NT Doctrine — Acts 21:15-40

The rest of the voyage to Jerusalem was uneventful. The only thing Luke remarks on were the two more times people made it a point to warn Paul that he was heading for trouble in Jerusalem. The last was Philip at the port of Caesarea. This was one of the seven Hellenized elders who had fled Jerusalem with all the other Diaspora Jewish Christians when persecution arose from the execution of Stephen. This man was the one who had led the Ethiopian eunuch to faith.

Paul and his entourage stayed at Philip’s home in Caesarea for a few days. It would seem Paul had made good time and was no longer in such a hurry. In their company was Mnason, a Gentile believer from the early days, born in Cyprus, who owned a house in Jerusalem. He could host the Gentiles in the entourage without raising any difficulties. The atmosphere in Jerusalem was tense; it was not the time to flout Jewish traditions by having Gentiles lodge with Hebrew Christians.

They brought their love offerings from the churches abroad, but the disciples in Jerusalem were more thrilled by Paul’s report of his missions work. However, the Jewish zealots were hostile. There were rumors that Paul had taught Jews to abandon their national identity and transgress the Judean laws. The leaders mentioned this agitation from Jewish nationalists and proposed a way to take the heat off of Paul by showing he was still an observant Jew.

In their church were four men who had recently completed vows related to a Jewish ritual. As Paul had done not so long ago, these four were to have their heads shaved. If Paul went with them to the Temple and paid for it, it would be recorded publicly that he was the sponsor, which in itself was another ritual act. At the same time, the church leaders steadfastly stood by their decisions from Acts 15, that Judiazing Gentile believers was wrong.

The issue was treading a fine line. Jesus clarified and taught Moses. The Talmud was not Moses and did not reflect God’s stated will. However, some of the Talmud was enforced as Judean civil law, and should be obeyed in order to keep peace. It was to be treated as man-made law, not as the Word of God. Despite the current customary Jewish spite for Gentiles, God had commanded that Jews should be tolerant and work alongside Gentiles who kept the Covenant of Noah, thus the letter in Acts 15.

And among Jews, the Talmud was still subject to partisan debate. So Paul was standing on that fact by keeping the rituals of Moses, while treating the Talmud as simply the law of the land. If anyone among the disciples of Jesus knew how to split hairs on such things, it would be Paul.

The rituals for completing the vows took seven days, involving public head-shaving, some days of ritual cleansing, and then specified offerings presented in the Temple. There were radical nationalist Jews from Asia Minor who spotted Paul in the Temple with these four men. They had seen Paul often in the company of Trophimus, a Gentile whom we have mentioned previously in this study. These zealots made the hasty assumption that Paul had brought Trophimus with him into the Court of Israel.

They started a ruckus, and given the Pentecost crowding and general tensions, it immediately turned into a riot. The activist crowd dragged Paul through the Court of Women and out into the Court of Gentiles, and pushed the doors shut behind them to prevent defiling the Temple proper with the violence.

They surrounded Paul and began beating him with the intention of killing him. The noise came to the attention of the battalion commander in the Antonio Fortress on the other end of the Temple Plaza. That man himself lead a company of troops out to stop the riot, at which the Jews pulled back to avoid bloodshed. You can bet the Roman troops would be delighted at any excuse to use their weapons against the Jews, especially at this festival season when they could be insufferably arrogant.

When the commander asked what it was all about, he couldn’t get a single straight answer. For his own safety, Paul was chained between two Roman soldiers, who then had to carry him to get him away from the crowd. As they mounted the steps on the outside of the fortress, Paul spoke to the commander in Greek, which was the one language they would likely have in common. The commander was surprised that he spoke Greek.

A couple of paragraphs from my previous commentary:

For some reason, the officer had assumed Paul was the Egyptian fellow who had led a small army of assassins out to Mount Olivet, declaring that the walls would come down miraculously so they could invade to wipe out the Roman cohort. Instead, the assassin army was attacked and wiped out, but the leader got away. That Paul spoke in Greek was proof enough that he was not the same man. So Paul identified himself as a Jewish man from Tarsus, and thus a Roman Citizen, and wanted to address the crowd, in hopes of taming their rage. Since the soldiers were blocking the stairs below, it sounded reasonable to try.

Paul offered the signal that he wanted to address the crowd, and they grew rather quiet. As he began speaking in the local Aramaic dialect of Hebrew, the crowd grew hushed, as many had no idea what was going on, and had not expected that.