Acts 21:27-22:22
the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people
Sermon Transcript:
Alright, acts chapter 21. Acts chapter 21. I’m gonna read a number of verses. This is an amazing story, so don’t get lost in the droning voice. Uh, stay with this ’cause. This really is an amazing thing that’s taking place when this, and looking at verse 27 of Acts chapter 21, when the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia seeing him in the temple.
That’s Paul stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out men of Israel help. This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Jews into Greeks, into the temple and has defiled this holy place for, they had previously seen Trophe, the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
Then all the city was see was stirred up and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut, and as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He had once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them, and when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
Then the Tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another, and as he could not learn the facts, because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd, for the mob of the people.
Followed crying out away with him as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks. He said to the tribune, may I say something to you? And he, he said, do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian? Then who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness. Paul replied, I’m a Jew from Tarsus and Esia citizen of the obscure city of no obscure city.
I beg you, permit me to speak to the people. And when he had given him permission, Paul standing on the steps, motioned in his hand with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed him in the Hebrew language saying, brothers and fathers hear the defense that I am I now make before you.
And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became more quiet. And he said, I am a Jew. Born in Tarsus, in Esia. But brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamal, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers being zealous for God as all of you are this day, I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison, both men and women as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness from them.
I received letters to the brothers and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And I answered, who are you Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Now those who are with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus. And there you will talk.
You’ll be told all that disappointed you to do. And since I could not see, because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man, according to the law well-spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and standing by me, said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight.
And at that very hour, I received my sight and saw him. And he said, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth. For you’ll be a witness for him, to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait, rise and be baptized and wash away your sins.
Calling on my name when I had returned to Jerusalem was praying in the temple. I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, may haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. I. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I imprisoned and beared beat those who believed in you.
And when the blood of Stephen, your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, go for, I will send you away far away to the Gentiles. Then two more verses up to this word. They listened to him, then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth for he should not be allowed to live.
And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, and we’ll leave the story there. You get the scene. Let’s pray together. Lord, we read this passage, the tumult. I’m just stunned with the courage of this man, Paul. A man who, in a number of his letters, talks about his own struggle with fear, and yet God, to have the courage that you had cultivated in his life we’re drawn to want to understand what that looks like and how that’s done.
So God teach us to that end as we look at this passage together. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen. As we come to this portion of scripture, we’re coming to a unique moment in the ministry of Paul. The Apostle Paul to this point, has been involved in an offensive game for seven years. He has been going out on three missionary journeys all over the Mediterranean world, the Roman Empire of that time, and he’s been on offense.
He’s been strategically going from city to city and and, and people, group to people, group sharing the gospel, starting churches. That’s what Acts chapter one. Through the first half of Chapter 21 is all about. But from now to the Rema end of the book, Paul’s game moves to an a defensive posture. Eight of the remaining 10 years of Paul’s life will be spent in jail.
Paul will be imprisoned. He will be limited. Even the two years he has freedom. He’s doing it as an aged man and doesn’t travel much. There’s nothing recorded of those events. Paul is now on a defensive position. The enemy is bringing blows upon him, and yet there are unique ways that God is still going to work through the life of this man.
But that there is a tremendous transition in the Book of Acts. At this moment, it’s AD 57 and here in Jerusalem, which is now where Paul has arrived, culminating all his missionary travels. The city is in foment. It is a, it is a city that is filled with Jewish nationalism that has risen to a fever pitch 80, 57.
In 13 years, the Jewish people in 80 70 will revolt against Rome, and Rome will send their allegiance and they will crush the city. The temple will be obliterated. No stone will be left upon another. The walls of the city will be crushed. This is a city that is already filled with anger and vitriol to the gentile dogs that have brought tyranny and tyranny leadership to their nation.
There has perhaps been no time in the last couple of centuries. Where the feelings of the Jews of Jerusalem are more against the Gentile world. The church, of course, has had to deal with this because the church has been deeply desirous of sharing with their neighbors and friends, their Jewish beloved countrymen, that Jesus is the Messiah.
He’s the one that he has come, and his cross was not his ultimate defeat, but the ultimate victory of God bringing life and fulfillment of all the promises of Old Testament scripture. They want their neighbors to embrace Jesus. At the same time, the church in Jerusalem and the Jewish leadership there is attempting to encourage the gospel going forth to the gentile nations, but it is a hard place.
