The Leading Of The Holy Spirit

INTRO

This week, we’ve been following Paul’s missionary journeys. In Acts 20, Paul said goodbye to the believers in Greece and Macedonia.

In Acts 21, Paul headed back from his third missionary journey and received word from the Holy Spirit not to return to Jerusalem. Instead, Paul continued his mission. This chapter continues a series of goodbyes as Paul moved toward Jerusalem.

TEACHING

Acts 21:1–5: Leaving the leaders of the church at Ephesus was difficult for Paul and his companions—they had to tear themselves away. They found a cargo ship heading out to Phoenicia, which would have been a 400-mile journey. This seems like a travel plan of going to the Greyhound bus station and catching the first bus headed out west—not a nonstop bus going to a specific destination (vv. 1–2).

Nelson’s Commentaryexplains that Paul celebrated the Passover in Philippi three weeks earlier and had less than 30 days to make the journey to Jerusalem to be there in time for Pentecost. However, travel on the Aegean Sea had its own timetable. During this time of year, summer winds blew in the morning but died off in the late afternoon. Ships had to anchor each evening to wait on the winds to come back the next morning for travel to continue.¹The ship went to the Syrian port of Tyre to unload cargo (v. 3).

While there, Paul and his companions found some disciples and spent a week with them. The disciples delivered a word from the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go to Jerusalem (v. 4). Nelson’s Commentary points out Paul’s progression in this journey: he was in tune to the Holy Spirit’s leading (Acts 16:6), “bound in [his] spirit” to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22), and later received Jesus’ encouragement to continue (Acts 23:11). The Holy Spirit’s warning about Jerusalem was that there was danger ahead for him, not that he should not continue.²The disciples and their wives and children went with Paul back to the ship and prayed.2 The disciples and their wives and children went with Paul back to the ship and prayed with him and his companions before departing (vv. 5–6).

Acts 21:7–17: They sailed to Tyre and then reached Ptolemais where they again joined the Christian brothers there. They spent one day with them and then went to Caesarea and stayed at the home of Phillip the evangelist (one of the seven from Acts 8) (vv. 7–8). Phillip had four virgin daughters who prophesied (v. 9). This is a fulfillment of Peter’s prophecy from Joel 2:28: “I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17).

After many days, Agabus, a prophet from Judea who was mentioned in Acts 11:27–30, came to Paul and his companions. He took Paul’s belt and used it to tie his own hands and feet in front of Paul as a visual prophesy of what would happen in Jerusalem (vv. 10–11). Again, the believers in Caesarea and his companions “begged him not to go up to Jerusalem” (v. 12). This was another confirmation of the call Paul had already received from the Lord. Paul responded that he was ready to do what Jesus had given him to do—die in the name of the Lord Jesus (v. 13). Paul’s readiness was because he had been progressively and actively walking out his call toward persecution. I believe that when we listen to the Holy Spirit in the little things, He’s actually getting us ready for the big things that will come. See this progression of readiness through these verses:

Verse 14 says, “Since [Paul] would not be persuaded, we stopped talking and simply said, ‘The Lord’s will be done!’” Paul and his companions left for Jerusalem, accompanied by some of the disciples from Caesarea (vv. 15–16). The Caesarean disciples took Paul to Mnason, “an early disciple” who was possibly one of the 120 who heard Peter’s sermon (see Acts 1:15). When they finally arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers there welcomed Paul gladly (v. 17).

Acts 21:18–25: The next day, Paul went before James and the church elders and reported all that God had been doing among the Gentiles (vv. 18–19). This was seven years after the Jerusalem Council met in Acts 15, and everything in the ministry had changed. Notice none of the other apostles were mentioned after Acts 15, so the assumption is that they too had gone out to fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28 and Acts 1:8. Some of the strongest evidence Paul had of God’s work, was the group of Gentile believers who went with him to Jerusalem.

When the elders heard Paul’s report, they praised God and pointed out the thousands of Jews who also had become believers. These Jewish believers were still zealous followers of the Law of Moses and were concerned that Paul was telling the Gentiles that they didn’t have to be circumcised or follow Jewish traditions (vv. 20–22). The elders asked Paul to take four destitute men they had enlisted, pay to have their heads shaved, and purify himself with them as a visual example that Paul had not abandoned following the Jewish law (v. 24). Josephus recorded that when he first became king, Herod Agrippa I paid a number of men to take the Nazirite vows as a sign of his respect for God.³In verse 25, the elders reminded Paul of the requirements for the Gentiles that had been decided seven years earlier. Paul did as he was asked (v. 26).

Acts 21:26–40: After seven days of purification, Paul was in the temple when the Jews there stirred up the crowd against him. They seized him, dragged him from the temple complex, and were trying to kill him when the Roman commander was called in (vv. 27–31). The commander had his soldiers stop the Jews who were beating Paul and took him into custody, bound in chains (v. 32–33). When the commander couldn’t make sense of what had happened, he took Paul to the barracks (v. 34). Paul had been so severely beaten he had to be carried by the soldiers (vv. 35–36). The commander asked Paul if he was the Egyptian leader who had led a rebellion, and Paul responded that he was a Jewish man of Tarsus (vv. 38–39). Paul then asked to speak to the Jewish people and was given that opportunity (v. 40), which is covered in chapter 22.

CLOSING

Paul listened to the Holy Spirit and learned to trust Him. Then, when he was told of the danger ahead, he trusted the Holy Spirit and stayed on mission.