30 Paul's Arrest: Positive Testimony In A Negative Situation Part 1

Good morning. Today we will be continuing our look at the book of Acts. Today the text we will be looking at really runs from 21:27 through the end of chapter 22. This week I wrestled with how I wanted to approach this passage as it was so long. Typically I would just tackle the passage as a whole, but this week I am going to break it up into two separate sermons, today being part 1.

The passage we will be exploring over my next couple sermons marks a major transition in the life and ministry of the apostle Paul. Since his conversion on the road to Damascus, he had ministered freely (except for brief imprisonments such as in Philippi). But from this point on in Acts, Paul will be a prisoner.

This turn of events did not end the apostle’s ministry, however. No longer free to travel, he became an “ambassador in chains” for Jesus Christ. As a free man, he preached the gospel throughout the Roman world. As a prisoner, he preached the gospel to Roman officials—possibly including the emperor himself. And like John Bunyan, who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress while in Bedford jail, Paul wrote four New Testament books (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) during his imprisonment at Rome.

During this incarceration, Paul gave six separate defenses of his actions: before the unruly mob at Jerusalem (21:27), the Sanhedrin (22:30), Felix (24:1), Festus (25:1–12), Herod Agrippa (25:13), and the Jews at Rome (28:17–28). Those masterful defenses ably answered the false charges leveled against him—a fact even the Roman authorities acknowledged. This passage, describing his first defense, is a long section with today setting the stage for Paul’s articulate defense next time. You can see that I subtitled this sermon “Positive Testimony in a Negative Situation.” In all reality this could be the subtitle for the rest of the book of Acts, because it is continually a negative situation in which Paul gives a positive testimony.

I suppose that every Christian is faced at times with the dilemma of how to give a positive testimony in a negative situation. I imagine that all of us have been in, are currently in, or will be in a negative situation. When we are in those situations how will we respond?

How many of you have been in a situation where you have proclaimed your faith and the whole world seems to clamber after you and try to shut you up? If you haven’t faced that yet, you will, you will. Then we are faced with the internal battle about whether we ought to say anything else in the future.

How many of you have talked about being a Christian at work, and all of a sudden somebody reacted against that with vitriol and hatred? When things like that happen, lets be honest here, we tend to clam up don’t we? When those opportunities come along in the future where we can speak, we struggle a little with saying anything? I have had that struggle for sure in my life. We need to be honest with one another about things like this so we can grow.

Maybe for others here today, their struggle doesn’t come from a negative interaction at work of in the world in general, but their’s is a fear of speaking up to try and avoid any sort of negative interaction. We fear our ego might get stepped on so we shy away from speaking at all.

We could easily turn to 1 Peter today and look at biblical precepts, or rules, about how to handle adversity in 1 Peter, but this morning for the sake of time I want us instead to examine an example and view a man, Paul, who spoke boldly in the face of adversity regularly and honestly lived his life in such a way that he could use it as a defense. When we think of testimonies what comes to mind. Most people think of a court room with someone on the witness stand. But in Christian circles we tend to think of testimonies as something we give in a church. We stand up in front of the church, or in front of a group of Christians and we talk about how the Lord saved us from our sinful ways, or what God has done in our lives recently, all to paint the picture of how wonderful Christ is. Then we sit down with the warm embrace of fellow Christians agreeing with us and rejoicing with each other about how wonderful Christ is. Am I right? And all of that is proper and good. We should share the amazing things God is doing in our lives as we encourage and exhort one another to live in Christ. But how many times do we give that same testimony in front of a God-hating, Christ-rejecting world?

When we look at the example of the Apostle Paul, that is exactly what we will see. Paul was clearly a man who knew how to take a negative situation and make it into a positive testimony. In chapter 20 we saw the courage of Paul who was determined to go to Jerusalem despite knowing he would be put in chains, and last week we looked at his humility in the first part of chapter 21. Today we will see another of Paul’s attributes his boldness. It is amazing to see how the Holy Spirit inspired this section of Acts as we have a recipe that lists the ingredients we need to do great things for Christ. Are you ready here is the recipe: One part is conviction which gives the courage to hold up to those convictions, humility, and boldness which we will look at today.