For them to live. They’re caught in the middle. And then Paul shows up this guy who has been the prime agent of saying that the hated Gentiles now can share in the Jewish Messiah. He has been telling the Gentile Christians throughout the Roman empire that they don’t need to keep the ceremonial laws, that they don’t need to be circumcised.
And yet these are the very things that have been the foundation that has kept the people of God, the Jewish people together for 2000 years,
the Christians in Jerusalem are trying to not stir up the pot of hostility. And now Paul comes to town. He’s been gone for seven years. The moment is electric with tension and conflict. It’s a, it’s a volatile moment when Paul steps on the shore on in the province of Judah. Paul knows all of this multiple times.
We have seen in the Book of Acts, people warning him, don’t go to Jerusalem. It’s foolhardy. You have no idea the tension that has built there, particularly towards you and what you’re attempting to do in the gentile world. He’s aware of all of it. He comes open-eyed. He comes with fear that he acts with amazing courage.
In a simple study this morning, I’d like to just think about what was it? That enables him to have this kind of courage. How is this cultivated in his life? And we see some seeds in this passage. Two things I wanna talk about this morning. First of all is Paul’s fear. In the verses we just read, we actually are seeing the scene that takes place in Jerusalem.
And I’m gonna mention that, just summarize it in a moment. But we realized that Paul anticipated these fearful circumstances already. A few weeks before this, Paul had written a letter, it’s called the epistle to the Romans. The letter to the Romans. And in that letter he had told them, I’m hoping to come to you guys.
I wanna bring the gospel to your city, and then I want to take the gospel beyond you to Spain. But he says, before I do that, I have to get back to Jerusalem, and I have to visit there because I have a financial gift that he had gathered among all the Gentile churches. And he’s actually taking eight Gentile men with him, representatives of all the churches to bring the gift to the Jerusalem Saints who are struggling, struggling financially because of ostracism and also the famine that has hit the land.
And it’s a way of the Gentile churches of sort of paying back the spiritual heritage that they have been given through the Jewish people and the Jewish Messiah, and now bringing a financial gift to try to alleviate their suffering. But Paul is recognizing what he’s facing in going back to Jerusalem.
And in Romans chapter 15, verse 30 and 31, he asks the Roman believers to pray for him. And here’s what he says. I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. First that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea.
And second, that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the Saints prayer request. One, if I can reverse the order is service for the Jerusalem may be acceptable to the Saints. Paul’s bringing this gift, it’s a way he’s looking at this as hopefully a way of merging the churches, the gentile Christian communities, the Jewish, uh, Christian community, and he’s hoping this will be a salient moment of unity.
And he says, pray that they’ll receive it that way earlier in Acts chapter 21. He is welcomed that way by the leaders, James and others of the Jerusalem Church. But his other prayer request is this, pray that I’ll be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea in this hot nationalistic fervor season in Jerusalem.
As I dare to go back, Paul says, I, I know I’m facing trouble. I know. I’m going to a hot place. Paul knew he had reason to be fearful. Secondly, Paul experienced those fearful circumstances. In chapter 21, we just read about it. Here’s what’s taking place. I’m just gonna summarize Chapter 21. What we read when Paul was, Paul was recognized by some of the Jews.
He’s come during a festival on purpose. So there are Jews from all over the world that have traveled to a Jerusalem and while he’s there, there are Jews from Ephesus who have recognized Paul. And they’ve also recognized a guy named Trois who is a Ephesian Christian. He’s a Gentile, he’s a Greek. And they recognize he’s probably a prominent guy in the city ’cause he’s a leader in the church and and he’s certainly known.
And they say, Paul is here. Not only is Paul here, we saw him in the temple. He has brought these Jewish, these gentile men into the temple. This is what’s taking place. Now, this is a, a hot moment, first of all, because they were already disposed against Paul, right? For what he’s doing. And now they’ve come to Jerusalem and they say the guy’s everywhere.
Here he is in Jerusalem. He’s, he’s, he’s bringing sacrilege to our very faith at the heart center of Jerusalem and the temple. They were wrong. He didn’t take them in, but they thought he did. The reason that that mattered so much is because there was a four and a half foot wall Josephus. The, uh, chur, the, uh, Jewish historian of the first century talks about it.
There have been archeological digs, uh, one in 1875, another in 1911, which 18 71, 19 15. Where they have found evidences of this and other placards that were put, this four and a half foot wall is seated. There is the large in the temple area. This large court called the court of the Gentiles. Gentiles can go there, but then in the real temple there was this barrier at the door and on it was an inscription.
