THE BOOK OF ACTS
Lesson 48, Chapters 21 and 22
We’ll continue in Acts 21 and then finish up in Acts 22 today.
When we left Paul he was in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot after spending many years of
establishing Believing congregations in Macedonia and Asia. He had just begun to perform the
ritual purification procedures that James (Yeshua’s half-brother), the supreme leader of The
Way, had instructed him to do. Beginning in Acts 21:20 through verse 24 James explains that
Paul is to pay for, and participate in, the vow offerings and all other elements needed for 4
Believers who are under a Nazarite vow to bring their vows to the proper termination. The
purpose of this exhibition is for Paul to publically demonstrate his fidelity and devotion to
Halakhah (Jewish Law) because many Judean Jews have been convinced that Paul has
abandoned his Jewishness, ceased following the Law, is telling others to do so and thus has
apostatized from Judaism. Since Paul has been operating strictly in the foreign nations of the
Diaspora, these slanderous rumors about Paul’s anti-Law and anti-Jewish teaching have been
brought to Jerusalem by Diaspora Jews traveling there for the various pilgrimage festivals.
Verse 26 explains that Paul did exactly what James suggested. One might reason that any
Christian would read this passage and immediately understand that Paul followed the Law just
as he has claimed on several occasions that he does. Yet what we find with most of the early
Church Fathers, especially those who were affiliated with the Rome-based Church leadership
council, is that they insist that while Paul indeed did what James told him to do he did so only
under duress and was entirely insincere about it. Some of the Church Fathers, like
Chrysostom, go so far as to claim that Paul was merely playing the role of a good law-abiding
Jew but in fact it was all a planned deception that God had designed for him. And the purpose
of the deception is so that Jews would give Paul an audience for him to speak the Gospel to
them. Thus, to put it nicely, Paul was just pretending to be a Believing Jew who followed the
Law in order that he would have more opportunities to spread the Good News.
I profoundly condemn such a false and agenda-driven interpretation; it is a doctrine that many
mainstream Christian denominations still adhere to in our day. The only way one can draw
such a strange conclusion is if one begins from the Church doctrine that Paul was anti-Law
(even anti-Jewish to some degree) and insists on reading that premise back into the
Scriptures; because otherwise it is simply not there.
Paul and the 4 Believers purified themselves (meaning they immersed in a mikveh). Then they
went to an outer court of the Temple where they reported their purification to a priest; it was
verified that they could now enter a 7 day waiting period after which they were considered
ritually pure enough to bring their vow sacrifices to the altar. But just before the 7 day period
ended, some unbelieving Jews from Asia who were in Jerusalem for Shavuot spotted Paul,
recognized him, and grabbed him while shouting out for support from the crowd. They accused
him of teaching people not to obey the Law, and to have no regard for the Temple. Further
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they claim he has brought some gentiles into the Temple, no doubt meaning he took these
gentiles into areas that were off limits to them. Thus Paul had knowingly and intentionally
caused the Temple to be defiled. Verse 29 explains that these visiting Jews had seen a fellow
named Trophimus, a resident of Ephesus, accompanying Paul in Jerusalem and assumed
(wrongly) that Paul had allowed this gentile into the Temple. It must be understood that in
Jewish Law such a thing was forbidden and was cause for execution of the perpetrator; even a
Roman citizen was not exempt from such a severe consequence for trespassing into the holy
precincts of the Temple.
It is interesting to note that the Jews were so rigid on this issue of Temple defilement by
gentiles that notices were posted and barriers installed to keep the thousands of gentiles who
entered the Temple to site-see from even accidentally wandering into the inner courts. The
signs were written in both Greek and Latin so no excuse could be made for gentiles
trespassing upon such holy grounds. This is not speculation; in the late 1800’s archeologists
uncovered an ancient sign on the Temple Mount that read:
“No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the temple and
enclosure. Any one who is caught trespassing will bear personal responsibility for his
ensuing death”.
Let’s re-read the final few verses of Acts chapter 21.
RE-READ ACTS CHAPTER 21:26 – end
Let’s be clear: every last accusation against Paul was a lie. He did not teach against the
Jewish people; he did not teach against the Law, and he did not teach against the Temple.
Further he did not bring some goyim (gentiles) into the Temple and thus did not defile it. But of
course due to the zealous nature of Judean Jews, and due to the humiliating occupation by the
Romans of the Holy Land, these were the exact accusations against someone that would have
aroused the quickest and most volcanic emotional outburst among Jews. Let us not forget that
this was happening during the holy Biblical Feast of Shavuot so the feelings of religious piety
among the Jews were all the more heightened. It wasn’t going to take much of a spark to set
off riots, thus the local Roman military garrison that was co-located with the Temple Mount (in
the northwest corner of the walled area) was on special alert during these Jewish holy days.
