Acts 21 Study Notes

21:20 Having listened to Paul’s report about what God had done “among the Gentiles” (v. 19), the Jerusalem leadership rejoiced but also answered back with something like one-upmanship. Mention of many thousands of Jews converting in Jerusalem was perhaps exaggeration, for the city had a population between twenty-five thousand and fifty thousand. At issue in the back-and-forth between Jerusalem leaders and Paul (minister to the Gentiles) is the role of the law in Christian faith; thus the emphasis on Jewish believers being zealous for the law. Perhaps this response also represented an attempt by believers in Jerusalem to strengthen their position as they saw the center of the church shift to Gentile Christians.

21:21 Rumor said Paul was teaching Jews who were dispersed among Gentiles to disregard Mosaic law and traditional Jewish rituals such as circumcision. To dismiss these fears, the brothers proposed a solution that would absolve Paul of the charges (vv. 23-24).

21:22-24 The elders worked out a solution through which Paul could demonstrate his respect for the law and his Jewish identity and put to rest rumors that he was against the law. Paul was not opposed to circumcising Timothy (16:3) or to taking Jewish vows (18:18). What he opposed was any claim that such observances of Jewish law merit salvation (Gl 2:15-16).

21:25 On the Jerusalem Council, see notes at 15:21,22-23a. The issue of the letter had been solved much earlier, and what Paul had or had not encouraged Jews living among Gentiles to do would not be clarified by the proposal of vv. 23-24. James was apparently succumbing to pressures from the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. Ultimately his proposal backfired (v. 27).

21:26 It is somewhat surprising that Paul agreed to perform the ritual of purification. Perhaps he sensed this was part of God’s overall plan, to which he was partially privy (vv. 10-11; 20:22-23).

21:27 There is no indication that the Jews from Asia were Christians.

21:28-29 Trophimus, an Ephesian, accompanied Paul to Jerusalem (20:4). It is unlikely that Paul ever brought Trophimus into the temple. After all, Paul was in the process of fulfilling the Jewish law, not ignoring or flaunting it. Even if the accusation was true, it would be Trophimus, not Paul, who would have been guilty according to the law as stated in temple inscriptions.

21:30 Paul was seized and dragged out of the temple complex, the gates were closed behind him, and he was left in the outermost area of the temple.

21:31-32 Once the crowd had isolated Paul, they tried to kill him. Roman soldiers were stationed in the Antonia Fortress on the northwest side of the temple mount. One of their chief jobs was to put down disturbances such as this.

21:33 The two chains were perhaps attached to soldiers on either side.

21:34-36 Even with the soldiers protecting him, Paul had to be carried as the mob pressed in for the kill. Fortunately the barracks were nearby.

21:37-38 Paul asked permission to speak. His use of Greek surprised the Roman commander (“Claudius Lysias,” 23:26). Lysias mistook Paul for an Egyptian rebel. The Jewish historian Josephus said this rebel, a messianic pretender, had gathered a number of people at the Mount of Olives to attack Jerusalem in AD 54. The group was routed by the Romans, but the leader escaped. Lysias initially suspected that Paul was this man.

21:39 That Paul was a citizen of Tarsus, a city of importance in the Greco-Roman world, accounted for his knowledge of Greek.

21:40 Paul spoke Aramaic to the crowd in order to communicate clearly with them. Aramaic became the new Hebrew, so to speak, among the Jewish people after the exile. In Paul’s day Hebrew was used only by the religious elite.