Acts 21, Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Paul has been traveling to Jerusalem, in a round about way, and throughout his travels he has received warnings over what will take place if he goes to Jerusalem. He will not be well received, and he will be taken into custody and face death. But for Paul it is only a small price to pay, he continues on this journey knowing it is where God is leading, and he will not be swayed to do otherwise.
17 When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.
18 On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he received a somewhat mixed reception. On the one hand, he was received “warmly” by the brethren there (v. 17). Just who formed the reception committee is not at all clear. Perhaps it referred only to the associates of Mnason with whom Paul lodged (v. 16). It is more likely that Luke intended v. 17 as a general introduction to Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem and that “the brothers” represent his favorable reception by the Jerusalem Christian community as a whole.2 There were reservations, however, and these quickly unfolded the next day when Paul and his traveling companions reported to the elders of the Jerusalem church (v. 18).3 The apostles seem no longer to have been present in Jerusalem, and leadership of the congregation was now in the hands of a group of elders, with James, the brother of Jesus, as the presiding elder.4
On an earlier occasion—at the Jerusalem Conference—when Paul gave a report of his successful Gentile mission, it was met with stony silence (15:12f.). Now his report was received with greater enthusiasm. The elders “praised God” for the fruits of Paul’s work among the Gentiles (v. 20). At the Jerusalem Conference they had endorsed Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles, and so they naturally received the report of his missionary success with some elation. But Paul’s success had created some problems for them, and they now related those to him. Probably James spoke for the group. The new situation was their own success in the Jewish Christian mission and the many thousands of new converts who had been made. They were all “zealous for the law.”
21:20b Faithfulness to the Torah was nothing new for the Jewish Christians. Basically, that was what the agreement at the Jerusalem Conference was all about. The Jewish Christians would remain faithful to the Jewish law, but Gentile converts would not be subjected to it except for the special provisions of the apostolic decree (cf. v. 25). What was new to the present situation is hidden in the word “zealous.” Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem probably was in spring of A.D. 56 or 57 during the procuratorship of Felix. Josephus described this period of the mid-50s as a time of intense Jewish nationalism and political unrest. One insurrection after another rose to challenge the Roman overlords, and Felix brutally suppressed them all.5 This only increased the Jewish hatred for Rome and inflamed anti-Gentile sentiments. It was a time when pro-Jewish sentiment was at its height, and friendliness with outsiders was viewed askance. Considering public relations, Paul’s mission to the Gentiles would not have been well received. The Jerusalem elders were in somewhat of a bind. On the one hand, they had supported Paul’s witness to the Gentiles at the Jerusalem Conference. Now they found Paul a persona non grata and his mission discredited not only among the Jewish populace, which they were seeking to reach, but also among their more recent converts. They did not want to reject Paul. Indeed, they praised God for his successes. Still they had their own mission to the Jews to consider, and for that Paul was a distinct liability.
21 and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.
Jews from the Diaspora (The communities of Jewish descendants living outside the holy lands.) likely were the ones who spread the reports among the Jerusalem Christians that Paul was inciting Jews to abandon their ancestral customs (v. 21b). The rumor was that he was encouraging Diaspora Jews who lived in his Gentile mission fields to forsake the law of Moses and to abandon the practice of circumcising their children. These were serious charges, for these matters struck at the very heart of the Jews’ self-identity as the people of God. The Torah, particularly in its ceremonial aspects, set them apart from all other people. Circumcision in particular was a sort of badge, a physical mark set in the flesh of every Jewish male on the eighth day after birth to denote his membership in God’s covenant people.6 Would Paul have urged Jews to abandon this “sign of the covenant”? There is certainly no question that he argued strongly against seeing circumcision as a guarantee of salvation. It could be no substitute for faith in Christ, for becoming a new creation in the Spirit. Consequently, he adamantly opposed circumcision of his Gentile converts. But there is no evidence that he ever encouraged Jewish Christians to abandon the practice and considerable indication to the contrary.
The same can be said for Paul’s attitude toward the Torah in general. He rejected flatly the supposition that the law could be a means of salvation. He saw faith in Christ, not law, as the sole basis for one’s acceptability to God. He adamantly opposed anyone who sought to impose the Torah on his Gentile converts, and this was very much within the spirit of the Jerusalem Conference. But there is no evidence that he urged Jewish Christians to abandon their ancestral law, and Acts would indicate that he himself remained true to the Torah in his own dealings with Jews . In short, Paul saw one’s status in Christ as transcending the distinction between Jew and Gentile. Being in Christ neither required that the Gentile become a Jew nor that the Jew cease to be a Jew. Still, there may have been a grain of truth in the rumor that Paul was encouraging Jews of the Diaspora to abandon the Torah. It would not have been Paul’s having actually urged the Jews to do so but rather the social situation of Paul’s Diaspora churches. In the Diaspora, Jews who became Christians would almost inevitably have transferred from the synagogue to the predominantly Gentile churches. Acts 19:9 would indicate that this had been the case in Ephesus. Having left the base of support for their Jewish identity in the synagogue, there would be the natural inclination to adapt to the ways of the Gentile majority in the Christian churches.7 Whether or not this was the case, Paul himself had not urged Jewish Christians to abandon the Torah, and there is no evidence that the elders themselves lent any credence to the allegations. Still, they had to deal with them. Paul’s presence would soon be known throughout the Jewish Christian community (v. 22). Something had to be done to offset the rumors.