And Josephus describes it and he puts it in these words, he says, it forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death. Well, in the placards that archeologists have found, they have found that there were signs all over the temple area. Here’s what they said, and they actually have archeological records of this.
No foreigner may enter within the barricade inside the wall. No foreigner may enter within the barricade, which surrounds the temple. And enclosure, anyone who is caught doing so. Will have himself to blame for his ensuing death. Pretty straightforward. This is the ultimate no trespassing sign and the Jews think Paul has taken, has disregarded it, stepped around.
The barricade, gone in this wall was actually what Paul is talking about in Ephesians chapter two, where he says, Jesus has broken down the wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. He has brought all into relationship with God through Christ, but these guys think he has disregarded the barricade and anybody that do does so is at their own risk for being killed.
Well, they attempt to do that. I. In the wording that’s in our passage we read, they actually attempt to kill Paul. Here’s what’s taking place. I want just to ascribe the scene because it’s, it’s, it’s awesome. First they claim that Paul went inside the barricade inside the wall, that he’s now taken these gentiles into the holy place and desecrated it.
They attack him and there is a genuine riot that takes place. In our passage, we read what it’s saying was this, the Romans are looking down into the temple courts and seeing what’s happening. How is that possible? Well, the temple structure, that very large temple structure right next to it, was what was called the fortress of Antonio.
It was a fortress that actually had a watchtower a hundred feet tall, so they could look down in to this entire temple area. And as they’re watching, they see this giant riot break out now. This, this fortress has a thousand soldiers. It’s under a tribune, and he’s named later in the book, and under him are these thousand soldiers.
And strikingly the Tribune himself comes down one of the two steps of stairs, which led right into the fortress from the temple area. He comes down with a minimum of 200 soldiers, probably more because it says he brought with him centurions. Well, centurions were over a hundred soldiers, so there were at least two of them.
There may have been more. So here’s this moment. I mean, this is a real riot, right? I mean, all of a sudden the riot police are showing up hundreds of them into the temple area and it’s all over. One little Jewish guy who at that moment, they are in process of trying to kill. They come flying into the court, they grab Paul, two of them.
Uh, he is chained on both sides to a Roman soldier, and they’re trying to extricate him, and they finally get him over to one of the stairways to go up into the fortress, and it says the people were trying so hard to get ahold of him that the soldiers actually had to lift him on their soldiers. I mean, this is like the coach just won the big game only.
It’s not really that kind of scene. They’re saving his life by lifting him on their shoulders, taking up the stairs. There’s hundreds of soldiers, but the violent reaction is so strong of the people. They get him up to the top of the stairs and Paul turns to the Tribune. Paul, who’s just had his clothes ripped, certainly was bruised and bloodied.
They were trying to kill him, looks at the raging mass. I mean, these are people, some of them he knows, right? This is his own city. This is the city he was a religious leader in. And as he looks back on the faces, he turns to the Tribune and he says to him, in cultured Greek, can I address the people? And what happens here is the, the, the, the Tribune is shocked because this is not who he thought he had.
He says, wait a minute, you’re speaking cultured Greek. You’re a cultured man. He didn’t just speak in the coin. A, he’s speaking cultured Greek. And he realized this is an educated man. This is a cultured man. And he says, I thought you were the Egyptian. The Egyptian. Three years before this, there was an Egyptian guy who had brought 4,000 assassins.
It’s mentioned in this passage on the Mount Mount Olive, which is actually the mountain that looks into Jerusalem. And with these 4,000 assassins, he had said, wait for my signal and we’re going to attack the fortress. This is three years before this 80 54. The Romans got wind of it. They attacked, they, they killed a number and imprisoned a number of the assassins.
But the Egyptian got away. He thinks he’s come back. And this little Jewish man is actually the Egyptian leader of the assassins. So he pours his soldiers in. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a moment. And then he finds out Paul is actually a cultured man and he gives him the opportunity to speak. How does Paul do this?
Where does he get the courage? This man who is very transparent about his fears and the struggle he had with fears, he’s just been bruised. He’s been emotionally, uh, beat up by the hatred and the animosity and the snarls of his own people that he has come back to serve. Where does he get the courage to do this?
