Acts 21:1-16

On to Jerusalem
1 After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. 2 We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. 4 We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5 When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way. All of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. 6 After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home.
7 We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day. 8 Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.

10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”

12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

15 After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. 16 Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mnason, where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples.



Dig DeeperOne of the myths that I have discovered as it relates to marathon runners is that you can reach a certain level of conditioning where running a marathon becomes easy and doesn’t hurt at all. Although I would agree that you can certainly attain a level of fitness where being able to finish a marathon is not really in doubt, no runners that I know ever get to a point where finishing a marathon is easy. No matter how strong and well-trained you are, running 26.2 miles (42 k) is going to be physically unpleasant in one way or another, if you are running at your maximum speed potential for that distance. Yet every time there is a marathon, you see hundreds and even thousands line up at the starting line and undertake the adventure. They have learned that their commitment to undertake the race outweighs the physical pain and discomfort and so they don’t allow the negative to deter them from reaching their goal.

This same principle can be seen in many different ways in life whether it is a young student who undertakes a long and rigorous course of study because they feel called to a particular field in life, or a soldier who dutifully charges into battle knowing that he will likely die because his sense of duty and honor outweigh the normal human instinct to preserve one’s life. All around us we can see examples of people accepting varying levels of sacrifice for a cause that they consider higher than the sacrifice itself.

Yet, as a minister, I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down with someone who is despondent because they have been doing everything they knew to do and been as faithful as they could and yet they have found their life in Christ to be full of much more trial, struggle, and sacrifice than they could have imagined. Underneath the surface they have mistakenly accepted an erroneous belief that following God’s will in their life should lead them away from trials and into a life of perfect peace and even ease. If that’s the case, though, then Jesus and Paul had no idea of how to follow God’s will in their lives. Jesus perfectly followed God’s will and Paul is the best example this side of Jesus of a human committing their life to God’s will, and they both constantly ran into rejection and persecution.

It appears that following God’s will often leads us straight into trouble not away from it. But trusting in God brings unexplainable peace and joy despite those trials. This is what Paul knew well and lived out consistently in his life. He had died to himself and was completely committed to following God’s will wherever it took and regardless of how personally uncomfortable it might be. That is why in the face of guaranteed suffering and persecution Paul didn’t run the other way but set his face towards it marched towards God’s will despite the consequences. He had learned that dedication to God’s will far outweighed the negative consequences of being so devoted to his God. But Acts is not a book about Paul. It is all about the spread of the gospel through the power of the Spirit so we shouldn’t be caught up in thinking what an incredible guy Paul was (although he certainly was pretty amazing), but we should instead look at Paul’s resolve in moments like the one described in this passage and realize that Luke’s point was that this was the kind of resolve it took to spread the gospel as radically and quickly as it spread in the first century. That was what it took then and it is still what it will take today.

Paul knew that the road ahead of him was rife with suffering and opposition but that didn’t deter him from setting his face towards Jerusalem just as Jesus had set his face toward the same city despite knowing that he would die there (Lk. 9:51). Paul’s fate would not be the same as Jesus’ once he reached Jerusalem but his motivation was the same. He was locked into doing the will of God and would not let the prospect of discomfort keep him from embracing that with his life.

The church in Tyre had likely been planted by disciples who fled Jerusalem following the persecution that broke out after Paul (Saul) had approved of the stoning death of Stephen. It seems that Paul did not know this Christian community but had perhaps only vaguely heard of them as Luke tells us that they sought out the disciples, using a specific term (aneurisko) that referred to finding something after searching diligently for it. Once there Paul stayed with them for seven days waiting for his next ship. While there it appears that some brothers there felt that the Spirit gave them insight into the suffering that Paul would face in Jerusalem. Through this revelation of the Spirit, they interpreted this to mean that Paul should perhaps not go to Jerusalem and pleaded with him to not go. There is a bit of irony in the probability that a church created by persecution initiated by Paul in Jerusalem was now urging the very same man to stay away from Jerusalem where he might face his own suffering and persecution. What Luke is making clear is that Paul well knew what lie ahead of him. The Spirit made sure that it was clear to all what Paul faced but the Spirit had also made clear to Paul that this was his calling in Christ, so no matter how many brothers and sisters tried to lovingly protect Paul, he knew what he had to do. He was more committed to the Spirit’s call in his life than he was self-preservation or a life free of trouble. In fact Paul feared no evil even though he knew that God’s will often traveled directly through the valley of the shadow of death.

