I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 21-22.

    While Paul and his companions were staying with Philip the Evangelist in Caesarea, Agabus, whom Luke tells us had the gift of prophecy, told Paul that he would be bound by the Jewish leaders and turned over to the Gentiles in Jerusalem. In yesterday’s passage, Paul told the elders of the Ephesian Church that prophets in city after city were inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell him that jail and suffering were ahead for him. Paul repeatedly expressed his willingness to face imprisonment and suffering for the name of Christ. In fact, he seemed almost eager to face such things. I believe that we should share that eagerness. One thing which troubles me each time I read this is the sense that the repeated warnings from the Holy Spirit may have been intended to lead Paul to change his plans about going to Jerusalem. I will note that in yesterday’s passage, Paul expressed the belief that he was bound by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem. So, perhaps the warnings were merely meant to provide us with an example of Paul’s willingness to face suffering for the name of Jesus. Paul did not go to Jerusalem unaware of the fate he would come to there, but he willingly went anyway. Since Christ faced suffering in order to bring us salvation, we should be willing to face suffering in order to serve Him.

    I have written previously about how on Paul’s missionary journeys people stirred up trouble for him by slandering him to non-believers. In today’s passage, we discover that some believers had come to believe some of the slander against Paul. The elders of the Jerusalem Church decided to address the issue by having Paul demonstrate his adherence to the Law of Moses, which led to further problems. I am not sure that what the elders asked Paul to do was wrong, but it does fall into a pattern that often brings problems just like the one we encounter here. Catering to those who allow rumor and innuendo to shape their opinions about someone often leads to trouble and we should never form an opinion of someone based on rumor and innuendo.
    When Paul was in the Temple, people who hated Paul and the message he preached allowed their hatred of him to shape their perception of him. They assumed that because they had seen Paul elsewhere in Jerusalem showing a Gentile around that he had brought the Gentile into the Temple with him. Then a little later in the passage we realize that the people rioting had different ideas about the reason for the protest. The Roman commander, having extracted Paul from the mob, reached the conclusion from what they were saying that Paul was an Egyptian revolutionary. The crowd itself was shocked into silence by Paul speaking in their language.