jerusalem was one filled with serious misunderstandings, but he pressed on. Perhaps at this point some of his friends were saying, “We told him so! We warned him!” For Paul and his associates, it may have looked like the end of the road, but God had other plans for them. Paul would witness again and again, and to people he could never have met had he not been a Roman prisoner. God’s missionary did get to Rome—and the Romans paid the bill!

That’s what happens when God’s people are willing to be daring!