Read your Bible through in a year: Acts 21, 22, 23: Yesterday we left off with Paul encouraging the Ephesian elders before he went to Jerusalem. Today we pick up with Paul’s journey to Jerusalem. Paul traveled from Miletus in Asia to Tyre. There he found some of the disciples and stayed with them a few days. The disciples, through the Spirit, told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. After this Paul traveled further and each place Paul and his companions stopped the disciples prophesied concerning the matters ahead of Paul in Jerusalem, so the disciples begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Before going on the last leg to Jerusalem, Paul spoke before the elders, James, and Mnason of Cyprus concerning all the works of God among the Gentiles. All the disciples rejoiced at what Paul said. Then they encouraged Paul to make peace with the Jewish disciples because of misunderstandings. When Paul went with the men who were to be cleansed at the temple men from Asia found him, stirred up the crowd, and captured him. While the people tried to kill Paul the commander of the garrison came with soldiers and rescued Paul from the crowd, binding him with chains and asking what was going on. The commander and the soldiers put Paul in the barracks, but they had to carry him because the crowd was so intent to get rid of him. Paul asked to speak to the commander and told who he was. Further, Paul asked to address the crowds. When given permission, Paul motioned the crowd to be quiet and addressed them. He told of his past, how he persecuted the Way before the Damascus Road encounter, and his commission to go to the Gentiles. The crowd would not receive his words but went into an uproar again, so the commander and soldiers carried him away to be scourged. When Paul asked if it was lawful to scourge a Roman the commander and all those with him became afraid, and those who would have scourged him withdrew. The next day Paul was presented to the chief priests and council because he wanted to know why they accused him. He declared his good conscience and was slapped by the high priest, then Paul spoke harshly against him. When Paul found out who slapped him he apologized because it is wrong to speak evil of the ruling authority. Paul saw an opportunity to address the council as a Pharisees, because he was a Pharisees himself. He also said that he was being judged concerning the hope and resurrection of the the dead which caused a great division among them because of their beliefs. There was such an uproar that the commander and soldiers went in and took Paul from the council and back to the barracks. After this, Paul was given an encouraging word from God that he would testify of Him in Rome as well as Jerusalem. The next day there were a group of about 40 conspirators who came before the high priest and told of a plot to kill Paul, but Paul’s nephew heard the plot and took the news to Paul. Paul then sent his nephew to the commander and the commander prepared to send Paul to Felix, the Roman governor of the area. So a small army was assembled to send Paul in the middle of the night with a letter to Felix briefly explaining the situation. When Felix received Paul and the letter he sent Paul to Herod’s Praetorium to wait for his accusers. Read this section for yourself!
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:09:27 +0000
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