Acts 21:26-40

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we get into the Lord's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, we'll go all the way from the Book of Acts to the Book of Philemon. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. Let's go ahead and have some coffee.
We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. And we pray, God, that as we read your word this morning, you would be working in our hearts. Father, we pray that we would follow you no matter where that might lead. In Jesus name. Amen. All right. Here we go. We're at Acts chapter 21. We're going to finish up this chapter today. Acts chapter 21, beginning at verse 26.
Then Paul took the men and the next day having been purified with them into the temple to announce the expiration of the days of purification at which time an offering should be made for each of them. So remember this is what the elders at Jerusalem thought that was the best thing because there are people who heard that Paul was teaching against the law, against the customs, against Moses. And so they said, hey, why don't you take these four guys? You go do a ceremony of being cleansed and also then go take them and pay for their sacrifice.
And so, all right, he's going to do it. And now he follows through with that. Now when the seven days were almost ended, verse 27, the Jews of Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is a man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place.
And furthermore, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. But they previously had seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, with him in the city, when they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple. And all the city was disturbed. And the people ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple.
And immediately the doors were shut. Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. He immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the commander came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains. And he asked who he was and what he had done.
And some among the multitude cried one thing and some another. So when he could not ascertain the truth because of the atonement, he commanded him to be taken into the barracks. When he reached the stairs, he had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob. For the multitude of the people followed, crying out, Away with him!
Then, as Paul was about to be led into the barracks, he said to the commander, May I speak to you? He replied, Can you speak Greek? Are you not the Egyptian, who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led four thousand assassins out into the wilderness? But Paul said, I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city, and I implore you, permit me to speak to the people. So when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language saying, dot, dot, dot. We'll get there tomorrow. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? What is this about?
Well, Paul goes to the temple. And he goes, he's made this purification, he's gone through the mikvot ceremony, and now he's going into the temple. And as he's there at the temple, what's he going to do? He tells them, okay, in seven days we're going to be done with our ritual purification. That's kind of a whole week of making sure they're keeping themselves clean. And then they would enter into the temple. Well after a week they go into the temple and there are Jews from Asia there.
This is, remember that area of eastern or western Turkey, what we would call western Turkey now. Most likely this is being used for places like Ephesus or Miletus and these Jews knew Paul and had misunderstood his teaching but now they're zeroing in and they cry out. Hey, this is the guy, this is the one, this is the one teaching all the Gentiles against Moses, against this place, against everything we believe. And remember the heightenedness of what's going on in Jerusalem right now. Remember what we talked about yesterday with how everything had been bubbling up and boiling up to the surface.
And now at this key juncture, The Romans had even given authority that in the temple, there were different parts of the temple. There was the court of the Gentiles, the outside part of the temple. And in the outside part of the temple, that's kind of like the heartbeat of the culture. That's the heartbeat of the society. That's even the marketplace in some ways. But just beyond that, there's a wall.
And the wall, it's called the Surak, it's about four and a half feet high and no Gentile was allowed to come past the Surak. Because as you got closer and closer and closer and closer towards the Holy of Holies, less and less and less and less people were allowed to go. So you had the court of the Gentiles, the court of the men, the court of the women, the court of the priests, and finally the temple proper. And inside that, the Holy of Holies. And what they're saying is he's brought these Gentiles into the sword, past the line, past, there's literally two stones that we have today that say that if a Gentile enters in behind this wall, that they will be killed.
Josephus talks about this in his War of the Jews and in his Antiquities. And so they think that he's brought Trophimus with him. They've seen him in the town. They think that maybe they saw him there. So maybe he's one of these four men. And so he must have brought him into the holy place. And so there's mobs, right? There's tons of people there.
So they bum rush him, they get together, they drag him out and The doors to the temple shut. The doors past the surrocks shut. This is the last time that we'll hear of the temple in this way in the book of Acts. The gospel is not welcome there. The religious authorities aren't interested in what Paul actually believes. who Jesus actually was.
