Acts 21
(Acts 21:4-6, ESV Bible)
Tzor
The city of Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean and is named after the rock (tzur, צוּר) formation on which the town was originally built. The great Phoenician port city once was home to Solomon's ally, Hiram. King Herod the Great had financed the rebuilding of Tyre's central temple. The city of Tyre had a substantial Jewish population and a healthy community of disciples as well. After the persecution associated with Stephen, disciples from the Jerusalem community fled to the Phoenician coast and planted believing communities.
To escape the crowds and the pursuit of Herod Antipas, the Master once brought the Twelve to the district of Tyre and lodged somewhere near the city. They encountered the Canaanite woman who had begged Yeshua to heal her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28).
Three decades later, that Canaanite woman's daughter was a grown woman herself with children and possibly grandchildren of her own (Clementine Homilies 4.1 names her Justa the daughter of Bernice). She and her family might have been some of those present among the believing community of Tyre. Others from the region had made the short pilgrimage to Capernaum to bring Yeshua their sick and infirm. They and their descendants might have also been among the disciples of Tyre.
With favorable winds, the voyage from Patara to Tyre took five days. Paul and his companions disembarked while their ship offloaded its cargo (Omer 31). The big Mediterranean cargo ships could take as long as two weeks to completely unload. In this case, the ship was due to leave port again in seven days. The party agreed to wait out the seven days in Tyre. Paul had visited the disciples at Tyre numerous times on his trips back and forth between Antioch and Jerusalem. He knew the believers there well. The seven days in Tyre gave Paul and his companions the opportunity to spend a week with the Tyrian disciples. They spent the Sabbath together. Paul taught from the Scriptures.
The spirit of prophecy moved among the brothers and sisters of Tyre. They predicted that Paul faced grave danger in Jerusalem. "They kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem" (Acts 21:4). Paul could not be deterred.
After seven days, the ship was ready to continue its voyage down the coast. The believers at Tyre followed Paul and his companions out to the harbor. Luke recalled how they all came to see them off: "They all, with wives and children, escorted us until we were out of the city." The disciples knelt down on the beach and prayed over one another. Having commended one another to the Master's care, they said farewells. Paul and his companions boarded the ship. The disciples of Tyre returned to their homes.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:7, ESV Bible)
Akko
The passage to Caesarea had one more stop. They put in for one night at Ptolemais (Acco; Omer 38), a Phoenician port city on the north side of the bay formed by Mount Carmel's protrusion into the Mediterranean. In the days of Gaius Caligula, the Jews had marched out to intercept the Roman governor Petronius and the abomination of desolation. Josephus described Ptolemais as a city of Galilee:
Ptolemais (Acco) is a maritime city of Galilee, built in the great plain. It is encompassed by mountains. The mountains on the east side stand sixty furlongs off and belong to Galilee. Those on the south belong to Carmel, which is a hundred and twenty furlongs away. Those on the north are the highest of them all. It is called by the people of the country, the Ladder of the Tyrians, which is at the distance of a hundred furlongs. The very small river Belus runs by it. (Josephus, Jewish War 2:188-189/X.2)
Their ship remained in the port of Ptolemais for only a single day. Paul and the delegates disembarked and greeted the community of disciples in that place. He knew them from his frequent trips up and down the coast. Some brothers present at Ptolemais must have remembered the ministry of the Master in Galilee. Paul and his party stayed with them for a day. They could not tarry longer because their ship left the next morning (Omer 39).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:8-9, ESV Bible)
Pilippos and His Four Daughters
They arrived in Caesarea with time to spare (Omer 39). Rather than hurry immediately up to Jerusalem, they elected to lodge with Philip, who had settled in Caesarea and had a house there (Cf. Acts 8:40). Evidently, the assembly of believers in Caesarea congregated in Philip's home.
Philip entertained Paul and his traveling companions with stories from the early days of the assembly. Many scholars suggest that Philip was the source of much of Luke's information about the first decade of the Jerusalem community.