After being lovingly escorted out of Tyre by his family of believers there, Paul prayed with them and continued on his journey, spending a day with disciples in Ptolemais. That may seem like a short time and it is, but I can attest that through the power of the Spirit that brings us into supernatural fellowship with other believers in distant lands, you can grow very close in heart and spirit with brothers and sisters as you travel through their area despite spending just a few hours with them.

After his brief stint in Ptolemais Paul continued on towards Jerusalem and eventually landed at the house of Philip the evangelist in Caesarea. Philip had been one of the original six men apportioned by the Spirit for benevolent work in the church (Acts 6:3-6). He had also spread the gospel in Samaria and the coastal plain of Judea and Caesarea (Acts 8:40). But that was around twenty years earlier so we can assume that Philip had stayed in Caesarea and been instrumental in building a church there. This possibly indicates that evangelists in the formative church planted churches and sometimes moved on to the next planting, but they also sometimes stayed put for long periods of time if that was the Spirit’s will. As we reunite with Philip we find him with four young daughters, probably all in their teenage years. All four had been given the miraculous gift through the Spirit of speaking God’s word by prophesying (This was a gift that was needed in the young church where the New Covenant Scriptures had yet to be completed and spread throughout the churches.)

After a few days with the disciples in Caesarea, Agabus arrived from Judea. He had two things lending credibility to the prophecy that he would give while there. The first was that he had just come from the Jerusalem area and he well knew the atmosphere in the city. The second was that he was already a respected prophet (Acts 11:28) who had prophesied the terrible famine that would strike the Roman world.

Agabus would deliver this prophecy in the fine tradition of the acted prophecy, a technique used often by the Old Testament prophets (for example: Isa. 20:2; Jer. 13:4-11; 19:1-15; Ezek. 4-5) and quite possibly by Jesus as he cleared the Temple and acted out God’s impending judgment and his authority to declare that judgment upon Jerusalem. Agabus tied himself up with Paul’s own belt to demonstrate what would happen to Paul in Jerusalem. It didn’t wind up happening precisely the way someone listening to Agabus that day might have guessed but prophecy rarely does work that way. The Jews would bind Paul up and he would be handed over to the Romans though and that was the point. Hard times lay ahead for Paul in Jerusalem.

These were deeply committed, God-fearing, Spirit-led Christians that listened to Agabus that day but they were also brothers and sisters that deeply loved and cared for Paul. On hearing such a frightening future for Paul, they wept and urged him to avoid Jerusalem. Surely Paul had suffered enough and what if he died there? What would that mean for those to whom Paul meant so much? Their love for him and concern that they would never see him again if he went to Jerusalem broke Paul’s heart for he cared for them just as deeply. But the threat of being bound in chains would not deter Paul. In fact, if the Spirit was leading him to his own death, then Paul had already accepted that long ago. He had died already (Gal. 2:20) and the life he lived was all about Christ and the gospel so physical death would not intimidate Paul one bit. He was fully committed to the heart that Jesus had prayed for in Gethsemane; God’s will be done. And if that will led him to die in the same city that his Lord had died then sobeit.

Throughout the book of Acts Luke consistently gives us the picture of an ever-advancing gospel despite the constant opposition and persecution that Jesus said would be the fate of his people. Jesus knew that his death awaited him and yet he resolutely marched straight towards that end so that God’s kingdom might be advanced. What happened there in Jerusalem through his death and resurrection gave birth to a people that were just as willing to march to theit own deaths so that glory could be brought to good, his will be done, and his kingdom advanced. The question that we must constantly ask ourselves is whether or not we truly stand in that tradition. Are we willing to imitate Paul as he imitated Christ? We may not be faced with our own physical deaths but it can be amazing how tightly we cling to our own lives even when the stakes are much less can’t it?


Devotional Thought
When we really commit ourselves to following the Spirit we will quickly find out that this will be a life for our ultimate benefit but it will not be one of comfort and ease. Are you truly willing to be led by the Spirit even if he leads you to do things you’d rather not do? He may not be calling you to suffer in Jerusalem but maybe it’s something as unpleasant as sharing your faith with someone in a situation that is extremely uncomfortable for you. Are you willing to go where the Spirit leads?