As I stated earlier this passage is quite long and is broken into 5 parts: the Attack of the Mob, the Arrest by the Romans, the Apology of Paul, the Action by the People, and the Attitude of Paul. Today we will be looking at just the first two of the parts.

THE ATTACK OF THE MOB

Acts 21:27–30 ESV

27 When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, 28 crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” 29 For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. 30 Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut.

Paul, at the urging of James and the elders, had agreed to underwrite the expenses of four men who had taken a Nazirite vow. They hoped that doing so would silence those who falsely claimed he taught Jewish Christians to abandon Jewish customs. But since Paul had recently returned to Israel from Gentile lands, he needed to undergo ritual purification. Only then would he be ceremonially clean to participate with the four in the ceremony marking the end of their Nazirite vows.

The process of purification required Paul to visit the temple on the third and seventh days. On the latter visit, when the seven days were almost over, the apostle encountered some old enemies: Jews from the Roman province of Asia, in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. I am convinced that these men were from Ephesus, since they recognized Trophimus, who was a resident of that city. Also, since Paul had ministered in Ephesus for three years, they would have had no trouble recognizing him. If you remember back in Acts we looked a the riot that occurred in Ephesus while Paul was there, where they tried to kill Paul. Obviously that plot failed, but now these Jews from Asia Minor saw their chance to accomplish that task as this was a city full of Jews. There were no Gentiles to squash the riot as they had done in Ephesus. Jerusalem, being the location of the temple, was the center of the Jewish world, and it being during the feast of Pentecost the Jewish population would have grown even more.

Upon seeing Paul in the temple, these enemies of the gospel wasted no time in seizing their opportunity. They immediately began to stir up all the vast multitude of devout pilgrims who were in the city for the festival. Take note here that it says in verse 27 that these men “stirred up the whole crowd.” The Greek word translated as stirred up here is συνέχεον (syncheō) and means to baffle or confuse. It is used 5 times in the New Testament and all of them are in Acts. The first time it is used is in Acts 2:6 describing the events at the day of Pentecost where the people were perplexed or bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. The second occurrence is in Acts 9 talking about Saul, before he became Paul, throwing Damascus into confusion as he proved that this man Jesus is the Christ. We see it for the third time in Acts 19 describing the mob at Ephesus being in confusion. The fourth time occurs here in verse 27 and we will see it again in verse 31. This should be sounding eerily familiar to you right now as the same word is used to describe the mob in both Ephesus and Jerusalem. How did these Ephesians Jews cause the confusion? The end of verse 27 and verse 28 says they laid hands on Paul and cried out, “Men of Israel, help!” Acting as though Paul had committed an act of blasphemy, they called for help in dealing with it. To stir up the crowd against Paul, they made three false accusations, ironically these were similar to the charges made against Stephen.

Anti-Semitic

They first accused him of being anti-Semitic, an enemy of the Jewish people and their religion, identifying him as the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people. That was the same false accusation that the Judaizers had used to poison the minds of the Jewish Christians against the apostle. But Paul was no enemy of Jews, as Romans 9:1–5 and 10:1 make clear. Paul nowhere taught Jewish believers to forsake their customs—merely that Gentiles not be pressured to observe them.

Opposed to the Law

A second charge was that Paul opposed the Law. That was a particularly serious accusation in this setting, since the Jewish people were especially zealous for the law at Pentecost. Originally a celebration of the first fruits of the harvest, in Paul’s day Pentecost had come to be a celebration of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Charging Paul at this time with teaching against the law was sure to infuriate the crowds.

Speaking against the Temple

Finally, the Jews falsely accused Paul of speaking against this place (the temple). Because the Jewish people revered the temple (the focal point of their worship), an accusation of blaspheming or defiling it was also a very serious matter. Jesus (Mark 14:57–58) and Stephen (Acts 6:13) were also falsely accused of speaking against the temple—accusations that helped lead to their deaths. Paul’s accusers undoubtedly hoped for a similar outcome in his case.