Well, I’d like to just suggest a couple of things that I think this passage is very powerfully presenting to us. Paul’s overcoming his fear is seen in chapter 22, and there are two resources found in the Gospel of Christ. Number one, Paul had learned to look away from himself in verses one through five.
Paul begins by explaining in chapter 22, his religious heritage. No one in the crowd had a more impressive resume as a zealous, uh, committed Jew than Paul. He had been trained under Galio, the leading rabbi of the entire Jewish world of the day. He had persecuted the early Christians called members of the way he was devout and zealous for his faith.
Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees as he described himself. These were remarkably impressive credentials. But in the midst of his story, he tells them an amazing thing. It’s found in verse 16. In verse 16, he says, when he went to Damascus and he says, I was on my way up there to do the same thing I’d done in Jerusalem.
Take men, women, put ’em in prison. Some of them I put to death. He said, I was going up to Damascus, the same thing. Jesus appeared to me outta nowhere, a blinding light. And he sent me to a very devout leader, Jew named Ananias and Damascus. And verse 16, here’s what he says. And Ama And, and Ananias said, Paul, I want you to be baptized.
Why wouldn’t you be baptized to wash away your sins? And Paul said, I did. This was a crazy thing for Paul to say. The only people that were baptized were Gentiles. Baptism was a way for a gentile to acknowledge their sinfulness and their need of, of embracing Jehovah God and coming by way of acknowledgement and remorse for their sins and their sinfulness.
No, Jew was baptized and, and Ananias says, you need to be baptized, Paul to wash away your sins. Well, he’s the, he’s the attack dog of the religious leaders, and he’s, he’s trained under chamal. What do you mean I gotta wash my sins off of all people? Paul says, no, I had to have my sins washed off because of Christ.
Paul is saying, I realized there’s no difference between Jew and Gentile. We all need forgiveness. We all need what Jesus Christ came to offer, and I am publicly identifying with that message. Here’s why I’m saying all this. There is a new kind of humility that Paul has embraced with Jesus in his life. He has a different identity than he has had before.
Everything in his story is changed. Paul is leaning away from himself for his identity. This is really important. This is the greatest challenge we humans face. It’s the greatest challenge we believers in Christ face. We wanna find our identity in something we do or are something in ourselves, and everyone does it.
A superiority complex and an inferiority complex are equally unhealthy. Both make it about you. A superiority complex says, I think I am better than others. It’s where I get my worth, my value. I feel good because in my mind, I score out well. An inferiority complex says this, I think I should be better than others.
It’s where I get my worth, my value. I feel bad because in my mind I score out poorly. But it’s still all about you. You are just as self-absorbed. You are just as much focused on yourself, even if it is in your, your shame and your unhappiness and seeming unworthiness. The Christian is offered a unique way of life.
The Christian is offered a new kind of identity. Their identity is found not in themselves. They’re given a joyful humility. A humility that keeps you from having to think about yourself and evaluate yourself on the greater, less than scales.
Paul says here in this passage, in verse three and following, he says, I, I have some things that God has given to me actually in the religious arena, in the political arena. I have a lot of creds, but it’s not my identity. Verse 16 reminds me that my identity is found somewhere else. The first step to courage is not looking at yourself.
You don’t banish fear by looking at yourself. You stop looking at your fear yourself. Now, that’s not how we’re taught to deal with fear. I read recently, and it was a really good book. It’s called Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. And I’ve read a number of his books. He’s a great writer. But honestly, the good of the book, in my opinion, is his fantastic illustrations.
He does a tremendous job of defining what courage is, what fear is, and all that. But I was left totally cold with his solution to fear. His entire focus is on You need to decide to do the brave thing. You need to recognize the importance of courage and how courage is necessary to love and serve others, which is true.
But the culmination is basically, it’s about you. Suck it up, get moving, do the right thing, move forward.
But as long as you are pursuing your identity in yourself, as long as you are leaning into how you are perceived, how you measure up with others, maintaining something that declares you really are a success. You really are worthy, you really are acceptable. You will be afraid, and you’ll be vulnerable to the fear of losing that thing that is your identity.
Paul had learned something else. Paul’s value as a man had been in his respectability, his participation with the religious and cultural elite in his virtue and piety. Then he became a follower of the way Jesus Christ became the center of his entire world. It began to free him from the pursuit of image and respectability, and he went into towns and he was a tent maker.