Philip told his stories about work among the Samaritans, the evil Simon Magus, the Ethiopian eunuch, and the miracle of his translation. He was no longer a traveling evangelist whisked about by the Angel of the LORD. Two decades had elapsed since those days. He now lived as a family man with a wife and four remarkable daughters. All four of his daughters had the gift of prophecy and all four were virgins, still eligible for marriage-two facts that made a lasting impression on Luke. In Apostolic-era Judaism, the spirit of prophecy was connected with celibacy as a matter of ritual purity. The girls had devoted themselves to their prophetic gifts, but they had not taken on vows of celibacy or utterly renounced the possibility of marriage. Clement of Alexandria records a tradition that states, "Philip gave his daughters in marriage," but two of them remained unmarried their entire lives (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.30.I, 31.2).
Philip and his daughters listened with interest as Tychicus and Trophimus of Ephesus told them about the communities Paul had founded in Asia Minor. Philip and three of his daughters later relocated to Ephesus and Hierapolis.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:12-14, ESV Bible)
The Will of HaShem
Paul and the delegates stayed with Philip and the disciples of Caesarea for a few days (Omer 39-4I). Agabus ("Locust") the prophet came down from Jerusalem to welcome them. The same prophet instigated Paul's first fundraiser and alms-bearing journey to Jerusalem (Acts I:28-30).
Agabus presented a dramatic prophecy. He took Paul's belt, and in a prophetic gesture reminiscent of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the classical prophets, he bound his own hands and feet with Paul's belt and declared, "This is what the Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles."
The prophetic dramatization, complete with a prop, evokes similar prophetic sign-acts carried out by the biblical prophets. The introductory clause, "This is what the Holy Spirit says," functioned as a first-century circumlocution for the common prophetic utterance, "Thus says the LORD."
For whom was this prophetic warning meant? Was the LORD trying to dissuade Paul from traveling to Jerusalem? No, Paul himself indicated that he went to Jerusalem under the compulsion of the Spirit, "bound in spirit" (Acts 20:22). The prophecies were meant for Timothy, Luke, and all of Paul's companions. They needed to know that what was about to happen had been foreseen and divinely ordained. When they saw Paul arrested and imprisoned and eventually shipped to Rome, their confidence would not be shaken.
The multiple warnings regarding Paul's last ascent to Jerusalem are reminiscent of the Master's own warnings to His disciples as He prepared to make His last journey to Jerusalem. He repeatedly warned them that He would suffer many things, be handed over to the Gentiles, and killed.
Paul's companions took the warnings no better than Yeshua's disciples did. In tears and with earnest pleading they attempted to dissuade Paul from making the pilgrimage. Luke reports, "When we heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem."
He replied, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Master Yeshua." Paul's companions and the believers in Caesarea resigned themselves to accept the inevitable. With an allusion to the Master's prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, they declared, "The will of the Lord be done!"
Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done. (Luke 22:42)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Death of the High Priest
The news rocked the Jewish World. Zealots assassinated the high priest Jonathan in the Temple courts! Jonathan was one of the sons of the elite Sadducean priest Annas. The book of Acts mentions Jonathan by name. In the early days of the Jerusalem assembly, Simon Peter and John stood trial before "Annas the high priest ... and Caiaphas and Jonathan ... and all who were of high-priestly descent" (Acts 4:6).
As his father had done, Jonathan worked closely with the Roman government. The anti-Roman Zealots demonstrated their disapproval by spilling his blood on the sacred pavement of the Temple, but the chief plotter behind the assassination was Marcus Antonius Felix, the new procurator over Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. By means of a generous bribe, "Felix persuaded one of Jonathan's most trusted friends, a citizen of Jerusalem by the name of Doras, to bring some Jewish Zealots against Jonathan in order to kill him" (Josephus, Antiquities 20:163). One cannot help but suspect that Jonathan's rival, Ananias son of Nebedeus, had a hand in the plot as well.
Doras kept the Zealots in the dark. They already despised Jonathan and the entire house of Annas for their collaboration with Rome, and they needed no ulterior motive for the murder. They gladly agreed to the plot. They did not realize that Felix had paid Doras to make the arrangements with them.
The Zealots went up to Jerusalem as if they were going Into the Temple to worship God, but they concealed daggers beneath their garments. They mingled themselves among the multitude. With the help of Doras, they slew Jonathan in the Temple courts and escaped into the crowds.