To substantiate these general accusations, Paul’s accusers came up with a specific one, crying out to the crowd “he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” Their “proof,” Luke notes, was that they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. That charge was absurd. While taking part in a purification rite, Paul would hardly defile the temple by bringing a Gentile into it. And to do so, Paul would have had to bring Trophimus past the court of the Gentiles, where Gentiles were permitted. But that would have cost Trophimus his life, since the Romans allowed the Jews to execute any Gentile who entered there—even Roman citizens (cf. Josephus Wars 6.2.4). An inscription, found in 1935, solemnly warns, “No Gentile shall enter within the partition and barrier surrounding the temple, and whoever is caught shall be responsible to himself for his subsequent death” (E. M. Blaiklock and R. K. Harrison, eds., The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983], 389). Paul would never have so endangered his friend’s life. And if the Asian Jews had really seen Trophimus there, why had they not seized him then and executed him?

False or not, the accusations spread like wildfire. Soon all the city was aroused, and the people rushed together to the vicinity of the temple. Determined to appear as if they desired to protect that sacred place from further defilement, they seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut. The temple guards shoved the frenzied mob outside (so Paul’s death would not defile the temple; cf. 2 Kings 11:15) and then closed the doors (between the Court of the Women and the Court of the Gentiles). Their religious zeal inflamed by the false accusations of the Asian Jews, the infuriated and irrational crowd began savagely beating Paul. Too impatient to drag him out of the city and stone him (as had been done with Stephen), they intended to beat the apostle to death on the spot. They would have succeeded, but God providentially intervened to protect His servant. Help arrived in the form of Roman soldiers.

THE ARREST BY THE ROMANS

Acts 21:31–36 (ESV)

31 And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. 32 He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. 34 Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another. And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. 35 And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd, 36 for the mob of the people followed, crying out, “Away with him!”

The headquarters of the Roman occupation forces was Fort Antonia, located on a precipice overlooking the temple grounds.

Fort Antonia had a great tower that looked right down into the courtyard of the Temple. So the tower sentries had a clear view of what was going on, they could see the mob beating Paul. This tower was built for a reason at the fort because any civil unrest that may occur in Jersualem would most likely occur in the Temple.

During major religious celebrations, such as Pentecost, the Romans were especially watchful. Thus, it did not take the alert sentries long to spot the riot breaking out below them. While the mob was seeking to kill Paul, a report came from the sentries to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. I want to spend a minute and talk about these soldiers here. These were highly trained men and as such were skilled riot squads. There sole purpose was to maintain order in the various Roman provinces. The one great thing that the Roman Government wanted in tis colonies and its possessions was civil order. The Romans could not tolerate civil unrest, and any commander that allowed it was in real trouble. The commander (chiliarchos, from the Greek word for “one thousand”), or tribune, commanded the entire Roman cohort of one thousand men stationed at Fort Antonia. In Acts 23:26, Luke gives his name as Claudius Lysias. He was the ranking Roman official in Jerusalem when the governor (whose official residence was in Caesarea) was not in the city. Lysias was thus the Roman official most concerned with maintaining order in Jerusalem.

Having received the report that all Jerusalem was in confusion, Lysias acted quickly and decisively to quell the riot. At once he took along some soldiers and centurions, and ran down the steps leading from Fort Antonia to the Court of the Gentiles, where the enraged crowd was beating Paul. I want to paint this picture for you a little, When it says these soldiers ran down to them, that is because Fort Antonio had a series of steps that led right to the courtyard of the temple. Claudius had to act quickly to regain control of the situation and stop the unrest from spreading to the the entire city. So the troops, got organized and ran down the stairs to confront the situation. It was literally a matter of just a few minutes between the mob starting to the Roman soldiers showing up. Luke’s use of the plural centurions suggests Lysias took two hundred soldiers or more, since a centurion commanded one hundred men. This massive show of force broke up the riot (and saved Paul’s life). When the crowd saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul, since they did not want to be arrested themselves.

Just a moment ago I said that the event took just a few minutes before it was quelled, but I do not want to leave you with the idea that Paul was unscathed. In just a few minutes quite a lot of pummeling had occured to Paul. He had probably been knocked to the ground where the mob could kick and punch him. It was into this frenzy that the Roman soldiers arrived so they quickly made the decision that the man being attacked, Paul, was to blame.

