The Acts of the Apostles 81

Subtitle: Showdown in Jerusalem II

Acts 21:31-40.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 22, 2024.

Last week, we ended with Paul being seized in the temple and dragged outside into the surrounding courtyard.  He was accused of bringing a Gentile into the courtyard, which would defile it.  This was a capital crime.

The temple building had warning signs along with a fence around it.  This warned Gentiles not to come any closer or their death would be upon their own head.

Paul of course is a Jews and has the right to be in the Temple.  Yet, the accusation is that he is against the Temple and has brought a Gentile into it on purpose in order to defile it.  We can notice that no one has seen this Gentile in the Temple, and no one has this “Gentile” in custody as proof of Paul’s alleged actions.  This is all angry speculation against one that is viewed as an enemy.

Well, let’s look at our passage.

Paul is arrested by the Roman Commander (v. 31-40)

From this point forward in the book of Acts, Paul is going to be under some level of arrest.  He has been sharing the truth of Jesus Christ for at least 20 years.  As best we can tell, this is around A.D. 57 to 58.  For perspective, we know that Nero is Caesar.  The Jewish revolt that will begin in A.D. 66 is only 8 to 9 years away.  The destruction of Jerusalem that will occur in A.D. 70 is only 12 to 13 years away.

Even though Paul is not in control of where he goes, God is orchestrating this to give Paul opportunities to share the Gospel in places that were opened up by his arrest.  His imprisonment is ironically accompanied with more freedom than most prisoners.  He is generally allowed to receive any visitors, as well as sending and receiving letters.

Of course, at the moment, we have Paul being beaten in the Temple courtyard.  The Jews from Asia have stirred up a mob, and one would presume that it is they who have taken the lead in beating him.  They have a vested interest in this.  Paul had been an annoyance to them back home.  He had  come into their synagogues and preached Jesus as Messiah.  This had ended up splitting many of the synagogues, causing the converts to Jesus to leave.  They also wanted to look zealous in the eyes of the Jerusalem Jews who would see them as sub-par.

Meanwhile, the Romans had a military compound that connected to the north wall of the temple.  It was called the Antonia Fortress.  It had towers that enabled the soldiers to look down upon the Temple courtyard and surveil its activity.  It also had two large bridges that connected to the northern porch.  This porch  went all they way around the Temple Courtyard had a flat roof that allowed soldiers (Roman soldiers) to quickly surround the area and back up any troops going down to the courtyard level via stairs.  Thus, at the time that Paul was being beaten, news of a disturbance had reached the commander of the fortress, and he quickly descended upon the scene with a show of force. 

We will see later that the governor is currently in Caesarea, which is the Roman headquarters for governing Judea.  Thus, this commander is responsible for the peace of Jerusalem while the governor is gone.

Those who are beating Paul stop once they are surrounded by Roman soldiers.  But, I would note that Luke describes them as “seeking to kill [Paul].”  This isn’t explained completely.  It is possible that they had sent people to the high priest in order to get permission to kill Paul.  However, it is also possible that they were in the act of beating him to death.  These are not men who are accustomed to killing another.  Though they are passionate and in a large group, there was probably enough fearful restraint to give time for the soldiers to arrive.

The commander immediately puts Paul in two chains.  A chain in such a situation would normally be connected to a Roman soldier.  Even if a riot occurred, Paul wouldn’t get far.  The two chains demonstrates extreme security.  It would signal to the Jews that Paul is not going to get away.  However, it would also signal to the Jews to calm down.  To strike Paul now would be to strike the Romans themselves because they have taken custody of him.  He belongs to them now.  The commander does this to dissolve the commotion.

We should recognize that the Romans are not wonderful, God-loving people who just want to “give peace a chance.”  The Pax Romana was a Roman boot in the face of other nations.  When the boot is removed, the people are expected to remain in a subjected attitude and activity.  If you do not, the boot will return quickly and harshly.  As long as you respected the Roman rules and decrees, you would have “peace.” 

One of the reasons that the Romans didn’t allow any mercy for riots is that riots often were the start of military uprisings.  Their job was to keep everyone in line so that there was no uprising.  Thus, their jobs were on the line.  If Caesar thought that they couldn’t keep things under control, he would have the leaders removed.  On top of this, there was always someone working to make you look bad so that they, or their man, could be put into the position of authority.  It was a dog-eat-dog world.

When he questions the people about the commotion, there is no clear answer from those who respond.  The commander decides that the best course of action is to bring Paul back to the fortress and question him there.  It would remove the “fuel” from the fire of this riot.  Yet, as he takes Paul along, the Jews are continuing the disturbance and shouting, “Away with him!”  By this, they mean that he should be killed.

Let’s take a moment to speak about being a person led by the Spirit of God rather than our flesh.  Both the Jewish crowd and the Roman’s are being led by their flesh, by the spirit of this world.

The crowd is led by passionate emotions, which generally overwhelm rational thought and righteous judgments.  There is no sense of a trial and evidence, only of lynching.  They have heard stories about this scoundrel, Paul.  Have you been hearing stories about people in our society?  It is easy to get worked up in our emotions and be led by the flesh to do wickedness.  God’s people should never be involved in such things.