The sudden death of Jonathan left the high priesthood empty until King Agrippa 11 could come to Jerusalem and appoint a replacement. Ananias son of Nebedeus stepped forward and gladly filled the position for the interim.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Murders Increase
Our Master warned, "Brother will betray brother to death" (Mark 13:12). He told His disciples, "A man's enemies will be the members of his household" (Matthew 10:36). The bloodletting He had predicted began in the days of Felix. The assassination of the high priest opened a wound that could not be staunched.
The Zealots considered the assassination a great success, and they followed it up with more strikes against Roman collaborators. The Zealots began going up to Jerusalem at the festivals with daggers concealed under their cloaks. When the crowds were dense, they mingled among the multitude and slew their enemies and political opponents. The assassins preferred a short, crooked dagger called a sicae. They named themselves the Sicarii after their daggers.
They began to carry out regular assassinations, in the streets, in the markets, and in the Temple. They created a climate of fear and paranoia in Jerusalem:
The fear of being assassinated was worse than the calamity itself. Everyone expected death at any hour, as men do in war. Men had to look before them and take note of their enemies at a distance. Even if they saw their friends coming toward them, they dared not trust them any longer. Even in the midst of their suspicions and precautions, they were slain. (Josephus, Jewish War 2:256-257/xiii.3)
The Zealots did not stop with assassinations. They rallied the Jews to prepare for revolt and called on them to claim their freedom from Rome. Then they organized themselves into strike forces and carried out acts of terrorism on those who supported Rome. They plundered houses and estates, slew landowners, and sometimes set whole villages on fire. Felix hit back with regular raids and police actions.
In Jerusalem, the Sicarii Zealots had no regard for the sanctity of the Temple courts. They spilled the blood of their enemies on the holy stones of God's house. They carried out their murders in broad daylight. Josephus attributed the judgment that came down on Jerusalem to the murderous work of the Sicarii:
And this seems to me to have been the reason why God, out of his hatred of these men's wickedness, rejected our city; and as for the temple, he no longer esteemed it sufficiently pure for him to inhabit therein, but brought the Romans upon us, and threw a fire upon the city to purge it; and brought upon us, our wives, and children, slavery, as desirous to make us wiser by our calamities. (Antiquities 20:166 viii.5)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
False Messiahs and False Prophets
Our Master warned, "False messiahs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible" (Matthew 24:24).
In the days of Felix, false messiahs and false prophets began to rally Zealots behind them. From time to time, a group of Zealots banded together under a spiritual leader. "These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretence of divine inspiration ... pretending that God would show them the signs of redemption" (Josephus, Jewish War 2:259). The redemption did not come. Felix recognized the uprisings as the beginning of revolt, and he crushed them.
Shortly after the assassination of Jonathan, a charismatic, Greek-speaking Jew from Alexandria came to Jerusalem and rallied a large following. Josephus says, "He was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet." He claimed to be the messiah, and he went through the countryside raising a large following of Zealots. He promised that he "would exhibit manifest wonders and signs, that should be performed by the providence of God." Thousands rallied around him as they had once rallied around Yeshua. His followers believed he was the redeemer, but his critics contemptuously referred to him as "the Egyptian."
The Egyptian promised that if they would follow him to Jerusalem, he would stand on the Mount of Olives and fulfill the prophecy:
In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east. (Zechariah I4:4)
He told his followers that they would see the walls of Jerusalem collapse in an earthquake before their eyes. Then they would take the city and liberate it from Roman tyranny.
A large host followed him, including thousands of Sicarii Zealots. Coming up out of the wilderness, they arrived at the Mount of Olives. Felix dispatched a large force of horsemen and infantry from the garrison in Jerusalem. Thousands died, the rest were scattered or taken prisoner. The Egyptian himself escaped from the fight and was not seen again. He remained on Felix's "most-wanted" list.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:17, ESV Bible)
Arrival in Yerushalayim
In the early summer of 57 CE, Paul returned to Judea with a substantial sum of money and an entourage of delegates from his congregations in Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia. The assassination of the high priest, the uprising under "the Egyptian," and the violent spate of Zealot terrorism and assassinations all occurred in the months leading up to Paul's arrival in 57 CE.
