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§56 Paul’s Arrival at Jerusalem (Acts 21:17–26)

The remaining chapters of Acts describe the “bonds and hardships” that Paul had to endure. That so much of the book is given to this may be due to a desire on Luke’s part to simulate the passion narrative of the Gospel, in which the events of a few days are told at a length that seems disproportionate to the whole (see disc. on 19:21–41). But it must also be remembered that Luke himself was probably involved in these events, so that they would have loomed large in his mind and he would have had a wealth of firsthand experience on which to draw.

21:17 / Luke does not say whether they reached Jerusalem in time for the festival (20:16), but their leisurely progress as their journey drew to an end and the presence of many visitors in the city (cf. v. 20), including a number of Jews from Asia, suggests that they did. On their arrival, they were welcomed by some of the brothers—perhaps those most in sympathy with Paul’s work.

21:18 / The next day a more formal meeting was held with James, now clearly at the head of the church in Jerusalem, which he governed with the support of the elders (see note on 11:30 and 12:17). Paul had been worried that the gifts of the Gentile churches might not be accepted (Rom. 15:31; see disc. on 19:21), but James and the other leaders (unlike some of their people) seem to have been well disposed toward Paul, and we may assume that they received the collection in the same spirit in which it was offered (cf. 24:17). The presence of the other delegates at this meeting (Paul and the rest of us—the last indication of Luke’s presence until 27:1) would appear to bear this out.

21:19 / Paul reported in detail on his work (the Greek has the sense of recounting every single thing)—a long narration indeed! But since the reader already knows much of the story, Luke is spared the necessity of giving anything more than the one thread that ran through it all, namely, that God himself had done the work, but had been pleased to use Paul (cf. 14:27; 15:4; Rom. 15:18f.). It was important for Paul to make much of this theme, for there were those in this church who still questioned the legitimacy of the Gentile mission.

21:20 / The leaders readily praised God when they heard Paul’s report. But they had to point out that his presence now in the city was likely to cause ructions among the many thousands of Christian Jews who remained zealous for the law (see note on 1:13). On the continuing adherence of large numbers of Jewish Christians to the law, see the introductory remarks to 15:1–21. James’ reference to “thousands” of such believers has been looked at askance by some scholars, since the entire population of Jerusalem was not large (see note on 4:4). But the figure may have included many visiting Christians who were in Jerusalem for the festival.

21:21 / The trouble was that these people had been informed that Paul was preaching against the law. This was not something they had merely picked up as hearsay. The verb implies that they had been explicitly instructed along these lines, which can only mean that this was the doing of those intransigent “men of the circumcision” who went out of their way to hound Paul and to hinder his work (see disc. on 11:2; 15:1–5). It was very likely they who had been the cause of much of the trouble at Corinth, since they had been in Galatia and were threatening to be both in Philippi and in Rome (see Paul’s respective letters). Everywhere he was misrepresented by these men because he was misunderstood. The more he enunciated the doctrine of salvation by grace, the more he was falsely accused of telling the Jews of the Diaspora to turn away from Moses, that is, to throw off all moral constraint (cf. Rom. 6:1ff.; Gal. 5:13). As for circumcision in particular, no doubt many Christian Jews were influenced by teaching such as Romans 2:25–29 and Galatians 4:9 and 5:6 and concluded that there was no more reason for them to maintain the rite than for the Gentiles to adopt it. Hence the accusation that Paul had been telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to (the Jewish) customs. But though Paul was certainly no advocate of circumcision (cf. Gal. 5:11), neither was he opposed to its practice by Jewish believers and, as far as we know, never gave them instruction against it (cf. Rom. 2:25; 3:1ff.; 7:12).

21:22 / No doubt Paul was able to reassure the elders and James on this matter. Indeed, they effectively endorsed his position by referring to the decision of the council of chapter 15 (v. 25). But there was still the problem of Paul’s public image with those who were “zealous for the law.”

21:23–24 / It was resolved, therefore, that he should demonstrate his respect for the law by publicly associating himself with four men who had recently taken a vow. He was to join in their purification rites (v. 24). These men appear to have been members of the church and, from the description that follows, to have taken a temporary Nazirite vow of the same type as Paul had taken some years before (18:18). The duration of such vows was optional, but thirty days seems to have been the minimum time (cf. Josephus, War 2.309–314). This being so, it is difficult to believe that Paul would have committed himself to such a length of time. But in the regulations governing these vows in Numbers 6:1–21 there is a provision covering accidental defilement (vv. 9–12). This called for a period of purification lasting seven days, at the end of which, on the seventh day, that man shaved his head and on the next day offered the appropriate sacrifice in the temple. He could then proceed with the original vow to its completion (vv. 13–21). From the references here to “purification” (vv. 24, 26) and to “seven days” (v. 27), it would seem that Paul was being asked to join with the four men in rites connected with accidental defilement and to pay their expenses as well as his own (v. 24; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 19.292–296). It is a question with many scholars, however, whether the historical Paul would ever have agreed to such a proposal. But we have seen that he appears to have remained a practicing Jew (see disc. on 15:1–21), and though he would not have admitted the efficacy of this rite (cf., e.g., 1 Cor. 1:30), it would not seem to have been such a difficult thing for him to have undertaken it in accordance with his own rule of 1 Corinthians 9:20f.

21:25 / However, it was clearly understood that what Paul was being asked to do had no implications for the Gentile believers. The decision of the Jerusalem council still stood, according to which no legal requirement was to be laid upon the Gentiles as necessary for salvation. They would only be asked, as Christians, to conform to certain standards of conduct and diet (cf. 15:19–21, 23–29). It is odd that the decrees are repeated verbatim, but it may have been for the sake of those who had not heard them before, unless Luke has simply filled out for his readers (as we might in a footnote) what was in fact only a passing reference to the decrees. Alternatively, Marshall suggests that this was the first mention of the decrees in the we-source and that Luke failed to edit the source in the light of the earlier reference (p. 356; cf. v. 10).

21:26 / Out of deference to the church leaders, Paul complied with their proposal and set about meeting the legal requirements. The next day he took the four men to the temple and underwent with them the rite of purification. At the same time he made provision for the sacrifice that would mark the completion of the rite.