Introduction
We are
getting to the end of Acts; we are getting to the end of Paul’s third journey.
We left off last week, he was at Miletus talking to the elders of Ephesus in
this speech to these men full of passion, full of tears, full of deep pastoral
wisdom. At the end we last see them, they are down by the ship crying together
because Paul had said, ‘I am never going to see you guys again.’ Luke tell us
in Acts 21,
After
saying farewell to the Ephesian elders,
Or
literally, ‘after we ripped ourselves away from them.’ It was so painful to
leave.
we sailed straight to the island of Cos.
Luke
is with them now this is a ‘we-passage’, the detail skyrockets.
The
next day we reached Rhodes
That would
have been a pretty cool sight, the colossus at Rhodes.
and
then went to Patara.
The small
ships had to hug the coastline, they had to put into porch each night because
they couldn’t afford to be out at night. At Patara it looks like they got on a
bigger ship that could sail straight across the Mediterranean.
There
we boarded a ship sailing for Phoenicia. We sighted the island of Cyprus,
passed it on our left, and landed at the harbor of Tyre, in Syria, where
the ship was to unload its cargo.
When you
are travelling by shit in ancient times you didn’t just book a ticket for a
specific date and time, you’d pay to get on the boat but you had to be hanging
out for when the ship was ready to leave and you had to be there ready. You
also were sort of at the mercy of the cargo unloading/loading trade schedule.
Here they were going to have some time at Tyre so they get off the ship.
We went
ashore, found the local believers, and stayed with them a week.
Apparently,
that was how long it was going to take for the ship to get loaded and unloaded
again. This was not a group that Paul planted, but he found them there. Paul
might have actually planted this church through the persecution earlier in his
life that drove the Christians out of Jerusalem into this area. You could say
he had a hand in planting these churches as well. They stayed with them for a
week and even though it looks like they might not have known these believers
they formed a deep bond that we have in Christ.
These
believers prophesied through the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go on
to Jerusalem.
That can
saw ‘through the Holy Spirit’ or ‘on the occasion of the Holy Spirit.’ But it
seems like a contradiction at first. Last chapter we read that Paul said he was
‘compelled by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem’ and now these guys are
saying, ‘don’t go to Jerusalem.’ How do we resolve that? I think it will become
clearer when we get down to Caesarea and I will explain then.
When we
returned to the ship at the end of the week, the entire congregation, including
women and children, left the city and came down to the shore with us.
They did
not want to see Paul go, they wanted to see him off.
There
we knelt, prayed,
Right
there on the beach, what a touching scene.
and
said our farewells. Then we went aboard, and they returned home. The next stop
after leaving Tyre was Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and
sisters and stayed for one day. The next day we went on to Caesarea
Do you
remember Caesarea? Where Peter had his breakthrough with Cornelius, the first
large scale Gentile conversions.
and
stayed at the home of Philip the Evangelist one of the seven men who had
been chosen to distribute food.
Paul kind
of knew him from back in the day. Do you remember him? He was one of the seven
who were chosen to feed the widows in Jerusalem in Acts 6, Stephen was one of
the seven and Paul had Stephen killed and Phillip was one of the guys driven
out of Jerusalem as a result of the persecution. I don’t know if these guys
have seen each other in 20 years. Paul had killed Stephen who was probably a
good friend of Philip and many others as well. And here we see brothers in
Christ probably talking about their ministry, welcoming him into his home. You
see the forgiveness possible through Jesus Christ. We also find out that Philip
got married, settled down and raised a family.
He had
four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy.
He is
delivering all of this girls as Christian workers, and Luke tells his audience,
‘hey guys, they’re unmarried, they are single. I wonder if some readers here
were thinking about making a trip to Caesarea.
Prophecy
about Paul’s Future Suffering
Several
days later a man named Agabus, who also had the gift of prophecy,
arrived from Judea.
He came up
from Jerusalem, we have met Agabus before as well. He is the one who went up to
Antioch and prophesied about that famine. He is the one that helped them get
the collection together to take down to Jerusalem. So Agabus is still getting
it done ten years after that.
He came
over, took Paul’s belt, and bound his own feet and hands with it. Then he said,
“The Holy Spirit declares, ‘So shall the owner of this belt be bound by the
Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles.’”