Verse 31 explains that the crowd quickly swelled in size and agitation as Paul was forcefully
dragged out of the Temple and the gates shut behind him; the mob intended to kill him. Why
not just kill him immediately instead of dragging him outside the Temple courts? Because
death is the worst sort of defilement and so it was illegal to kill anyone inside the Temple
grounds. The Roman soldiers stationed at the Antonia Fortress spotted the turbulence, reacted
quickly and they showed up in a nick of time to rescue Paul. The fortress was connected to the
Temple Mount with only 2 flights of steps so that the Roman guards could rapidly respond to
any threat. Interestingly it was Herod the Great who had built the fortress, had it manned with
Roman soldiers, and then he named it after his patron, Mark Antony. Clearly the point of
building the fortress there on the Temple Mount was to discourage the riots and disturbances
that happened regularly in the Temple area. Civil disorder was not tolerated by Rome; and so
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the Roman guard descended upon the mob in force and the mob quit beating Paul.
The commander of the troops at this time was a tribune named Claudius Lysias and he
personally took charge of the situation to restore order. Since Sha’ul was the focus of the
crowd’s anger, he was taken into custody. Paul was shackled and Lysias decided to take him
back to the barracks for interrogation. But before he led Paul away he asked the mob to
explain the problem. Everyone shouted something different and so he made no progress in
ascertaining the charges against Paul. As the soldiers started to head back to the barracks the
crowd erupted and the garrison literally had to carry Paul to protect him from continuing to be
assaulted.
Lysias was going to have to get to the truth by other means, and that meant persuading Paul to
tell him. Of course Paul was explaining that he had done nothing wrong; something that Lysias
couldn’t accept given the circumstances. Inside the fortress Paul spoke Greek to Lysias as he
asked to have a word with him. Having begun life as a Diaspora Jew, Greek was Paul’s first
language. This surprised the commander because he was certain that he had just arrested a
notorious troublemaker and wanted man known simply as “the Egyptian”. Apparently it was
known that the Egyptian didn’t speak Greek, so Paul could not have been him. Josephus
speaks about the Egyptian; apparently he came to Jerusalem perhaps 3 years earlier. This
charismatic leader managed to nearly overnight cobble together about 4,000 followers (likely
these were mostly members of the Zealots and of the dreaded Jewish assassins called the
Sicarri). He talked them into going to the Mt. of Olives and waiting because at the appropriate
moment the walls of Jerusalem were going to miraculously fall down (similar to the Jericho
scenario), and then they’d be able to rush in and push the Roman troops out.
However the Roman governor got wind of this plan and sent some soldiers against them; many
of the Egyptian’s followers were killed and many more taken prisoner. Needless to say the
enormous limestone walls of Jerusalem remained intact, but the Egyptian was nowhere to be
found. No doubt had he resurfaced those Jews he had abandoned would have been none too
happy to see him. Apparently Lysias figured that Paul must have been the mysterious Egyptian
since the feelings against him were so strong. The Egyptian couldn’t speak Greek, but Paul
could; so Lysias knew he had the wrong man.
Paul now had the opening to explain just who he was and he starts with the fact that he was
from Tarsus, a well known city in Cilicia. And would the tribune give Paul permission to speak
to the crowd? Still trying to figure out just what crime Paul had committed, Lysias saw no harm
in Paul’s request. Although the CJB says that Paul addressed the mob in Hebrew, that’s not
quite the case; rather the verse says Paul spoke in the Hebrew language. What this means to
covey is “the language that the Hebrews spoke”. The question is: what language did the
Hebrews speak? All current scholarship on the issue of language in the Holy Land is that
Aramaic was the most universally spoken. However Hebrew was also widely used and the two
languages are quite similar. So we can’t be certain whether Paul spoke Hebrew or Aramaic to
the crowd.
Let’s move on to chapter 22.
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READ ACTS CHAPTER 22 all
I would like to pause for a few moments to interject a personal viewpoint. As I was studying
and reading this chapter I thought to myself what a terrible state of agitation and anger that the
Jews constantly lived under in Jerusalem because they were surrounded with immorality,
idolatry, and the stench of ritual uncleanness brought on by the presence of the brutal Roman
soldiers trampling upon the Jews’ holiest places. There was never a moment of true peace of
mind. The Jews’ highest religious authority, the Priesthood, had become corrupt and it was
operated to the benefit of wealthy Jewish aristocrats who were in league with their Roman
occupiers. And then there were the throngs of curious gentiles who regularly visited Jerusalem
in ever increasing numbers since the days that Rome had made Judea a Roman province, and
bringing with them all manner of ritual impurities caused by their paganism. It made me think
about the state of the world, and of the USA in particular, in these early years of the 21
st
century. We live in such an angry, frustrated, polarized society. It doesn’t take much to touch
off riots, assaults and murders, or even acts of terrorism or road rage. Confusion and chaos
abound; what is right? What is wrong? Things feel like they are spinning out of control. So
many of our deepest hopes seem unattainable, and our cherished traditions are under
constant attack and revision.
