Today's Scripture Reading (May 12, 2024): Acts 21
Agabus has delivered a message to
Paul. If he goes to Jerusalem, he will be arrested, and Paul must be prepared
for that outcome. I have argued that this is a message from God and not a
warning, but that doesn't mean that some who heard the message didn't take it
as a warning. Some would argue that Paul should not go to Jerusalem. However,
Paul listened to the message, and I am not sure that anyone who knew Paul believed
that the apostle could be deterred from making the important journey to the
Jewish Capital, even if they wished he would stay away.
This is one of the famous "we" passages in Acts. Acts was
written by Luke, the Doctor and sometimes missionary companion of Paul. Acts is
filled with secondhand passages that Luke has heard from others. However, there
are also several passages where Luke makes it clear that he witnessed these events.
This is one of those passages. Dr. Luke was present when Agabus delivered his
message; he was part of the chorus of we. I can't prove it, but I think Philip
the Evangelist was also a part of the we, along with his four daughters. "We"
pleaded for Paul not to go. Paul may not have received the message as a warning
from God, but some of those present interpreted it as one.
I sometimes refer to this as a "Peter response" because I see
similarities between the response of "we" in this verse and Peter's
response when Jesus told him that he would die in Jerusalem. Then, Peter said, "No,
that is not going to happen." Jesus's famous response to Peter was, "Get
behind me, Satan."
This seems to be a very similar moment. Agabus delivers the news, and
those gathered there deliver what is really the Peter response. Don't let this
happen. Don't go to Jerusalem. However, Paul feels that God has called him to
Jerusalem, and so he prepares to go despite the words he has heard from Agabus.
The trip to Jerusalem, at least in part, was an essential step in trying to
heal the wounds that had developed between the Jewish and the Gentile Church.
And there was absolutely nothing in Agabus's message that changed that motivation
because Paul believed that God was doing the sending. Paul was going to go to
Jerusalem.
It is interesting to me that one of Philip's daughters, who also
prophesied, is not the one God trusted with this message. Maybe God sent Agabus
because he knew that the daughter's response to the message would be to ask
Paul to stay; they would have been filled with the "Peter response."
The message from God would have been given as a warning if it had come from one
of Philip's daughters, maybe phrasing it as "the Holy Spirit is telling me
that you shouldn't go to Jerusalem." At this moment, God needed an Agabus
who would simply give the message to Paul to prepare him, but that he would
understand that this was a message, not a warning. Agabus would ultimately understand
that Paul should do as God told him.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Acts 22
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