Because Paul was evidently the cause of the disturbance and must have done something very serious to excite the Jews to such fury, Lysias took hold of (arrested) him. As verse 38 reveals, he assumed (incorrectly) that Paul was an Egyptian terrorist. Having arrested him, Lysias ordered him to be bound between two soldiers with two chains, thus fulfilling Agabus’s prophecy (21:10–11). Attempting to sort out the chaotic situation, Lysias then began asking who Paul was and what he had done. But in the confusion, with some among the crowd shouting one thing and some another, he could get no clear answer. Realizing that he could not find out the facts on account of the uproar, he ordered Paul to be brought into the barracks. There he intended to question the apostle in private and, if necessary, use torture to extract a confession.

The soldiers began escorting Paul through the crowd, and when he got to the stairs, it so happened that he was carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob. The Romans had lifted Paul up and transported him above the mob to the stairs. Seeing their intended victim being carried to safety, the multitude of the people kept following behind Paul and the soldiers. In mindless, faceless fury, losing all sense of fear for Roman soldiers, the crowd pushed and shoved, trying desperately to get at him. All the while they kept crying out, “Away with him!”—that is, “kill him.”

But you know what’s amazing? In all of this, the Apostle Paul hasn’t struggled or said anything. And really, the passage that we just looked at through verse 36 could easily have been tacked onto last week’s sermon if time had allowed. If you remember last week I said Paul exhibited humility. I don’t know if there’s any virtue as great as humility. It’s humility that is usability. It’s when we are nothing but an empty vessel that God can fill us. It’s when we are just a tool to be used that God can use us. It’s when we try to do it ourselves that we get off track or messed up. Humility, Paul was humble.

Now, let me remind you that I saw his humility in three great ways in this passage.

Submitted Everything to God

Number one, he submitted everything to God. When he first comes back in verses 19 and 20, and he’s giving the report about his missionary tour, he says to them, “He recounted everything God had done among the Gentiles.” The man never interjected himself into the accomplishment of God. He didn’t say, “Look what I did. Look what I did.” It was always what God did, absolutely submissive to God. All he wanted to do was glorify God. That’s humility. Humility is when I want to glorify God, not myself. And you can tell to what degree you’re humble by how hard the struggle is for you to glorify God.

You may say, “Well, I gave God all the glory. It took me three days to finally break through and do it, but I did it.” Well, that’s one degree of humility. It’s determined, I think, a lot by how much struggle you have before you’re willing to give Him all the glory. You still want a little for yourself. You haven’t learned the lessons of humility. But Paul? All he ever did was, “God did this, and God did this. And I just happened to be a part of it.” It was wonderful to see what he was doing submitted to God.

Submitted to God’s Authority on Earth

The second thing about his humility: He submitted to God’s authority on earth. God had given authority in the church to the elders, and when the elders said, “Paul, do this,” he never said one word. He did it. God gave us a classic illustration of a humble man who submitted to God, who submitted to God’s authority on earth. He didn’t say, “Why are we doing this?” Or “Why are you asking me to do this?” Paul knew that God had appointed this men to lead and he submitted to their leadership. If there was anyone in the New Testament who could balk at what the elders told him to do would it not be Paul? I mean God used him to write much of the New Testament. You know I have to be honest with you today that a dangerous product of American Democracy that has been imported to the church. The idea that the leaders God has appointed aren’t really the leaders. I have been in many churches where there has been an unhealthy view of congregation rule. The attitude can be that the congregation called you and we can fire you so you better do what we tell you too. I have to speak plainly here that this is a patently unbiblical view of church leadership and quite honestly a sinful prideful attitude. I am so very thankful that this attitude doesn’t exist here at FBC right now. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying that does not mean that questions should not be asked, in fact that is quite the opposite. You should always feel free to come and ask questions of leadership as to why decisions were being made or what the rationale is. That is good healthy for that to be happening.

Submitted to God’s Plan

And thirdly, he submitted to God’s plan, even though it involved suffering. Humility submits to God, to others, and to God’s will, even though it involves suffering at the hands of the world. What a man of God.