Paul is
like, ‘Alright. Can I get my belt back?’ So, he is prophesying, he has
prophesied accurately before. He is warning him that suffering lies ahead.
When we
heard this, we and the local believers all begged Paul not to go on to
Jerusalem.
So what’s
the deal? Is the Holy Spirit contradicting himself? No. What the Spirit is
predicting through Agabus, what the Spirit had already told Paul is that what
lies ahead is suffering, imprisonment, hardships, really hard times ahead, but
the Spirit also told Paul that he had to go anyways. What happens here, the
Spirit said, ‘you are going to be bound, you are going to be captured’ and then
Luke says, and then when ‘we’ heard the prophecy ‘we’ began begging Paul. That
is probably what happened a little bit earlier in this chapter as well. This is
why prophecies need to be interpreted. The prophecy was right but their
interpretation of it, they were thinking that God wouldn’t want him to go there
and suffer and Paul’s like, ‘no.’ The Spirit has already told him that he has
to go and that he is going to suffer.
But he
said, “Why all this weeping? You are breaking my heart! I am ready not only to
be jailed at Jerusalem but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus.”
It pained
him to see his friends like this and to tell them that he had to this. He
didn’t want to have this argument. This is a commitment that every believer
should be willing to have, we should all have this same perspective. Paul had
signed his life over to Christ, we saw last week that he said his life meant
nothing to him, he just wanted to finish his race.
When it
was clear that we couldn’t persuade him, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will
be done.”
You get
the sense that maybe Paul got that a lot. We should also be careful when we
say, ‘God told me that you should do this.’ We should be very reluctant. God
told me to do something is a different thing. A lot of time when we ignore
advise it is because we want to take the easy route, Paul ignored their advice
to take the harder route.
After
this we packed our things and left for Jerusalem. Some believers from Caesarea
accompanied us, and they took us to the home of Mnason, a man originally from
Cyprus and one of the early believers.
This guy
had been a Christian for a long time, maybe he converted at Pentecost.
Paul in
Jerusalem
When we
arrived, the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem welcomed us warmly.
They got a
warm welcome from the first Christians they met in Jerusalem. I want to say a
few words about Jerusalem in 57 AD. The temple mount dominates the entire city.
Paul hasn’t been to Jerusalem much, he was raised there under Gamaliel the
great teacher in probably his early teens and 20s, maybe up to age 30 or so.
But since then he has only been there four time for brief visits according to
the book of Acts. He hasn’t been there that much. What is clear is that a lot
has changed since them. For one, it is ruled by Ananias the corrupt high
priest. He was a hoarder of money, he was corrupt, he would send his goons in
to beat people up to take the tithes that were supposed to go to the priests.
You had priests starving while Ananias was taking the money. Different from
Annas who we read about in the gospels, an earlier high priest. And, the
political and racial tensions in Jerusalem are soaring in the present time.
Josephus
described the period of the mid-50s as a time of intense Jewish nationalism and
political unrest. One insurrection after another rose to challenge the Roman
overlords, and Felix brutally suppressed them all. This only increased the
Jewish hatred for Rome and inflamed anti-Gentile sentiments. It was a time when
pro-Jewish sentiment was at its height and friendliness with outsiders was
viewed askance.
John
Polhill, Acts: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture
(Holman Reference, 1992), p. 447, Cited in Witherington, Acts, p. 643-644
It was
very negatively viewed. You can imagine, Paul walks into Jerusalem with eight
gentiles carrying a collection for the poor there. Paul is a Jew, and yet he
has these eight gentiles. He would have stuck out like a sore thumb. This would
have been like a white guy going into a racist white city with eight black
guys. To introduce them to his old friends. He is walking into the city and
people are like, ‘what is Paul doing?’ There were also rumors circulating about
Paul that we will read about in a moment. This was a tense time in Jerusalem.
Felix
had often killed innocent citizens, but perhaps the most egregious example of
abuse of power was how he dealt with an Egyptian Jew…
Witherington,
Ben, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 643, 661-2.