As the travelers drew near, the delegates from the Diaspora felt the spiritual thrill of their first glimpse of Jerusalem. Paul felt anxiety. How would the believers receive him and his Gentiles? He knew that false rumors about his teaching and work in the Diaspora now circulated widely. In his epistle to the Romans, written only a few months earlier, he observed:
Why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:7-8)
On the day after their arrival (Omer 43), Paul brought the delegates to meet James. "All the elders were present." Paul introduced the delegates as he related "one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry." When he reported on his work in Syrian Antioch, he presented Titus and Luke. As he described his labors in Galatia, he presented Timothy and Gaius of Derbe. When telling about the congregations in Macedonia, he introduced Sopater of Berea, Aristarchus, and Secundus of Thessalonica. As he told about the years he spent in Ephesus, he brought forward Tychicus and Trophimus. He almost certainly had brought delegates from Corinth as well. The delegates placed the contribution they had carried from their congregations at the feet of James and the elders.
The presentation dispelled any misgivings that James and the elders might have been harboring about Paul's work among the Gentiles. "When they heard it they began glorifying God" (Acts 21:20).
As Paul finished his report about his work in the Diaspora, the elders of the Jerusalem assembly offered their own praise report. The Yeshua sect had grown. Jerusalem was filled with thousands of Jewish believers, all of them "zealous for the Torah."
Luke consistently presented the Yeshua-movement as a Torah-observant sect within Judaism. Yeshua taught Torah and urged His disciples to higher levels of holiness. His message called Jews to repentance-a return to Torah, even "the least of these commandments" (Matthew 5:19). Zeal for Torah is consistent with Luke's earlier descriptions of the believers, and it accurately represents the gospel message of repentance. "Jews who have believed ... all zealous for the Torah" describes authentic biblical Messianic Judaism. Faith in Yeshua should bring Jews into a genuine and heartfelt zeal for the Torah (Deuteronomy 30:2, 6).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:21, ESV Bible)
Rumors and False Prophets
James and the elders voiced the concern that circulated among the disciples. The believers in Jerusalem heard that Paul was "teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs." The allegations were serious. Since the believers in Jerusalem were all zealous for the Torah, they considered Paul an apostate. Each allegation needs to be examined.
Teaching Jews to forsake Torah
Teaching Jews not to circumcise their children
Teaching Jews not to keep Jewish customs
Forsake the Torah
The believers in Jerusalem had been told that Paul taught Jews in the Diaspora to forsake Moses, i.e., the Torah of Moses. The charge implies that Paul taught Diaspora Jews that they did not need to keep the Sabbath, the festivals, or the dietary laws and that he sanctioned intermarriage. In other words, Paul taught that Yeshua had canceled the Torah's ceremonial requirements.
Forsake the Circumcision
The believers in Jerusalem were told that Paul encouraged Jews in the Diaspora not to circumcise their sons. Circumcision is the sign of God's covenant with the Jewish people. The LORD warns that the Israelite who is not circumcised "shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant" (Genesis 17:I4). The sages regarded circumcision as one of the commandments for which it was worth dying to protect. The charge implies that Paul instructed Jews in the Diaspora to raise their children as Gentiles. If the charge was true, Paul taught that faith in Yeshua made the ceremonial rite of circumcision obsolete and that Jewish identity no longer mattered.
Forsake the Customs
The believers in Jerusalem were told that Paul taught Jews in the Diaspora not "to walk according to the customs." The word "walk" implies halachah (הֲלָכָה), the legal rulings of the sages and the Oral Torah. In the days of the apostles, the term "Oral Torah" (Torah she'be-al Deh) had not yet developed. When speaking of Jewish tradition and rabbinic law, the New Testament uses several different terms: traditions, traditions of the elders, traditions of the fathers, customs, Jewish customs, customs that Moses handed down, and customs of our fathers. The charge implies that Paul instructed Jews in the Diaspora to ignore the halachic customs and legal rulings of Judaism as taught by the sages and transmitted through Jewish tradition.