And so they drag him out and he's about to be killed and right on the edge of the temple is a thing called the Anatolia, it's a fortress. And it's built right next to the temple. And it's literally where the garments for the high priests are kept. And in the fortress is the guard there. We'll find out later.
His name is Claudius Lysias. And as he's up there, he hears about what's going on and he runs down with his six centurions and his 600 forces. They run down and they try to figure out what's going on. He can't discern from the Jews what's going on, what's this charge about this troublemaker. They bind him in double chains and he starts taking him up into the barracks, into the Anatolia, into the fortress. And the mob isn't stopping. They're all on him. Away with him! Away with him! is at that point they've been beating him. You can imagine Paul bruised, beaten, swelled. I mean, you could see the marks of persecution on him.
And he politely looks at Claudius and says, may I speak with you? And Claudius is kind of amazed. Hold on. You know Greek? Hey, he's expecting maybe he's some type of Jewish rebel rouser. Something's going on, you know, and he's expecting him to answer him in Aramaic or Hebrew. It says he's speaking Greek and he says no. Yeah, you know, you speak Greek and then his mind immediately races. Oh, are you that Egyptian?
The one who led the assassins and killed thousands? And this has a whole bunch of historical background behind it, but the story behind that is that there was all sorts of messianic figures at this time. And there was one from Egypt, there was a big Jewish community in Egypt, this is where the great philosopher Philo is at. And this Egyptian had gone up there and during the reign of Felix had tried to overthrow the Romans and they did it by having these daggers with them and they would go around and they would kill Jewish and Romans. And Felix clamped down on that, but the Egyptian escaped. And so he wonders, are you this Egyptian from, are you this one from Egypt, this rabble rouser?
And Paul says, no, no, I'm from Tarsus in the province of Cilicia. No average city, a citizen. Now remember, he's a Roman citizen. Whoa, hold on. That comes with certain rights and privileges. And so he says, may I speak to the people? And he says, yes. And so he turns around and. And Paul motions to them to be quiet. And there's a great silence, and he addresses them in the language of the Hebrews.
We're going to get to that speech tomorrow. So what's this whole passage getting at? Well, this is Paul who had his eyes set on Jerusalem to go. And now he's arrived in Jerusalem and people don't like his message. People think that he is teaching against Moses. People think that he's teaching against the Jewish people. People think that he's teaching against the temple. And if you go pick up the book of Hebrews, you can understand why.
Why they would understand that, because we believe that all of it pointed towards Christ. And so while the temple was still standing, Paul had no problem being a Jew to the Jews. But at the end of the day, the temple didn't matter because the church was the temple of God. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives within you? Therefore, glorify God with your bodies.
What did he write to the Ephesians when he told them? That it's Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone and that the foundations of the temple of the church have been laid by the prophets and the apostles. And that we are the living stones built upon one another and we're to edify one another. And the Jews don't like this message. And they make a false assumption that he's brought trophimus into the temple.
So what do we take away from this? How does this apply to our lives? Don't be surprised. If people misunderstand what we believe. Here with Paul Don't be surprised when people make false assumptions about things that you think or say or do Don't be surprised when they hate you and persecute you and so say all sorts of vile things against you if they did it to Christ Don't do it to Paul and they might do it to you Take heart Christian It's not just you. Hold to the words of truth. Hold to the scriptures. Believe in Jesus Christ. It may bring trial and affliction. But are you willing to pick up your cross daily and follow him? Are you willing to face persecution, trial, tribulation? That you might inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have not hidden from us the reality of what it means to be your disciples, to be your students, to be your followers. God, we don't follow some type of cult of persecution. We don't follow some type of cult of martyrdom. But Lord, we thank you. that we do get to testify to who you are and all the great things that you have done.
Please watch over us this day and give us courage and strength in Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the courage and strength of Jesus Christ. May you count the cost of being his disciple. May you count it all joy. For his namesake. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.