This
Egyptian Jew will feature later in the story. He gathered a group of about 4000
(Luke says 4000, Josephus says 30,000, Josephus tends to exaggerate thought)
and he led them out into the wilderness and said they would march up to
Jerusalem and the walls would come tumbling down. He wanted to be the new king
with them as his followers. Felix found out about it and they captured and
killed 400 of his followers, imprisoned another 200, but the Egyptian got away,
they were still on the lookout for the Egyptian Jew, this happened probably
around 54 AD. There were all kinds of these events under the reign of Felix.
Jerusalem
is not what it had been in Acts 2; tensions are rising, and in the temple
sicarii, or assassins, are murdering aristocrats suspected of collaborating with
the Gentiles.
Craig
S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ac 21:20–22.
These
sicarii are also going to be mentioned later as well. It was kind of like early
terrorism. They would go to the temple with knives under their robes. They
would target rich guys who were helping Rome and they would stab them and slip
away; the guy would collapse behind him and all of a sudden people would notice
and mayhem would ensue. Rich guys were afraid to go to the temple because they
were afraid to get murdered there. This is the scene that Paul is walking into.
He is thinking that he will show up with the Gentile converts with the money
for the poor that Peter and John had asked them to get. Peter and John aren’t
even there now apparently. He walks in and he meets with James, the brother of
Jesus.
The
next day Paul went with us to meet with James, and all the elders of the
Jerusalem church were present.
To get a
sense of how big this is, the green square in about the size of the football
field. You can fit about 25 of these in the temple, it was massive.
After
greeting them, Paul gave a detailed account of the things God had accomplished
among the Gentiles through his ministry. After hearing this, they praised God.
And then they said, “You know, dear brother, how many [ten-] thousands of Jews
have also believed, and they all follow the law of Moses very seriously. But
the Jewish believers here in Jerusalem have been told that you are teaching all
the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn their backs on the laws of Moses. They’ve
heard that you teach them not to circumcise their children or follow other
Jewish customs. What should we do? They will certainly hear that you have come.
What
should they do? They have an idea.
Here’s
what we want you to do. We have four men here who have completed their vow.
[cf. Numbers 6]
It doesn’t
really say what it is, it kind of seems like a Nazarite vow where you wouldn’t
cut your hair for a long time and then you would shave your head and do an
offering. Paul had something like that in Acts 18:18, he shaved his head and
there was something about a vow. But to finish off a Nazarite guy each guy
needed some sheep, a ram, some grain offering and drink offering.
Go with
them to the Temple and join them in the purification ceremony, [cf. Num
19:11-13?] paying for them to have their heads ritually shaved.
It’s also
not clear what Paul was supposed to do, some kind of purification ceremony. In
Numbers 19 it talks about a purification process when you touch a dead person.
It sounds like they may have also applied this to when you spent a lot of time
with Gentiles. They suggest Paul can pay for them to get their head shaved and
finish off their vow.
Then
everyone will know that the rumors are all false and that you yourself observe
the Jewish laws. As for the Gentile believers, they should do what we already
told them in a letter: They should abstain from eating food offered to idols,
from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual
immorality.”
All the
Acts 15 decree stuff. So, what is going on here? What do you do in Paul’s
situation? It was a tense situation; he does say that he becomes a Jew to the
Jews to win people to Christ. He says to the Romans that if they want to follow
the dietary laws, don’t make them eat pork chops. It’s okay, they can follow
the ceremonial stuff. He didn’t force the Jews to live like Gentiles. He also
circumcised Timothy who was a Jew. The question here is, Paul is going along
with this, the question is, is this a mistake or not? One view calls this a
morally neutral thing that he was trying to do to be diplomatic. Another view
says that Paul was wrong to do this, to initiate this sacrifice. And some even
think that it was this experience right here that led him to write the book of
Hebrews as he saw how riddled Jerusalem had become with legalism.
Paul
Arrested
So Paul
went to the Temple the next day with the other men. They had already started
the purification ritual, so he publicly announced the date when their vows
would end, and sacrifices would be offered for each of them. The seven days
were almost ended
Paul was
about to go through with this final thing as a part of this ritual and the
whole plan backfires, he never gets to finish the ritual. In fact, it says,
when
some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the Temple and roused a mob
against him. They grabbed him, yelling, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the
man who preaches against our people everywhere and tells everybody to disobey
the Jewish laws.