Paul's epistles make clear that he did not teach God-fearing Gentile believers to take on the Torah of Moses as Jews. He taught them not to undergo circumcision. He did not instruct them to take on the halachic legal observances of the oral law that pertained exclusively to Jews. Some people misunderstood his intentions (or his writings) and thought that he applied the same message to Jewish believers. Up until this day, many readers of his epistles make the same mistake.
As Peter says, Paul's writings are easily misunderstood (2 Peter 3:15-I6), but the false reports circulating in Jerusalem might have derived from more than a simple misunderstanding. Paul had enemies. A few days later, he encountered some Jews from Ephesus who claimed, "This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Torah" (Acts 21:28). It is reasonable to assume that they also preached everywhere and to all men against Paul. Their trip to Jerusalem gave them the opportunity to lodge their complaints against Paul with the Jerusalem believers. The Diaspora synagogues had grievances against Paul. His opponents from those synagogues were eager to see him discredited. They had malicious motivations for distorting the truth about his message.
If the charges were true, it was a problem for the apostles and utterly discrediting for Paul. The angst of James and the elders over the matter makes it clear that the apostles expected the Jewish believers to (1) cling to the Torah, (2) circumcise their children, and (3) keep Jewish customs. If Paul was teaching Jews not to do those things, the apostles intended to reprimand him. The credibility of the gospel was at stake. Ironically, the traditional, antinomian assumptions of replacement theology not only accept the allegations as true, they propagate them as doctrine.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:24, ESV Bible)
The Plan
Having heard Paul's own presentation of his work in the Diaspora and having met delegates from his congregations, James and the elders dismissed the allegations lodged against Paul as slanderous rumors. They said, "There is nothing to the things which they have been told about you ... you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Torah" (Acts 21:24). They wanted to diffuse the situation quickly. They said, "What, then, is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come!" James and the elders wanted to avoid a formal inquiry and legal trial.
They decided to announce their findings to the disciples, but they also felt that some show of submission to the Torah would be appropriate on Paul's part. Paul seems to have had a nazirite vow to complete on this visit to the Temple. They recommended that he pay the expenses of several Nazirite believers and join them in the completion of their vows:
We have four men who are under a vow; take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law. (Acts 21:23-24)
All he needed to do was to pay for their expenses, that is, purchase the animals they would need for sacrifice. If Paul actually taught the cancellation of the Torah, he should have seized the moment to admonish the Jerusalem elders for their allegiance to the old covenant of law. He did not. Instead, he consented to their plan to demonstrate to all of Jerusalem that he was, indeed, a faithful, Torah-keeping Jew.
Paul agreed to pay the expenses for the other four Nazirites to complete their vows. He needed to provide sacrifices for the completion of five nazirite vows (including his own). In addition to the significant expenses he incurred, Paul also willingly participated in the sacrificial service of the Jerusalem Temple, offering not less than fifteen different animal sacrifices (Numbers 6:13-21). Obviously, Paul did not believe that the sacrifices had been abolished by the death and resurrection of the Master.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:25, ESV Bible)
Concerning the Gentiles
Paul was not teaching Jewish believers to forsake Torah, leave their sons uncircumcised, or break the customs. James and the elders quickly realized that the false rumors circulated on a misunderstanding about Paul's teachings to the Gentile believers. Paul had been a champion in the fight against imposing circumcision and Jewish status on the God-fearing Gentile believers. His polemics had led some to believe that he opposed the Torah in general.
The apostles were concerned about exonerating Paul in the eyes of other Jewish believers. They wanted him to prove to everyone that, as a Jew, he walked orderly and kept the Torah, but as for what he taught the Gentiles, they simply restated the four essentials of the Apostolic Decree:
But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, they have no grounds to say anything against you, for we wrote, having decided that they should observe nothing of that sort, except that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. (Acts 21:25, Western Text)
As long as Paul kept the Torah and did not dissuade Jews from their obligations to Judaism, James and the elders had no anxieties over what Paul taught the God-fearing Gentiles.
