What Happens:
Paul, Luke, and their group (Sopater from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus from Ephesus) leave Miletus and sail to Tyre on a cargo ship. Paul and his group link up with the christian community of Tyre and stay with them for seven days. The christians of Tyre feel forebodings from the Holy Spirit, and warn Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Despite the Tyrians’ misgivings, Paul is set on continuing to Jerusalem. When the time comes for him and the others to leave, all the christians of Tyre accompany them to their ship, and they all kneel down and pray together before saying goodbye.
They sail to Ptolemais and stay with the christians there for a day, and the next day sail to Caesarea, where they stay with Philip, one of the seven deacons. Philip has four unmarried daughters who can prophesy. After Paul has been there a few days, a prophet named Agabus comes and takes Paul’s belt and ties his own hands and feet with it. “In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles,” he declares. Luke, and Paul’s other friends, anxiously beg Paul not to go, but Paul’s mind is made up. “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?” he asks them. “I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Luke and the others give up trying to dissuade him, and go with him to Jerusalem. Some of the Caesarean followers come with them also, and take them to the house of a man named Mnason in Jerusalem, who had been one of the earliest converts.
The christian community of Jerusalem greets Paul and the others warmly, and Paul goes to visit James. He tells James and the city’s elders about everything he’s been doing since his last visit. The elders are very happy about all the progress Paul has been making in Greece and Asia Minor, but are concerned about some of the Jewish converts here in Jerusalem. Peter’s vision from the Holy Spirit (Acts 10) had made clear that Christians no longer have to follow Jewish dietary laws or most other Jewish laws, and a few years ago the Apostles had published a letter saying that the only laws of Moses Christians have to follow are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. (Acts 15)
But now, the Jews and Jewish converts are saying that Paul is teaching that everyone should “reject” Moses wholesale. They are rejecting not just the law but also customs and traditions. “What shall we do?” they ask Paul worriedly. “They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” Paul takes their advice, and joins in the purification rites with the men.
When the seven-day purification rites are over, some Jews see Paul at the Temple and start shouting and getting the whole temple crowd riled up. “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place,” they exclaim. They had also seen Paul with his greek friend Trophimus earlier, and wrongly assume that he had brought him into the Temple with him. This makes them even more enraged as they accuse Paul of “defiling” the Temple by bringing a non-Jew in. The crowd seizes Paul, and the small riot quickly sparks into a large riot, and people come running in from all directions. Soon the whole city is in an uproar.
The commander of the Roman troops sends some soldiers in, and the rioters stop beating Paul when they see them. The commander arrests Paul, but when he asks the crowd what he’s done, everyone shouts different things. He has his soldiers take Paul to the barracks, and the violence of the mob is so great that Paul can’t walk through the crowd, but has to be hoisted up and carried by the soldiers. “Get rid of him!” the crowd chants.
As they are on the way to the barracks, Paul asks the commander if he can speak to him. The commander asks him if he’s the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand rebels out into the desert. Paul tells him that he’s a Jew from Tarsus, “a citizen of no ordinary city”, and asks to be allowed to address the crowd. The commander gives his permission, and Paul prepares to speak to his accusers.
Commentary:
The notes say that the warnings the Tyrians received from the HS warned them about the impending dangers that awaited Paul, and they therefore decided the danger was too great and that Paul shouldn’t go. The HS didn’t directly tell the Tyrians that he shouldn’t go.
Apparently Philip is married, if he has a bunch of daughters. We’ve never met his wife, though. Not sure what the significance is of them being able to prophesy, unless it’s supposed to mean they’re extra holy or something.
We met Agabus back in Acts 11; he predicted a famine under Emperor Claudius which eventually came to pass. It’s probably been a good 10 to 15 years in between Acts 11 and Acts 21.
I assume the James that Paul visits is the Apostle James Alphaeus. (There had originally been another Apostle also named James, but he was executed by King Herod back in Acts 12. I had actually forgotten all about that, and I don’t know if the surviving Apostles ever picked out a replacement for him. They elected a replacement for Judas Iscariot when he died, so I assume they would have picked a replacement for James too. A quick wiki turned up nothing, though.) Anyway, it’s nice to see the Apostles taking an active role again. No doubt they’ve been doing stuff of their own all this time, but since Acts focuses almost solely on Paul’s travels around Greece and Asia Minor, anything happening anywhere else is almost totally unknown. Also, where’s Peter? He’s still the leader of the Apostles, right? So why is Paul reporting to James Alphaeus instead of to him? The last time we saw Peter was back in Acts 15, when (I thought) he laid down the law once and for all that no one has to follow the now-defunct law of Moses anymore, apart from the 4 things specifically mentioned in the Apostles’ letter.
However, I’m STILL not real clear on whether the law of Moses is truly defunct now or not. I thought we had this all settled back in Acts 10, with Peter’s whole vision about most of the law being obsolete now and gentile converts being full members of the church and not just second-class citizens after the Jewish converts. And then we had Acts 15, where all the Apostles had a big get-together in Jerusalem basically reiterating the same thing. Maybe the letter they sent out only applied to the gentile converts? I.e., the gentile converts get a pass and don’t have to follow the law of Moses except for the 4 things specifically mentioned, but the Jews still have to follow it? Or maybe it’s an optional thing, where the Jews can follow it if they want, but aren’t required to? The elders also mentioned that the Jews were also dumping all the old traditions/customs along with the law, and gave the impression of being worried about losing their culture more than about following specific portions of the law.
To be honest I’m starting to get a little impatient with the whole thing and just want everybody to get on the same page already. Basically the takeaway here is that the law is a HUGE deal to the Jews, and so even though the whole follow-the-law-or-not-follow-the-law thing should have been wrapped up chapters and chapters and ages and ages ago, the controversy is still going strong. And probably will be for a while. Sigh.
According to the notes, there was a false prophet in Egypt a few years prior to the events in this chapter, described by the historian Josephus. Supposedly the leader led 4,000 followers to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem – for what purpose, the notes don’t say (an attack on Jerusalem, maybe?) – and the Roman soldiers had killed hundreds of them. The leader had escaped, though.
We established back in Acts 12 that after Pontius Pilate, the Roman-ruled portion of Judea was governed by a string of governors, most of whom were weak and useless. The fact that the Roman legionaries are so prompt and effective here indicates that whoever is currently ruling was one of the few strong governors. Back during the death of Stephen, the Roman governor was weak and incompetent, and the Jews were able to kill Stephen with impunity. Paul gets very lucky here, because had the current Roman leader been as weak as that one (and as weak as most of them were in the post-Pilate years), he would probably have ended up killed by the Jewish mob just like Stephen, and not had anyone to save him.
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