September 16, 2024

Passage Read: Acts 20-21
Meditation Verses: 21:11-14

Thought

Paul and those with him, representatives from each of the churches that gave a gift for the Jews in Jerusalem, kept hearing that Jerusalem would end badly for Paul. So in several of the places where they stopped, the believers begged him not to go, as if prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so. But Paul's understanding and commitment was that he should go and needed to go. No matter what was said or who begged him, he wouldn't change course. Had he given his word to deliver the gift personally? Did the Lord tell him that he must go? In none of the recorded prophesies is Paul directly told to refrain from going to Jerusalem, but the Spirit makes clear what awaits him there. The response of the believers is to seek to spare Paul suffering, but Paul won't do it. In Tyre, Luke records the disciples telling Paul "through the Spirit" not to set foot in Jerusalem, but of course, he didn't listen. Were all these warnings meant by God to dissuade Paul from going to Jerusalem? Did he miss the message? When the original disciples tried to keep Jesus from suffering in Jerusalem, Jesus said they did not have the things of God in mind, but the things of men. Was Paul thinking the same thing, even when people seemed led of the Spirit to keep Paul from going to Jerusalem?

Application

It's almost like Paul wanted to suffer, or else had been told personally that this was what he needed to do. Surely if Jesus had spoken directly to him, he would have avoided Jerusalem. So it seems he was confident that he needed to go there, and he was ready and willing to suffer whatever came, so that he could testify by life and by death that Jesus was indeed the Christ. He would be setting an example to all of us that a man's life was not more important than the proclamation of the Gospel. And Paul especially longed to testify about Christ in Jerusalem, among his own people, among the people who once knew his hatred of the church and had commissioned him to destroy it even as far as Damascus. It's almost as if he's trying to make up for his former blasphemy, not just by self-hatred, but by such determination to publicly renounce his former testimony. It seems abundantly clear that he is seeking to know Christ in His sufferings, and here is a chance to suffer at Jerusalem just as Jesus did. Whatever may be the case, Paul is testifying by deed that Christ and proclaiming Him is of far greater worth than anything in this life, including my own life. That is a lesson I need and want to learn.