Acts 21 Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Handout
1 And it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara: 2 And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we went aboard, and set forth. 3 Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her burden. 4 And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.
Jim Elliot — January 1956
In 1956, a 28-year-old missionary named Jim Elliot, along with four companions, made contact with the Waodani (Auca) people of the Ecuadorian jungle — a tribe so feared for violence that no outsider had ever reached them and survived. Elliot knew the risk in detail. His wife and the other wives had already talked through, together, the real possibility of becoming widows. The night before they went in for their final approach, the men sat together and sang the hymn "We Rest on Thee, Our Shield and Defender." Days later, all five were speared to death on a sandbar they'd named Palm Beach. Years earlier, Elliot had written in his journal, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
Acts 21 isn't a chapter about a man walking into danger blind. It's a chapter about a man walking into danger with his eyes wide open — because some things are worth more than staying safe.
Why did Paul stop at Tyre?
The ship needed to unload cargo and there were disciples there.
The scene in verse 5 is similar to what previous event?
Paul’s farewell at Miletus.
Here they knelt and prayer as Paul and his companions prepared to depart.
This is looking to be a voyage of farewells to those disciples and people he had influenced or spent a lot of time together.
Whose house did they visit in Caesarea?
Philip the evangelist.
What does it mean that Philip was one of the seven?
Hint: Think back to the early part of Acts 6
He was one of those who was chosen to serve (role of a deacon).
It is believed that Philip was between 30-40 years old at the time of being chosen as one to serve.
Philip is believed to be about 50-60 years old when Paul and his companions sit inside his house.
What is amazing here is we witnessed Philip’s journey previously in our study through Acts 8, specifically when we reached Acts 8:40 and Philip arrives in Cesarea. Nearly 20 years later we find him still at Cesarea a man who has children, retired from traveling but still serving.
40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.
We do not know all the details regarding his life, but we do know he did much for the Lord in his life.
What does it mean that Philip’s daughter’s ‘did prophesy’?
It's not necessarily visionary/predictive — 1 Corinthians 14:3 defines the gift's main purpose as speaking "unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort." Agabus (the next verse) happens to be predictive, but that's his particular exercise of the gift, not the definition of prophecy itself.
It's also not the same as holding the office of pastor/elder.
So the daughters are best understood as exercising a recognized spiritual gift within the community — likely speaking Spirit-inspired words of exhortation, encouragement, or insight to the gathered church — rather than functioning as governing "pastors" in the later institutional sense.
Prophesying is presented in the NT as a Spirit-given gift exercised by various believers (cf. Acts 2:17-18, quoting Joel, which explicitly includes "your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" and "on my handmaidens... they shall prophesy"), not a title or ordained office.
The daughters are a direct fulfillment of the Prophet Joel 2:28.
28 And it shall come to pass afterward, That I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions:
How does Agabus warn Paul when he comes to visit him?
He binds the hands and feet of Paul with his own belt.
I’m sure we are all thinking: Definitely a very odd sign Lord. This guy is a bit crazy and unhinged.
This is a classic prophetic sign-act, in the tradition of OT prophets who acted out their message (Isaiah walked stripped/barefoot for 3 years, Isa. 20; Jeremiah buried and dug up a girdle, Jer. 13; Ezekiel's siege model, Ezek. 4). Agabus is deliberately echoing this Old Testament pattern.
When everyone heard the warning, what did they instruct Paul to do?
Not to go to Jerusalem.
Don’t go man, you have enough trouble in your life already and do not need to go put yourself in that position.
What was Paul’s response?
I am ready not only to be bound but also to die for Christ.
Notice when they could see that nothing was going to persuade Paul, they ceased with debating and left it to the will of God.
Did Paul disobey the Holy Spirit by going to Jerusalem after being warned?
No, they knew about the suffering that awaited Paul and urged him not to go to Jerusalem.
They did not want Paul to go because they knew what would happen to him there. That was not the Spirit telling Paul to not go, but the Holy Spirit had revealed to the disciples what would take place.
Some times we might know what will happen to us and err on the side of safety to retreat. We must live out our faith with boldness regardless of consequences as the Holy Spirit leads us. It is not foolishness to be led by the Holy Spirit wether it be in dangerous or difficult circumstances or in the place of comfort. We must obey the will of God.
We must realize that we are safer living and obeying the Holy Spirit than we are worrying about protecting ourselves.