I just, I, I, I really did some study on that. I was fascinated to find it, you know what a tent maker was. Tent maker Paul, when he went to Corinth, and he spent three months in Corinth and it says he, he provided for his financial me needs being a tent maker. Well, in Corinth, in cities, nobody lived in tents.
You weren’t making homes for people. The cities all had structures, permanent structures. A tent maker was basically making or mending tents if often there are mending. If you were making a new one, basically was making a tent. If people were going on a journey. If I could use a contemporary example of what this means, what a tent maker was was basically an RV repairman or mechanic to respectable job, but far from the position of prominence and esteem that Paul had been accustomed to rubbing shoulders with the cultural elite.
But Paul was freed from having to be someone having to prove things to people. The first part of courage is not looking at yourself. You don’t banish fear by looking at you. You stop looking at yourself. And the second part of this that is true of the gospel is he learned to look towards Christ. Verse six through 22, he just talk and his gaze is filled with Christ.
Paul was stunned with Jesus The Father, through Jesus had washed Paul’s sins from him, transformed his life, made him a member of the father’s family, a child of God. Paul had learned to put his hope in God’s love for him, and it made him fearless. That’s why in one John four it says this perfect love casts out fear.
To truly be loved, to, to not be on the line, to not have to be to, to not be afraid of what I might lose because of what I have in God. That he’s sweeter than anything I could lose. That he, that he’s irrevocably eternally for me. Years ago, I’ve told this story. I was in seminary and, uh, I got invited to pastor, a little fledgling group of people, about half an hour from the school.
Mary and I went up to this little church, and the church had a tragic history. A pastor had come from our seminary. He had been an engineer, and then he had gone into ministry and our successful businessman, I think he was an engineer, but he was a successful businessman, went to seminary later in life. He was in his forties and he went to the, the mother church of our church, uh, a prominent church in the area, in the rural town we were in.
And the thing blew up in four years. He ended up leaving with 25% of the congregation. Um, it was awful. The congregation was, after Unity for years had had terrible division and it all centered around this guy. It seemed like cousins were in different churches. Brothers and sisters were in different communities.
And I was invited to take the, the, the 25 Percenter group, and the guy who was the pastor of the other was also a seminary guy. And we were friends. And so we were constantly trying to think, how can we heal this thing? And we went to a man at our seminary named Dr. French. He was a professor. He was, he, he knew all the rural churches in the entire area of, of, of Northern Indiana where we were.
And so we asked to meet with Dr. French. We told him what we were doing, and he knew all about the church and what had happened. By the way, when the pastor had left the mother church, After four years, and he started this new church. Um, he had, um, been there three years and then left in anger with conflict with the new group.
But the groups were both now lying in pain and anger and conflict. And so we talked to Dr. French and I’ll never forget his, his words to me, to us as he was talking. He, he, he summarized why this man, he felt was so controlling of people so determined that the church had to be his way. He said it was because he was afraid.
And then he made this statement that it was impactful to me. Now, to me then, but the longer I walk with Christ, the longer I, the longer I face my own fears, the more I realize the depth of wisdom with this statement. He said the problem with his being dominated by fear and controlling and all the things that came out of this, he says this, he never knew how much God loves him.
Paul did, and it freed him. It freed him to be a man of courage. It freed him to do things that make no human sense to face things that God called him to do that we would say, how’s that possible? It’s not that Paul was bold and he didn’t care. He, he acknowledges that the number of times he’s had to overcome fear in his life just to start in a new city,
it was the love of God that freed Paul. It’s the love of God that frees us. Now, you may be out there and you may be saying, Uh, okay, maybe, but I’m not a wired person like Paul. I mean, just to be in the midst of that chaos would be terrifying to me. And it isn’t even about me. I get it. We’re all different people, right?
We’re not wired like Paul. We’re not wired like too many other people we’re us. All of us face situations where we need courage though, where we feel danger in what God is asking us to do in what he asks us to trust him with. It will not come by looking to yourself. It comes by filling your gaze with God and his unfailing love for you.
Lord, we look to you today.
There’s frightening stuff going on in a lot of lives today. Whether they put the word fear on it or just I’m concerned about, or whatever,
Lord, to live in the reality that you are for us. That you are with us, that you love us with an unfailing love, you the sovereign God. It does give us strength, encourage that we don’t find in ourselves. It frees us Lord, to not be looking all at ourselves and our image and, and how we’re gonna be perceived and all the things we, we process.
God, thank you for the liberty of your love in Jesus’ name. Amen.