Acts 21:17-26

In the first half of Acts chapter 21 Paul was determined to go to Jerusalem.   Just like Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Paul had set his face on Jerusalem.  Paul was compelled by the Holy Spirit to go back to where it all began on the Pentecost anniversary of when it all began.  Despite the warnings of the Spirit, that he would suffer when he got to Jerusalem, Paul was determined to go!  And so he went.   In Acts 21:17 Paul arrived.

Acts 21:17  When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly.

But that was the last “warmly” Paul was to receive.  For you see in 57 AD, when Paul arrived, Jerusalem was…
-a stick of dynamite waiting for a match.
-a car stuck in a railroad crossing waiting for the train.
-a parachutist without a parachute waiting for the ground.
-a tornado hunting for a trailer park.
-a linebacker full of steroids looking for someone to hit.

-a… Well, you get the idea.  Jerusalem was a mess.  In the late 50’s throughout the 60’s AD there was a string of Roman rulers of Judea that were terrible.  It was as if most of these appointed governors had decided to do whatever they could to instigate a revolt.  From the days of Pilate on, the Roman appointees over Jerusalem were brutal tyrants. 

Felix was governor in 57 when Paul arrived in Jerusalem.  We will learn more about Felix in chapter 24, but he was as bad as the rest.  The Roman historian, Tacitus wrote about Felix, “He wielded power with the instincts of a slave.”  For example there was an Egyptian Jew who had prophesied a takeover of Jerusalem by his followers and Felix massacred the whole lot of them.  

Because of these brutal suppressions of the Jews, Jewish nationality was rising to a fervor.  Just like us, after 9/11, we all felt this strong sense of Americanism, these Jews were uniting to oppose the Romans and anything Gentile.  Ultimately, because of these cruel governors, there was a full scale revolt which began in 66 AD and ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. On Pentecost of AD 57 Jerusalem was full of anti-Gentile sentiment. 

Now as Paul gets to Jerusalem he is, as the old saying goes, between a rock and a hard place.  The rock was this Jewish indignation; nationalism; and hatred of the Romans and by extension all Gentiles.  What had Paul been doing for the last 10 years? Baptizing Gentiles; right and left.  His God-given mission had been to tell the Gentiles of the grace of the Lord Jesus!  As he comes back to Jerusalem on Pentecost of AD 57, he is the number one advocate of converting Gentiles to Jesus.  Right off the bat you can see he wasn’t going to be a popular guy in Jerusalem; thus the rock. 

The hard place was Paul still loved his own people.  He has probably just written the book we call Romans right before he goes to Jerusalem.  In this letter he writes of his heart’s desire for his people.

Romans 9:1-5  I speak the truth in Christ-- I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit--  I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,  the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.  Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Many Jews had become Christians, but so many more had not.  He would do anything for the salvation of his people; anything, except give up his mission to the Gentiles.  Later in the letter to the Romans Paul also wrote...

Romans 15:15-17  I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.

The metaphor here is that Paul is offering the Gentiles as a sacrifice to God.  He glories in his job!  So, Paul was between a rock and a hard place.  The Jews, even the Christian Jews, were not big on his working with the Gentiles.  So, they were suspect of him.  Yet Paul wants to make a difference for them.  How is he going to be able to be a servant, to his own people in Jerusalem, without alienating or compromising his beloved Gentiles?  The rock and the hard place! 

Paul understands all this as he arrived in Jerusalem on Pentecost of AD 57.  But I think it might have been actually worse than he was expecting.  Listen to what happens as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem. 

Acts 21:17-22   When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly.  The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present.  Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.  When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.  What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come,”

It is one thing to baptize Gentiles.  They had worked through all that in Acts 15.  But to teach the Jews, who had become believers in Jesus, to stop following all their heritage and traditions and laws of Moses.  They accused Paul of turning our children into Gentiles!  The kids are always brought up when there is a problem.  “What about the children?”

So, not only was Paul not popular because of his work with the Gentiles, there was these rumors going around about him teaching against Moses!  How could he not compromise his teachings about the grace of God and still reach his countrymen?  The rock and the hard place were squeezing him. What were they going to do?   Let’s read what solution James and the elders had already come up with. 