Very
similar to what they charged Stephen with actually.
He
speaks against the Temple—and even defiles this holy place by bringing in
Gentiles.”
You can
kind of see, the red arrow points to a really faint line, that is a four-foot
wall, and Gentiles were not allowed through the wall. The Jews were so
insistent on this that they got a special exception from Rome, that if Gentiles
went into their temple, they could execute the death penalty without Roman
approval even on Roman citizens. A very rare exception from Rome. They have
uncovered a couple of the signs mounted on this wall and this is what it says
in Greek, ‘no foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and embankment around
the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have only himself to blame for his death
as follows.’ Welcome to Jerusalem.
Luke
explains that Paul had not brought in a Gentiles.
(For
earlier that day they had seen him in the city with Trophimus, a Gentile from
Ephesus, and they assumed Paul had taken him into the Temple.)
He was
walking around with Gentiles during the day and he was walking around with
these four guys for the ritual, and they assumed they were the same guys.
The
whole city was rocked by these accusations, and a great riot followed.
Paul was grabbed and dragged out of the Temple, and immediately the gates were
closed behind him. As they were trying to kill him, word reached the commander
of the Roman regiment [~600 soldiers] that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.
Did you
notice in the northwest corner of the temple, this structure? That is the
fortress of Antonia that Herod had built right into the wall of the temple to
keep an eye on things. There was a whole cohort of 600 soldiers, multiple
centurions, and the commander, Claudius Lysias. This is why they were able to
respond so quickly; they were like onsite temple cops.
He
immediately called out his soldiers and officers and ran down among the crowd.
When the mob saw the commander and the troops coming, they stopped beating
Paul. Then the commander arrested him and ordered him bound with two chains. He
asked the crowd who he was and what he had done.
Lysias is
just trying to figure out what is going on, so the Romans arrest him, which is
good, because if the Jewish guard had arrested him, he would be their prisoner.
But because the Romans arrested him, the Jews would have to extradite him from
Roman control and that was a lot harder.
Some
shouted one thing and some another. Since he couldn’t find out the truth in all
the uproar and confusion, he ordered that Paul be taken to the fortress. As
Paul reached the stairs, the mob grew so violent the soldiers had to lift him
to their shoulders to protect him.
They are
moving up, the mob is moving in, this is scary.
And the
crowd followed behind, shouting, “Kill him, kill him!” As Paul was about to be
taken inside, he said to the commander, “May I have a word with you?” “Do you
know Greek?” the commander asked, surprised. “Aren’t you the Egyptian who led a
rebellion some time ago and took 4,000 members of the Assassins out into the
desert?”
We got him
guys; we got the Egyptian!
“No,”
Paul replied, “I am a Jew and a citizen of Tarsus in Cilicia, which is an
important city. Please, let me talk to these people.” The commander agreed,
Probably
hoping he could find out what they were so mad about.
Paul
Addresses the Crowd
so Paul
stood on the stairs and motioned to the people to be quiet. Soon a deep silence
enveloped the crowd, and he addressed them in their own language, Aramaic.
“Brothers
and esteemed fathers,” Paul said, “listen to me as I offer my defense.” When
they heard him speaking in their own language, the silence was even greater.
Then
Paul said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, and I was brought up
and educated here in Jerusalem under Gamaliel.
The
esteemed, famous Rabbi. In fact, the Talmud says,
“Since
Rabban Gamaliel the Elder died there has been no more reverence for the Law,
and purity and abstinence died out at the same time” – Mishnah, Sotah 9.15
They
invented the term Rabban because this guy was such hot stuff, grandson of
Hillel, only one of seven people to be given the title Rabban. This was a
prestigious as you can get, Paul is going into his righteous pedigree. He was
brought up there in the most religious school under Gamaliel.
As his
student, I was carefully trained in our Jewish laws and customs. I became very
zealous to honor God in everything I did, just like all of you today.
He was so
righteous that he,
And I
persecuted the followers of the Way, hounding some to death, arresting both men
and women and throwing them in prison. The high priest and the whole council of
elders can testify that this is so.
Paul was
on the Sanhedrin, they knew him, he probably still had some old buddies there
present.