This story sheds light on the meaning of the apostolic decision in Acts 15. Hebrew Roots teachers often suggest that the apostles gave the four essentials to Gentile believers only as a starting point. After that, the Gentiles were expected to learn the rest of the Torah in the synagogue every week (Acts 15:21). Eventually, they would be responsible for keeping all the laws of the Torah in the same manner as their Jewish brothers and sisters. Acts 21:25 indicates that the apostles understood their ruling differently. They did not offer the four essentials simply as an entry point with the expectation that the Gentiles would learn the rest of the Torah later and practice it as Jews. Instead, the apostles viewed the four essentials as a standard for the God-fearing Gentile believers-not the first step of a gradual process by which the Gentiles were to adopt the rest of the commandments.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:26, ESV Bible)
Seven-Day Purification
The following day, Paul took the four Nazirite disciples with him to the Temple (Omer 44). He initiated the purification rites for all five of them. Before entering the Sanctuary to offer their sacrifices, the Nazirites needed to undergo ritual purification. The seven-day purification period indicates that Paul had to make arrangements for them to receive sprinkling with the water of the red heifer's ashes (Numbers 19). The narrative seems to indicate that Paul and the four Nazirites immersed themselves on the first day and made arrangements to receive the ceremonial sprinkling. The sprinkling with the ashes was administered on the third day and again on the seventh day of the purification process. After purification on the seventh day, they would be ritually clean and could enter the Temple's inner courts and bring the sacrifices for the completion of their vows. Ordinarily, the seven-day purification applied only to one who had been ceremonially defiled by contact with a dead body, but the sages applied the same procedure to anyone who had traveled abroad outside the land of Israel.
Three days later (Omer 46), Paul and the four Nazirites returned to the Temple. The priests dipped hyssop into the water of purification and sprinkled them along with hundreds of other pilgrims undergoing the ritual.
The priesthood administered the sprinkling by tying together three stalks of hyssop, dipping them into the purifying water, and then shaking the hyssop toward the person undergoing purification. After receiving a splash of the water, Paul left the Temple to wait out the four remaining days until he could receive the second dose and complete the purification ritual.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Soreg
Paul spent the intervening days showing the delegates around the city, reconnecting with friends, and praying in the Temple. Although he could not enter the Court of Israel until he had completed his purification, he had access to the large Court of the Gentiles and the Temple's outer courts, including Solomon's Colonnade, where the disciples assembled daily for prayer. In the course of his massive remodeling of the Jerusalem Temple, Herod the Great extended the Temple Mount platform significantly by constructing a retaining wall and adding fill. A balustrade made of stone lattice work (soreg) marked off the original holy precinct. The balustrade functioned as a perimeter fence that kept Gentiles from straying into the sanctified area. The Mishnah reports the latticework wall stood ten hand-breadths (three feet) high. Josephus recalled it as slightly taller at three cubits (five feet) in height. The people referred to the courtyard outside of the barrier as the Court of the Gentiles because Gentiles were allowed to congregate and worship in that courtyard, but they could not draw nearer than the balustrade. The Levitical guard posted plaques on the balustrade forbidding Gentiles from trespassing beyond that point. Josephus, an eyewitness to the Temple, describes the barrier as follows:
When you pass through these first cloisters into the second court of the Temple, there was a dividing wall made of stone encompassing [the Temple]. Its height stood at three cubits; its construction was elegant. Upon it stood pillars, spaced at equal distances, that declared the law of purity, some in Greek, and some in Roman letters [i.e., Latin], that no foreigner should go within that sanctuary. (Jewish War 5:193-194/V.2)
[The Temple] was encompassed by a stone wall for a partition, with an inscription, which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death. (Antiquities 15:417/xi.5)
In late nineteenth-century excavations of Jerusalem, archaeologists discovered a stone plaque from the original dividing wall. It bears a Greek inscription:
No foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and enclosure around the Temple area. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death which will follow.
The plaque can be viewed in the Istanbul Museum. In 1936, archaeologists found a partial inscription to the same effect near Jerusalem's Lion's Gate.