Paul’s annoyance of these Jews of Asia Minor is more about Jesus than it is Paul.  Jesus is a polarizing individual.  The cross is an offense to those who are full of self-righteousness.  However, others realize the powerful truth behind it, and they learn to embrace the One who went to the cross for them.  Self-righteousness is not a Jewish problem, it is a human problem.  We all have it to one degree or another.  Jesus is the test to whether it rules us or not.

Communism loves to pit two groups against each other.  One is called the victim, or oppressed, and the other is called the victimizer, or oppressor.  Of course, they don’t just stop with one group dynamic, such as the poor versus the rich.  They continue to work their discontent between group after group.  At this point, you can have people who are members of a greater number of oppressed groups versus someone who is a member of a greater number of oppressor groups.  Of course, most of these distinctions become yours at birth and require no choice from you:  women and men, black and white, poor and rich, 3^rd world country and 1^st world country, transgender and cisgender, and it continues ad infinitum.  The goal is to keep us divided and subjugated.

Yet, this battle regarding what the Bible calls sin is not about these groups.  You might be in one of those groups and don’t understand how others see you in only one way.  But, the brights, the brilliant ones, of our society use these dividing lines to manipulate us along the path of their designs.

Do you want to know where the real dividing line is between victim and victimizer?  It is right down the middle of each and everyone of our hearts, your heart and my heart.  The question is always in front of our heart, “Am I going to follow my flesh, or am I going to follow the Spirit of God.”  The Spirit of God comes and convicts us of our own sin, but we too often only shout louder about the sins of others.

The person and work of Jesus confronts every single one of us with this question.  Am I going to be me, living for my selfish self, or am I going to die to my selfish desires and live for the righteous purposes of Jesus? 

Well, we see how the Jews are following their flesh, in their emotional rage against Paul.  However, passionate emotions are not the only way to follow your flesh.  We can also follow our flesh by being extremely rational and using our power to exercise our will upon others.  Of course, this describes the Romans in this passage.

The Romans are used by God to spare Paul’s life in the moment, but that does not mean that God thinks they are righteous.  Yes, we must guard against being a person who is easily manipulated through our passions.  Yet, we must also guard against being a person who is captured by the rationales of the spirit of this world. 

There are rationales going on throughout the Church, lots of them.  The fact that many of them are contradictory shows that it is not all led by the Holy Spirit.  The spirit of this world does not care about you being a Christian.  It only cares that you don’t actually follow Jesus.  Think of it.  In the name of following Jesus, a person can have a rationale that is actually self-serving, or serving some other brilliant, religions genius.  If you don’t see that, then think about the high priest Caiaphas.  In the name of following Yahweh, he worked to put Yahweh to death.

So, how can we guard against becoming such a person?  You can only do this by becoming a person who studies the word of God, prays daily for wisdom,  seeks the leading of God’s Spirit, and then walks out by faith what He is saying.  This is what Paul was doing.  He was a man being led by the Holy Spirit.

Our flesh will protest in such moments.  Surely, if God was leading me, it would end up in a bad place, would it?  Our flesh loves to be at the Red Sea and have God split the waters and drown the armies of Pharaoh.  However, it hates to be in line for crucifixion on a cross.  In Christ, we are to learn the joy of dying to ourselves and living for Christ by His Holy Spirit.  In fact, following the flesh only brings pain and sorrow in the end regardless of momentary pleasure up front.  Suffering is the reverse of this.  Our sufferings are only for this moment.  However, we shall have joy in the presence of God for eternity!

Paul has had a bad day.  Yet, in a beaten and arrested state, he has the wherewithal to speak to the commander.  In this moment, God provides him the opportunity to give one last testimony to his people in Jerusalem.

Paul speaks to the commander in polished and polite Greek.  This obtains a double-take from the commander.  He was operating under the working assumption that Paul might be an Egyptian Jew who had led 4,000 men against the Romans previously.  Josephus mentions this story.  The men were destroyed by the Roman legions, but the leader was never caught.  The commander’s response is more of a recognition that Paul isn’t this Egyptian. 

In this moment of being caught off guard, Paul asks to address the crowd.  He tells the commander that he is a Jew from Tarsus of Cilicia and wants to address the people who are even then shouting, “Away with him!”

It is not clear why the commander permits Paul to speak to the crowd.  It could be that he is caught off guard by Paul’s demeanor.  In the end, I believe that it really was God who helped him to do it.

Paul as a person caught a lot of people off guard.  He was Jewish, but also Roman.  He was schooled in all the ways of the Pharisees, and yet, he could speak in Greek.  Paul is going to address the crowd and the same way that the commander lets him speak, the crowd quiets down and let’s Paul speak.  What is he going to say?

When tough things happen, when we are treated unjustly and brutally, we can be too focused on challenging God.  Why is this happening to me, God!  Really, we should be looking for opportunities to share the Gospel and glorify Jesus.  Paul could have been wrapped up in fighting for himself.  It is very hard to let people publicly lie about you.  Yet, there is no sense that Paul, and his companions for that matter, were fighting back against the crowd.  He was surrendered to God and had an awareness of what God could do in the situation.

A person led by the Holy Spirit will not be about justifying themselves.  They will be about pointing others to Jesus.  May God help us to do the same.  The noise and the fear in our society is used by the enemy of our souls to capture us in differing modes of living for our flesh.  God help us to reject them, no matter how tempting they are.

Let’s live for Jesus!

Showdown II audio