We must be careful to make sure we are being led by the Holy Spirit.
Paul did not disobey the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Spirit warned believers about the suffering Paul would face in Jerusalem, and they concluded he should not go because of that danger.[1] This distinction is crucial—the Holy Spirit communicated the certainty of Paul’s suffering, but the believers themselves drew the inference that he should avoid the city[2], conflating a warning with a prohibition.
When Paul first decided to leave Ephesus, he “planned in the Spirit” to go eventually to Jerusalem, just as clearly as Luke later tells us that the disciples at Tyre urged Paul through the Spirit not to go.[3] The parallel language suggests both directives came from the Spirit—one calling him forward, the other warning of consequences. Agabus was not the first to warn Paul that the Jews would bind him and hand him over to the Gentiles; in every city on his way to Miletus, the Holy Spirit had told him the same thing, but Paul read this as the constraint and compulsion of the Holy Spirit to persist in going.[3]
Agabus merely warned Paul of what he would suffer and did not forbid him to go; it was the other believers who pleaded with him not to, and Paul chided them for trying to break the resolve formed in him by the Holy Spirit to face bonds and if necessary death at Jerusalem.[3] Paul knew he would be imprisoned in Jerusalem, but although his friends pleaded with him not to go, he knew he had to because God wanted him to.[1]
[1] Tyndale, Chronological Life Application Study Bible, ed. Susan Perlman (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2023), 1714–1715.
[2] Bruce Barton et al., Life Application New Testament Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2001), 547.
[3] David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel, Myrtlefield Expositions (Coleraine, Northern Ireland: Myrtlefield House, 2013), 430.
When Paul finally gets to Jerusalem, how is he received?
Gladly. The words means joyfully.
Who is this James?
This is Jesus’ half brother. James is the bishop at the church of Jerusalem.
Paul will meet with James and elders and give a report of all that God has done in his ministry to the Gentiles.
After Paul’s report, what did they do?
They glorified God.
We need to take time to stop and give God glory for what He is doing in each ministry and for the lives that are impacted in those ministries.
There are many ministries that are happening in the church on a weekly basis, and we who serve need to remember that we need to stop and give God the glory for what He is doing in the church and through us as His servants.
What issue does James tell Paul is causing problems in the church at Jerusalem?
The Jerusalem church is predominately Jewish and hold both that Jesus is the Messiah and hold culturally to the law of Moses.
The problem in Jerusalem is that they are holding the law as cultural practices and living as believers in a hostile environment.
They didn't experience it as compromise because:
Faith in Jesus and Torah observance were operating in two different categories for them — one was the *basis of salvation*, the other was *covenant identity and practice*.
The load-bearing distinction: how you're saved vs. how you live as a Jew:
The decisive moment predates Acts 21 by several chapters — the **Jerusalem Council in Acts 15**. The question there wasn't "should Jews keep the law," it was "must Gentile converts keep the law to be saved." Peter's answer was unambiguous: "we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they" (15:11) — salvation is by grace through faith, full stop, for Jew and Gentile alike. The council's decree then only asked Gentiles to abstain from a handful of practices (15:20, 29), explicitly *not* full Torah observance.
That ruling did two things simultaneously:
1. It permanently barred anyone from teaching that law-keeping *earns or maintains* salvation (that would later be labeled the Ebionite heresy when a splinter Jewish-Christian group did teach it, and the wider church rejected it).
2. It said nothing at all about Jewish believers giving up Torah for themselves. Nobody in Jerusalem read it that way.
So when James says the thousands of Jewish believers are "all zealous of the law" (21:20), that's not doctrinal confusion — it's Jews who already have their salvation settled in Christ continuing to *live* as covenant Jews, the same way a Gentile believer would keep living within their own culture. Paul states the underlying principle explicitly in **1 Corinthians 7:18-20**: "Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised... Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." Don't change your ethnic/religious status — live out Christ within it.
It shows up all through Acts, not just chapter 21:
This wasn't a one-off accommodation — Jewish believers kept worshiping in Temple courts from the earliest days: "they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple" (2:46); Peter and John going up to the Temple "at the hour of prayer" (3:1); the whole church still meeting "in Solomon's porch" (5:12). Paul himself models the same pattern: he took a Nazarite vow of his own earlier (18:18), circumcised Timothy for the sake of Jewish sensibilities (16:3) — while refusing, on principle, to circumcise the Gentile Titus when false teachers tried to make it mandatory (Gal. 2:3). The line he's drawing every time is: voluntary cultural practice, yes; compulsory requirement for salvation, never.