In his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul employed the imagery metaphorically. He imagined the assembly of Messiah as a spiritual Temple in which "the barrier of the dividing wall" had been broken down by the death of the Messiah (Ephesians 2:13-16).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:27, ESV Bible)
On the Day of Shavu’ot
On the seventh day of Paul's purification, he returned to the Temple. "The seven days were almost over," and Shavuot had begun. Pilgrims who had arrived for the festival filled the courts. The Torah says, "All your males shall appear before the Lord GOD" (Exodus 23:17).
As usual, the Romans brought additional troops to the city to police the pilgrims. The large crowds made the Romans nervous, and they routinely brought extra troops to the city garrison at the Fortress Antonia. "For they were always armed and kept guard at the festivals to prevent any insurrection which the crowds might undertake" (Josephus, Jewish War 2:224). The soldiers took up positions on the roofs of the porticos. Reconstructions of the Herodian Temple place colonnaded porticos on the western, northern, and eastern sides of the Temple, and a monumental stoa flanked the south. Soldiers could access the roofs of the porticos from the Antonia Fortress and kept watch from the roofs where they could look down on the throngs below. As the believers prayed in Solomon's portico, the booted feet of Roman troops walked above their heads.
Paul received his second application of the water of purification and prepared his sacrifices. He passed through the Court of the Gentiles and beyond the dividing wall. He entered the Court of the Women and waited for his opportunity to enter the Court of Israel and offer his sacrifices. If he was completing a nazirite vow, he needed to have his hair cut and burned in the Chamber of the Nazirites. He later explained, "I came ... to present offerings; in which they found me occupied in the temple, having been purified, without any crowd or uproar" (Acts 24:17-18).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:28-29, ESV Bible)
More Charges Against Polos
Pilgrims from all over the Diaspora mingled in the Temple courts to participate in the festival. Certain men from the synagogues of Ephesus were also there, and they recognized Paul. They raised an alarm and rushed at him, crying out, "Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Torah and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the Temple and has defiled this holy place."
The men from Asia Minor lodged four accusations against Paul. They claimed that Paul:
Teaches against Jewish people
Teaches against Torah
Teaches against the Temple
Brought Gentiles into the Temple
Teaches Against Our People
The men from Ephesus claimed that Paul preached everywhere against the Jewish people. The Jews from Asia Minor knew Paul, and they knew his teaching. They had heard him preaching in their synagogues. The charge that he "teaches against our people" probably refers to Paul's warnings against rejecting the Messiah. They had heard Paul say things like, "You repudiate [the good news] and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life! Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:46, 18:6). The allegation that Paul taught against the Jewish people is unjustified. He taught only against Jewish rejection of the gospel. Luke assumes that his readers will understand that the charge is false. Paul later defends himself, saying, "I have done nothing against our people" (Acts 28:17).
Teaches Against the Torah
The men from Ephesus said that Paul "preaches to all men everywhere against ... the Torah." The charge is comparable to the false charge raised against Stephen: "This man incessantly speaks against .... the Torah" (Acts 6:13). The men from Asia had heard Paul encouraging God-fearing Gentiles to forgo circumcision and conversion, and they misconstrued that message. Even if they knew better, they twisted Paul's teachings to bring reproach on him. By telling everyone that Paul preached against the Torah, they painted him as a blasphemer and apostate. The reader should notice that Paul's enemies uttered this lie. Why do so many Bible teachers affirm the words of his enemies? Paul later defended himself, saying, "I have committed no offense against the Torah" (Acts 25:8). He said, "I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Torah" (Acts 24:14).
Teaches Against the Temple
The men from Ephesus claimed that Paul "preaches to all men everywhere against ... this place," that is, the Temple. On the contrary, Paul revered the Temple, made pilgrimage to the Temple, prayed in the Temple, offered sacrifices in the Temple, and underwent purification in the Temple. The men from Ephesus may have heard him warning about a coming day of wrath when the Temple would be desecrated. Similarly, the Master's enemies tried to convict Him of speaking against the Temple because He warned of its destruction. Stephen's enemies also claimed, "This man incessantly speaks against this holy place ... for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Yeshua, will destroy this place" (Acts 6:13-14). Yeshua, Stephen, and Paul all warned about the Temple's coming destruction, but they attributed that destruction to the sin of the generation, not the Messiah. Replacement theology, however, sides with Paul's enemies and claims that he taught against the Temple and the sacrificial system.