Acts 21:37–40 (ESV)

37 As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? 38 Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” 39 Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.” 40 And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people.

To continue on in our story today lets pick up in verse 37 where Paul is being led away and asks to speak to the tribune. Notice the reply of the tribune, “Do you know Greek?” The Tribune was astonished when Paul spoke Greek to him.

Then you are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” The question assumes a positive answer. Since Paul spoke Greek, he was probably not a local troublemaker, as Palestinians generally spoke Aramaic. Greek, however, was commonly spoken in Egypt, hence Lysias’s assumption. The Egyptian was a false prophet who some years earlier led a group of his followers to the Mount of Olives. He proclaimed that the walls of Jerusalem would fall at his command and that the Romans would be driven out. Before that prophecy could come to pass, however, Roman troops led by Governor Felix arrived on the scene. They attacked the Egyptian and his followers and routed them. Several hundred were killed or captured and the rest (including the Egyptian) vanished. Josephus, who also records this incident, gives the number of the Egyptian’s followers as 30,000, instead of the four thousand Luke mentions. Josephus, however, tends to exaggerate numbers. Some commentators have argued that Josephus’s figure reflects the total number of the Egyptian’s followers, whereas Luke gives only the number of fighting men. Still others have suggested a scribal error in the manuscripts of Josephus’s writings to account for the discrepancy. They note the similarity in the Greek capital letters (which are used to represent numbers D (four) and L (thirty). In any case, it must be remembered that Luke was divinely inspired; Josephus was not.

Lysias described the Egyptian’s followers as Assassins. The Assassins were a terrorist group that emerged during Felix’s term as governor. Their strong Jewish nationalism made them bitter enemies of both the Romans and Jewish collaborators. The latter were the Assassins’ primary targets. (Sikariōn [Assassins] derives from the Latin word sica [dagger].) Mingling with the crowds, they stabbed their victims. They would then either melt away into the crowd or brazenly join the mourners to escape detection. The Assassins were especially active during the Jewish festivals, such as Pentecost. Lysias no doubt assumed the crowd had caught one of them (maybe even the Egyptian himself) in the act of murder.

But Paul, of course, was neither an Egyptian nor an Assassin. He identified himself to Lysias as a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. As a Jew, he had every right to have been where he was in the temple. Withholding for the moment the fact of his Roman citizenship, Paul declared himself to be a citizen of Tarsus in Cilicia. Tarsus, as Paul notes, was not an insignificant city but rather a cultural center with a university rivaling those of Athens and Alexandria. Being a citizen of Tarsus explained the apostle’s knowledge of Greek.

Having identified himself to Lysias, Paul courageously requested permission to speak to the people. Although battered, bruised, and in chains, the apostle did not think of his own safety and comfort. Instead, his passionate desire to see his countrymen saved drove him to seize the opportunity to recount his conversion to the crowd. And that is exactly where we will pick up this story next time.

So what are we to take away from today’s sermon? There’s only two things, really, that I want to pull out of this text in summation. How do you make a positive testimony in a negative situation? One, you accept the situation as God-given, as His will. Two, you use it to create an opportunity. Paul never got out of a negative situation in the end in the book of Acts. If we were to look at Peter’s life and writings we would also see that he did not get out of negative situations all the time either. Think about the arrest of Peter in Acts, he was commanded to stop preaching in the temple by the Sadducees, but what did Peter do? He went right back to the temple and preached the truth. Both Peter and Paul had boldness: They took a negative situation, accepted it as God’s will, and then created an opportunity. That’s how to view it.

Let’s pray. Father thank you for our time this morning and for helping us to see that you can work in situations like Paul faced. Lord, all of us have those times of pain and suffering, and those negative situations when we think we could never stand for our faith. Father I pray, that when we are faced with situations like that that we will be as fruitful as these were in the Word of God. That we would realize when confronted with those situations that you’ve allowed it in our lives. Lord help us to be willing to be in a negative situation and to turn it positive, to realize it’s in that situation that we will have opportunity to do what we would never have opportunity to do elsewhere. Help us to realize that we can confront the world boldly, even as Paul did without fear, because You are our strength; to do so willingly and joyously. Give us that kind of commitment. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.