For I
received letters from them to our Jewish brothers in Damascus, authorizing me
to bring the followers of the Way from there to Jerusalem, in chains, to be
punished. As I was on the road, approaching Damascus about noon, a very bright light
from heaven suddenly shone down around me. I fell to the ground and heard a
voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ‘Who are you,
lord?’ I asked. And the voice replied, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, the one you
are persecuting.’ The people with me saw the light but didn’t understand the
voice speaking to me.
They heard
something; they just couldn’t tell what it said.
I
asked, ‘What should I do, Lord?’ And the Lord told me, ‘Get up and go into
Damascus, and there you will be told everything you are to do.’ I was blinded
by the intense light and had to be led by the hand to Damascus by my
companions. A man named Ananias lived there. He was a godly man, deeply devoted
to the law, and well regarded by all the Jews of Damascus.
He is appealing
to his audience again, another righteous and godly dude.
He came
and stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, regain your sight.’ And that very moment I could see him! Then he
told me, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the
Righteous One and hear him speak.
Paul says
that he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, he had the perfect pedigree, educated
under Gamaliel, was circumcised on the eighth day, he followed the law to a T,
he persecuted the way, and he thought he was so righteous until the day when he
got to meet the Righteous One, and that was when he began to realize how
worthless his righteousness was, how far short it fell from what God really
demanded, perfection. Anything short of that is not good enough, and that is
why he sent the Righteous One to die for you. So that you can take your guilt
and hand it over to him and he can give you a clean white robe in exchange.
For you
are to be his witness, telling everyone what you have seen and heard. What are
you waiting for? Get up and be baptized. Have your sins washed away by calling
on the name of the Lord.’
Good
question, what are you waiting for in coming to Christ?
After I
returned to Jerusalem, I was praying in the Temple and fell into a trance.
Apparently,
it was three years after his conversion when he goes to Damascus, out to
Arabia, back to Damascus, and he makes his way back to Jerusalem. In Acts 9 it
tells us there was a plot from some of the Jews to kill him, Acts 22 gives us
more detail.
I saw a
vision of Jesus saying to me, ‘Hurry! Leave Jerusalem, for the people here
won’t accept your testimony about me.’ ‘But Lord,’ I argued, ‘they certainly
know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you.
How could
they not see the change that has come over me? It was a little confusing
sometimes, especially some of us who grew up in religious home and never knew
the Lord. You finally have the breakthrough of grace and it is sort of shocking
that your old friends and family don’t see things the way that you do, and they
seem even angrier and more determined to follow the law, to try and earn
salvation.
And I
was in complete agreement when your witness Stephen was killed. I stood by and
kept the coats they took off when they stoned him.’ But the Lord said to me,
‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles!’”
He said
the G word…
The
crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout, “Away
with such a fellow! He isn’t fit to live!” They yelled, threw off their coats,
and tossed handfuls of dust into the air. The commander brought Paul
inside and ordered him lashed with whips to make him confess his crime. He
wanted to find out why the crowd had become so furious.
He is
still completely confused as to what is going on.
When
they tied Paul down to lash him, Paul said to the officer standing there, “Is
it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried?” When the
officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked, “What are you doing?
This man is a Roman citizen!”
You can’t
whip a Roman citizen.
So the
commander went over and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes, I
certainly am,” Paul replied. “I am, too,” the commander muttered, “and it cost
me plenty!” Paul answered, “But I am a citizen by birth!” The soldiers who were
about to interrogate Paul quickly withdrew when they heard he was a Roman
citizen, and the commander was frightened because he had ordered him bound and
whipped.
Paul was
never flogged as far as we know, he was beaten with rods and whipped, but he gets
out of the only flogging he was about to get. Probably good too, it might have
killed him. The commander is still confused.
Paul
Before the Sanhedrin
The
next day the commander ordered the leading priests into session with the Jewish
high council. He wanted to find out what the trouble was all about, so he
released Paul to have him stand before them.
He is
still trying to figure out what Paul did. They call the Sanhedrin and the high
priest. They either would have met somewhere in the temple itself or Josephus
says in the southwest corner, but they are still in the same area. The 70 most
powerful men in Israel sitting in the semi-circle around Paul. He had been on
the other side of this in the Sanhedrin and now he was being interrogated.
