Acts 21

25 The elders of the Jerusalem church had no thought of reversing the decision they had made earlier: namely, that Gentile Christians were not required to follow the law of Moses. All that the elders had requested of the Gentile Christians was that they abstain from impure meat and sexual immorality,⁹⁶ so as not to give unnecessary of fense to the Jewish believers (see Acts 15:19-20,28-29 and comment).

26 Paul agreed to the plan of the Jerusalem elders. Some people might criticize Paul for acting one way with Jews and another way with Gentiles; they might accuse him of being two-faced, or double-minded. But such criticism is not true. Paul had only one purpose, one goal, and that was to win both Jews and Gentiles to Christ by whatever means he could (see Acts 16:3; 1 Corinthians 9:20 and comments).

27-29 Some Jews from Ephesus and the surrounding province of Asia had come to Jerusalem to celebrate PENTECOST (Acts 20:16). Previously the Jews of Ephesus had fiercely opposed Paul (Acts 20:19). A few days earlier, these Ephesian Jews had seen Paul together with Trophimus, a Gentile of Ephesus (Acts 20:4). Now having seen Paul enter the inner part of the Jewish temple to purif y himself, these Jews assumed that Paul had taken the Gentile Trophimus inside the temple as well. Any Gentile passing into the inner courtyard of the temple was immediately sentenced to death. In the Jews’ eyes it was a great crime for a Gentile to pass into the inner part of the temple, because the Jews believed that the temple would be defiled if a Gentile entered it.⁹⁷

In this way Paul’s enemies brought false charges against him. Even though Paul was completely innocent of the charge, it placed in jeopardy not only his name and reputation but also his very life. Let us take this as a reminder of the destructive power of any false charge, especially within the church.

30 Paul was seized by the Jews and dragged out of the inner courtyard. Then the temple officials closed the gate leading into the inner court, lest in the commotion the temple should somehow be defiled.

Just as the Ephesians had caused a riot when they thought their temple of Artemis was being dishonored (Acts 19:27-29), so the Jews in Jerusalem also caused a riot against Paul for the same reason.

31-32 The Jewish crowd tried to kill Paul. If some Roman soldiers had not arrived just then, Paul’s life would surely have ended at that time. Just adjacent to the outer courtyard of the temple was a Roman fort, which was connected to the courtyard by a stairway. Therefore, as soon as the soldiers inside the fort heard the uproar, they were quickly able to get to Paul and save his life.

33-34 The commander of the soldiers supposed that Paul had committed some great crime, so he ordered him to be bound.

But the commander couldn’t find out the cause of the uproar, because some people in the crowd said one thing and some said another.

35-36 As the soldiers were taking Paul toward the stairs leading up into the fort, the crowd renewed their efforts to seize him. The people cried, “Away with him!”—that is, “Let him be killed!” Twenty-seven years earlier, another crowd in that same city had shouted the very same thing in connection with another prisoner—named Jesus (John 19:15).

37-38 The commander mistakenly thought that Paul was an Egyptian who three years earlier had led a revolt against the Romans. When the Roman army attacked the Egyptian and his Jewish followers, the Egyptian had escaped but most of his men had been slaughtered by the Romans. Therefore, the surviving Jews were very angry with the Egyptian for running away and leaving them at the mercy of the Romans. The commander thought it was for this reason that the crowd was trying so hard to kill Paul.

39-40 “I am not that Egyptian,” Paul said to the commander. “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia”⁹⁸ Then, having obtained permission from the commander to speak in his defense, Paul addressed the crowd in their own Aramaic language.⁹⁹