22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.
23 Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;
24 take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.
The elders had evidently worked out a possible solution among themselves of a means whereby Paul could by example demonstrate that he was still true to the Jewish law. This they now set before him (vv. 22–24). There were four Jewish Christians who had taken upon themselves a Nazirite vow, a rather extreme expression of Jewish piety.8 The four were nearing the end of the period of their vow and soon would be completing it with the customary ceremony in the temple. This involved cutting their hair and burning it as an offering. In addition a number of costly sacrifices were required—a male and a female lamb, a ram, and cereal and drink offerings (Num 6:14f.).
14 and he shall bring his gift to the Lord, one male lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish as a sin offering, and one ram without blemish as a peace offering,
15 and a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and their grain offering and their drink offerings.
Paul was asked to join the four and bear the expenses of these rites. Aside from paying their expenses, Paul’s role in the matter is not altogether clear. He obviously did not join in the vow because the minimum period for a Nazirite was thirty days, and only seven were involved here (v. 27). Also it could not have been a matter of a Nazirite “purification” ceremony in which he participated. There was such a purification ceremony in connection with Nazirite vows, but it was not a regular part of the Nazirite commitment; rather, it was a special provision in case the one under the vow came into contact with a corpse or became otherwise defiled (Num 6:9–12).
9 “And if any man dies very suddenly beside him and he defiles his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day he shall shave it.
10 On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the priest to the entrance of the tent of meeting,
11 and the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned by reason of the dead body. And he shall consecrate his head that same day
12 and separate himself to the Lord for the days of his separation and bring a male lamb a year old for a guilt offering. But the previous period shall be void, because his separation was defiled.
That could not be the situation here because the Nazirite who underwent the purification rite had to begin the minimum thirty-day period of the vow all over again (Num 6:12).
The most likely solution is that Paul was the one who underwent purification. Often a Jew on returning to the Holy Land after a sojourn in Gentile territory would undergo ritual purification. The period involved was seven days (cf. Num 19:12), which fits the present picture (v. 27).
12 He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.
Paul thus underwent ritual purification to qualify for participation in the completion ceremony of the four Nazirites which took place within the sacred precincts of the temple. This would be a thorough demonstration of his full loyalty to the Torah, not only in his bearing the heavy expenses of the vow but also in his undergoing the necessary purification himself.
25 But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.”
James concluded his proposal to Paul with a reminder of the apostolic decrees. The words in v. 25 are to be seen as an assurance to Paul that the basic decision of the Jerusalem Conference had not been changed. Gentiles still were not being asked to live by the Jewish Torah—only to observe those basic ritual matters that made table fellowship and social interaction possible between Jewish and Gentile Christians.10 The elders’ proposal (vv. 22–24) was strictly for Paul, that he as a Jewish Christian demonstrate his fidelity to the law to offset the rumors in the Jewish Christian community. It was a sort of compromise solution and thoroughly in accord with the picture of James at the Jerusalem Conference. The apostolic decrees were themselves a type of compromise. James wanted both to acknowledge the legitimacy of Paul’s law-free Gentile mission and to maintain an effective witness among the Jews, for which faithfulness to the law was absolutely essential. Ultimately the compromise did not work—either in this instance for Paul or in regard to the larger issue of the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. As Jewish nationalism increased, the Gentile mission became more and more of a liability to Jewish Christianity. In the aftermath of the Jewish War with Rome and the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Jewish Christianity was declared heretical by official Judaism; and it was no longer possible for a Christian Jew to remain in the Jewish community. James had seen the problem well and sought to present himself as a strict, Torah-abiding Jew, doubtless to strengthen the credibility of his witness to his fellow Jews.11 Ultimately, he gave his life for his Christian witness, being put to death at the order of the high priest Ananus in A.D. 62.12
26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.
Paul was all too ready to be a Jew to the Jews (cf. 1 Cor 9:20).
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.
We know from his letters that the collection from the Gentile churches had brought him to Jerusalem, and the major reason for this was to express the unity between Gentile and Jewish Christianity. He knew the risks involved in coming to Jerusalem (cf. Rom 15:31).
31 that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints,
He was more than willing to participate in this symbolic act of Jewish piety if that would help to justify his Gentile mission in the eyes of the Jewish Christians. He began his purification the next day and announced in the temple the formal date when the Nazirite ceremony would be completed (v. 26). It would take place in seven days, when his own purification was fulfilled.
But within the week, there would be a riot in the temple over the teachings of Paul - the Jew of the Jews would be viewed as a blasphemer. He would not be winning over (at least some of) the Jews in Jerusalem. The warning that had been given is now coming into effect, he will have to be protected from the crowd by Roman soldiers. The crowd shouts “Away with him”…eerily similar to “Crucify Him, Crucify Him” that was heard when Jesus was falsely accused also.