Brought Gentiles into the Temple
The men from Ephesus said, "He has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place." They knew that Paul was flooding the synagogues all over Asia Minor with God-fearing Gentiles. They knew something about his theology regarding Gentiles, if not the details of it. They knew at least enough to be certain that they did not like him or his Gentiles. Earlier in the day, they had seen Paul in the streets of Jerusalem with Trophimus.
They recognized Trophimus as one of the God-fearing Gentile disciples from Ephesus, "and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple." Paul might have brought Trophimus as far as the Court of the Gentiles, but the men from Asia Minor wrongly assumed that Paul had brought him past the dividing wall and into the sacred precincts, just as he had brought so many Gentiles into their own synagogues. Luke immediately clarifies for his readers that their assumption was mistaken. Paul honored the sanctity of the Temple and its ceremonial conventions.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:30, ESV Bible)
Shavu’ot Riot
The men from Asia Minor had no difficulty stirring up a riotous crowd. Zealots and hot-headed troublemakers launched into the commotion. People rushed together, converging on Paul. The men from Asia Minor were the first to lay hands on him, buffeting him with blows and dragging him out through the Beautiful Gate. They had enough respect for the holy place that they did not want to beat their victim to death in the sacred precinct. They dragged him into the Court of the Gentiles and proceeded to pummel him. The infectious disorder and clamor quickly spread through the crowd. Almost instantaneously, "all Jerusalem was in confusion" (Acts 21:31). Most of the shouting masses had no idea who Paul was or what the uproar was all about.
The Levitical guards reacted immediately to the ruckus by placing the Temple on lockdown. As Paul's assailants dragged him out, the Levitical guards closed the heavy doors of the Beautiful Gate behind him.
The skirmish elicited a response from the Roman garrison in the Fortress Antonia. The fortress sat perched on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. A causeway gave the fortress access to the roofs of the porticos, and a stairway descended into the Temple's courtyards. The Romans anticipated uprisings at festivals; the soldiers patrolling the roofs of the porticos watched for any commotion.
At the first sign of trouble, the soldiers sent a report to the commander, a tribune over the cohort stationed in the garrison named Claudius Lysias. (It takes six cohorts to make up a legion, and each legion had six tribunes with a thousand men under his command.) The tribune took some ready troops and a few of his centurions and hurried down into the Temple's courts. When the crowd saw the soldiers coming, they stopped beating Paul.
The angry shouts subsided as the soldiers charged into the crowd. People scattered left and right to make way for the advancing troops.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
(Acts 21:36, ESV Bible)
Fortress Antoniya
Claudius Lysias took hold of Paul, and his assailants released him. He ordered his men to bind Paul with two chains. Then he turned to the crowd and asked, "Who is this man and what has he done?"
The crowd scarcely had any idea. "Some were shouting one thing and some another" (Acts 21:34). The commander could not make any sense out of the cacophony; he ordered Paul brought to the Fortress Antonia for interrogation.
The soldiers led Paul away, but the crowd followed, growing in size and fury. They surrounded the soldiers, shouting, "Away with him! Away with him!" No one knew who he was or what he had done, but they were certain he had committed some dreadful sacrilege. The crowd became so heated that the soldiers had to lift Paul up onto their shoulders and carry him back to the fortress.
When they reached the steps leading up from the courtyard, safe from the rioting pilgrims, Paul requested permission to address the crowd. Surprised to hear him speaking in perfect Greek, the Roman tribune assumed he must be Alexandrian. He put things together. The tribune had recently led his forces out from the city to put down an insurrection, but the ringleader, an Alexandrian Jew they called "the Egyptian," had escaped. The tribune suspected that Paul must be the fugitive. He asked, "You are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Sikarios (σικάριος) out into the wilderness?"
Paul replied that he was not from Alexandria. He knew Greek because he was "a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city" (Acts 21:39). He asked the tribune for permission to address the crowd. Paul felt that, with a few words, he could clear up the whole misunderstanding.
The tribune was willing to let him try. If Paul could calm the crowd, it made his job easier.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.