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

Whenever I read yesterday’s and today’s passage I wonder about whether or not it was God’s plan for Paul to be arrested and sent to Rome as a prisoner.   As I read it, there are three possibilities.  One, God was warning Paul about what would happen if he went to Jerusalem in order to dissuade him from going there.  Two, God was warning Paul what would happen if he went to Jerusalem in order to offer him the choice of avoiding it.  Three, God warned Paul about what would happen when he got to Jerusalem in order to test his willingness to suffer for Christ, and to prepare the Church for it.  Which of these you believe to be the correct interpretation changes how you interpret what the Jerusalem Church elders asked Paul to do.  If you believe interpretation two or three, then Paul acting to show that he still followed the Law of Moses was the right thing to do, even though it led to his arrest.  If you believe interpretation one, then Paul was foolish to worry about what other believers thought of him.  Now that I have spelled it out that way I am less inclined to think that option one is the correct way to read this.  If one looks at it in that light, then Paul joining with a few others to go through the purification rites is completely in line with what he writes in Romans 14. “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.”

In summation, I believe that God gave Paul the choice of suffering by being imprisoned and eventually killed, or continuing in this world, and Paul chose to suffer and die for Christ.  I do not believe that Paul would have been wrong to choose to not go to Jerusalem, but also that he was blessed because he did.

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