Acts 21:22-25  “What shall we do? 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 everybody 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."  

Now this, to us, is really weird. Go ahead and say it. “This is weird.” The way out of the rock and the hard place is to take a vow and pay for these four guys’ sacrifice and shave your head.  What?  There is a lot of debate amongst the scholars over what kind of purification rites was going on.  Let me give you the synopsis.  Evidently, when Jews had been traveling all over the Gentile world and they came back to Jerusalem and wanted to participate in the Temple, they had to take a vow, shave their heads and offer an expensive sacrifice, and then that made them clean again. They had become unclean in their association with the Gentiles so there was a process of being made clean again.  Then they were able to participate in the Temple stuff.  That is probably what is going on. 

So, what James was suggesting to Paul was, he not only had to get clean himself, but pay a lot of money for himself and four other guys.  It is a “put your money where your mouth” is kind of demonstration.  Once Paul had done the sacrifices and spent the money, and shaved his head, the Jewish Christians would accept him.

To me this sounds a bit hypocritical.  Paul would be saying he was unclean because of his association with the Gentiles.  To me, as a Gentile, that is a bit offensive.  “I made you unclean?  I thought we were all Christians?”  Paul can’t seriously think about doing all this Temple stuff.  Paul is a grace guy not a law…yer.”  Listen again to Romans.

Romans 7:1-4 Do you not know, brothers-- for I am speaking to men who know the law-- that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?  For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.  So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.  So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

Paul states that he and them, as Christians, are not longer bound to the Law of Moses.  How then can he do this law thing? How can he take this vow? Should Paul do this?  What would you do?  What did he do?

Acts 21:26 The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.

He did it.  Paul, the great advocate of the grace of God, not only participated in this vow thing, but paid a lot of money to do it.   What does this mean?  How could someone who was saved by the grace of God and is no longer married to the
Law of Moses, participate in this Temple ritual?  Why did Paul take the vow? 

I think the answer lies, once again, back in the letter to the Romans.  There is a principle in Romans 14 that is amazing and life-altering. This principle allowed Paul to be a Jew to the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles. It is a principle we need to understand. 

Romans 14:1-9  Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.  One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.  The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.  Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.  For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

To borrow from James Bond, this is “The Live and Let Die” principle.   Within the grace of Jesus Christ there is room to choose to observe, to die to certain freedoms or to express our life in these freedoms.  Things such as food, whether to eat or not to eat certain foods; live or let die; things such as holy days to die to them and deny ourselves rights or to treat everyday the same; die or live.  I would suggest to you that Paul’s vows in the Temple fall under this category.  He chose to shave his head, offer expensive sacrifices and perhaps not eat something or the other in his vow.  His actions fall under this principle of live and let die.  He died to some of his freedoms in Christ in order to be able to minister to his fellow Jewish people. 

There are things that are essential.  There are salvation issues.  Such things as: who Jesus is, as the Son of the living God, the crucified and resurrected Lord; our faith and grace and repentance and baptism and such things are not in the area of the Live and Let Die Principle.  Outside of those kinds of things we have amazing freedom in Christ.  But we also have the right to die to those freedoms.
-I believe we have the freedom in Christ to eat whatever we want.  Except when you are on a diet.  But if you chose to not eat meat as a religious offering to God.  You could do that and Jesus would accept that offering. And we shouldn’t hammer you because of it.
-If you wanted to make Sunday a holy day.  You didn’t work or go anywhere or watch football.  That would be you dieing to a freedom but that would be alright.
-If you like me, don’t drink alcohol because it has done untold and unprecedented damage in this world.  Then you can die to that freedom.  You can Live or let die.
-Here is one a little closer to home.  I believe in the priesthood of all believers even women.  So, we exercise our right to have women participate fully in our assemblies.  But you could choose to die to this freedom.  There are consequences to all of these choices, but this would be a real life example of how to apply the live and let die principle. 

Paul was in a rock and hard place, but was able to deny some of his freedoms in order to express his Jewish faith inside of Christianity with the hope of being able to witness to his people.  I guess that is the bottom line for me.  Are we willing to do whatever it takes to witness to our people?

 

Los Alamos Church of Christ
September 14, 2008