James himself is remembered by early extrabiblical tradition (Hegesippus, preserved by Eusebius) as extraordinarily devout in Jewish terms — constantly in prayer at the Temple, ascetic, respected for righteousness even by unbelieving Jews who called him "James the Just." That reputation is precisely what made him the right person to propose the solution in vv.23-26 — his own life was the proof that faith in Jesus hadn't made him "un-Jewish."
Why this arrangement didn't last:
It's worth being honest that this was a real, live tension the Jerusalem church was managing, not an automatically stable equilibrium — Acts 21 itself shows how combustible it was. Two things eventually forced the question further than the apostolic generation had to resolve it:
- **The destruction of the Temple in AD 70** ended the sacrificial system outright, making full Torah observance in the Levitical sense physically impossible for anyone, Jewish believer or not.
- **The book of Hebrews** (written to Jewish Christians, likely before or right around AD 70) makes the theological case directly — that the Old Covenant system was "becoming obsolete" and "ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:13), framing Torah observance in this period as a passing, not permanent, arrangement, fulfilled rather than abolished in Christ.
What Paul does is follow James’ guidance and performs this ritual of vows with the men.
What happened when they went to the temple?
A riot breaks out.
Interesting note here: The Jews from Asia are the Jews from Ephesus that had a grudge against him.
I find it so fascinating how far these people will travel to persecute someone life Paul. But the truth is how far are people willing to go to stop the God’s Word, Christian living, and the church from accomplishing God’s will.
polluted/defiled" is kekoinōken (κεκοίνωκεν), perfect tense of koinoō — "to make common," the same root behind koinos ("common") in Acts 10:15/11:9 ("what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common"). The charge is that Paul has taken something set-apart and made it profane/ordinary by Gentile contact.
The accusation:
they'd seen Trophimus the Ephesian with Paul in the city and assumed (wrongly) he'd brought him past the barrier into the inner court.
the chief captain of the band" — Greek chiliarchos (χιλίαρχος), literally "commander of a thousand," the standard Roman military tribune over a cohort.
He's later named Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:26). His barracks were the Antonia Fortress, built by Herod the Great and named for Mark Antony, situated at the northwest corner of the Temple Mount with stairs descending directly into the outer court for exactly this kind of rapid intervention.
"all Jerusalem was in an uproar" — Greek syncheitai (συγχύννεται/συγχέεται), from syncheō, "to pour together, confound" — the same root gives us "confusion"
I find it interesting that almost every time an uproar takes place, there is confusion. The same happens today when there are riots on the street, I am sure that many thousands of people do not even know why they are participating in the riot.
How is the prophecy of Agabus fulfilled?
Paul is bound by the captain of the band.
What do the people cry out to the captain ini regards to Paul?
Away with him.
Echoing the cry against Jesus in Luke 23:18
18 And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:
Why is the captain surprised that Paul could speak Greek? Who did he assume Paul to be?
He thought Paul was an Egyptian man.
Who recently stirred up a revolt and led 4,000 "men that were murderers" into the wilderness.
Historical point of interest: This is independently attested outside the Bible — Josephus (Antiquities 20.8.6 and Jewish War 2.13.5) describes a self-proclaimed Egyptian prophet who gathered a large following (Josephus's numbers run even higher, around 30,000, though ancient crowd-figures are notoriously inflated/unreliable) on the Mount of Olives around AD 54–56, promising the walls of Jerusalem would fall at his command; the Roman governor Felix crushed the uprising. The KJV's "murderers" translates sicarii (Greek sikarioi, from Latin sica, "dagger") — a term for radical anti-Roman assassins/dagger-men, a specific known faction, not a generic insult.
What language did Paul speak when he addressed the people?
In the Hebrew tongue (Aramaic).
Most scholars believe this means Aramaic, the common vernacular of Judean Jews in the first century, rather than classical/biblical Hebrew — "Hebrew tongue" in NT usage regularly denotes the local Semitic vernacular (cf. John 19:20; Acts 22:2; 26:14). This sets up ch. 22, where his sudden switch from fluent Greek (with a Roman officer) to Aramaic (with the crowd) has real rhetorical impact — silencing an already-hostile mob who hear their own dialect from an accused "traitor."