Gazing
intently at the high council, Paul began: “Brothers, I have always lived before
God with a clear conscience!”
Probably
in regard to the law or something like that, he hasn’t broken any laws, he
obviously had sinned, he knew that.
Instantly
Ananias the high priest commanded those close to Paul to slap him on the
mouth.
Totally
consistent with what we know about Ananias.
But
Paul said to him, “God will slap you, you corrupt hypocrite!
You
whitewashed tombs, is what he literally said, Jesus called the Pharisees
whitewashed tombs as well.
What
kind of judge are you to break the law yourself by ordering me struck like
that?” Those standing near Paul said to him, “Do you dare to insult God’s high
priest?” “I’m sorry, brothers. I didn’t realize he was the high priest,” Paul
replied, “for the Scriptures say, ‘You must not speak evil of any of your
rulers.’”
Paul might
have had bad eyesight, maybe the high priest wasn’t wearing his official robe,
his special garment that set him apart. Paul kind of apologizes. Paul realized
that the trial isn’t going well, he said one thing and got hit in the face, he
comes up with another plan.
Paul
realized that some members of the high council were Sadducees and some were
Pharisees,
Sadducees
and Pharisees are kind of like democrats and republicans, they can come
together and take down a common opponent, but it was a fragile unity.
so he
shouted, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, as were my ancestors! And I am on trial
because my hope is in the resurrection of the dead!” This divided the
council—the Pharisees against the Sadducees—for the Sadducees say there is no
resurrection or angels or spirits, but the Pharisees believe in all of these.
That’s why
they are sad, you see.
So
there was a great uproar. Some of the teachers of religious law who were
Pharisees jumped up and began to argue forcefully. “We see nothing wrong with
him,” they shouted. “Perhaps a spirit or an angel spoke to him.” As the
conflict grew more violent, the commander was afraid they would tear Paul
apart. So he ordered his soldiers to go and rescue him by force and take him
back to the fortress.
Still with
no idea of what Paul has done. You have to wonder how Paul is feeling at this
point. Up until this period he had success after success after success.
Churches planted, disciples being made, and here he comes into Jerusalem, which
many godly people had tried to talk him out of, and he hits a brick wall. His
life is in danger, he doesn’t know how this is going to end up, he has got to
be wondering if he has met his end, if God is done with him, if there is no
more for him to do. I wonder if he was doubting himself, I don’t know. But what
is cool, is that it says,
That
night the Lord appeared to Paul and said, “Be encouraged, Paul. Just as you
have been a witness to me here in Jerusalem, you must preach the Good News in
Rome as well.”
That’s one
of the cool things about the Lord, He knows when we are reaching a point of
breaking, a point of exhaustion, and he comes up with just the right word of
encouragement. He is sovereign over our circumstances; he doesn’t allow
anything into our lives that is more than we can handle with Him.
Conclusions
That’s
where we will draw the line for this week, I want to summarize a few things we
have seen from Paul in Jerusalem.
First of
all, Paul got to meet the Righteous One and his life was never the same. So
intent on pursuing his own righteousness, wearing himself out trampling other
people in the process and then he was chosen to see, to meet the Righteous One.
That is something that God offers to you, you can do that tonight, you can meet
the Righteous One, you can see what real righteousness actually is, you can see
what a dim shadow your life has been according to his glorious standard. You
can also have his comfort as he wraps his arms around you and says, ‘it’s okay,
I paid it all so you don’t have to, I love you,’ and you can receive peace and
encouragement from Him.
You can
see nothing makes religious people angrier than grace. Legalism is such a
danger, coming back under law, you see the tractor beam pulling the Jerusalem
church back in, they never seem to break out of this. Religious people were so
angry when they heard about grace and also the thought that God might be doing
something outside their own race. Racism and religion are often tightly
intertwined with one another, that is what you see here. God says his grace is
available to anyone, no matter who they are, no matter when they are from, no
matter what ethnicity they are. All it takes is coming to him with the empty
hands of faith and receiving.
God will
call us to suffer like he called Paul. But he will watch over us and encourage
us when we need it.