Those of us who adhere to some form of Orthodox Judaism or fundamental Christianity find
ourselves at serious odds with our government, public schools, and of late our secular culture
in general. It seems that some new sort of legislated immorality, degradation or ungodly social
policy arrives every day, and when we refuse to knuckle under we are deemed intolerant
bigots and religious nuts that are full of hatred. Home schooling is expanding rapidly as
dedicated parents remove their children from a school environment that bans God but
embraces the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender) agenda and teaches it to our
children as a good, loving and admirable thing. People are leaving our churches and
synagogues as more and more Pastors and Rabbis embrace the mantras and philosophies of
the secular Progressive agenda.
When I read these passages of Acts 22 I found myself identifying with those Jews who
attacked Paul. They had been told, and they believed, that Paul had joined the enemy (the
gentiles) and was teaching other Jews to abandon their heritage, their traditions, their religion
and their long held values. Some Jews didn’t care one way or the other and took it mostly in
stride. But the ones who strove to diligently follow God and to be obedient to Him, and those
who loved their Israelite heritage and customs, could take it no longer and they took strong
action against a man who they thought to be symbolic of traitorous Jews who were deserting
their Hebrew values and adopting Roman culture. Was it a wise or justifiable action on their
part? Was it something that God would have wanted them to do? I think the answer to both of
these questions is “no”. But at some point even the best among us can be pushed beyond the
breaking point. It’s what we do about it that matters.
I present this to you for three reasons: 1) to help you mentally picture the context of this mob
action against Paul. 2) to look with a bit less disfavor upon the crowd of Jews (that had been
fed false information about Paul) and to better understand the impossible circumstances that
the Jewish followers of God were forced to live under. And 3) to think carefully about how you
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should react, as a Believer, to all that is happening around us today, which has real parallels to
what was going on in Paul’s day.
Paul stood on the upper steps of the Antonia Fortress with Roman soldiers next to him as he
was given permission to speak to the mob who had intended to kill him. And speaking in either
Aramaic or Hebrew he began by using the same words that the martyr Stephen had used in
his own defense. Paul addresses the people as “brothers and fathers”. Brothers of course are
speaking of a mutual heritage as Jews. Fathers (avot in Hebrew) is speaking to the elders and
important people among the crowd. The crowd grew quiet to hear what else Paul had to say.
Paul’s speech begins by explaining who he is and where he fits in traditional Jewish society.
His purpose is to build a foundation to refute what these people have been told about him as
he well understands their sensitivities. He presents his credentials as a natural-born Hebrew by
saying that he indeed is a Jew. Explaining that he was born in Tarsus tells the Judean Jews
(that forms the bulk of the crowd) that he is a Diaspora Jew. Even so, he immediately adds that
he spent a good deal of his upbringing right here in Jerusalem and was taught by the highly
venerated teacher Gamaliel. This identified Paul as not only having been immersed into the
unique Holy Land Jewish culture but also as highly educated. It also identifies Paul as a
Pharisee, which is what most of the common people were (if they carried any party affiliation at
all). Remember: it was Pharisees who ran the synagogues and virtually everyone present
would have belonged to one synagogue or another. So this tells the crowd that his
fundamental theological doctrines were essentially the same as theirs.
Paul says that he was well educated in the details of the Torah of their fathers (in Greek it says
in the nomos, the law, of their fathers). By adding in the words “of our fathers” he means it in
the sense of forefathers (not of the “fathers” that are in his audience). So he is more referring
to the Law of Moses than he is to Halakhah (Jewish Law). Paul is claiming to be a Torah
scholar.
He then goes on to explain about a dark side to his life, but one that the crowd would not have
found so distasteful. He explains that at first he was a persecutor of The Way. The tone in
which Luke writes this account makes it clear that by now the existence of the sect of Judaism
known as The Way was common knowledge (the sect had existed for around 25 years). And
no doubt the basics of what this sect believed (that Yeshua was the Messiah) was also
common knowledge. He also explains that his persecution of The Way was accomplished on
an official basis with the backing of the High Priest and the Sanhedrin. Most Bibles will say
Council of Elders and not Sanhedrin; but because Paul mentioned the High Priest along with
the Council of Elders then because the High Priest is the head of the Sanhedrin for sure this is
what Paul is referring to. So the mere fact that Paul was a representative of the Sanhedrin is
further proof of his devotion to Jewishness and Judaism (and the High Priest himself could
testify to the truth of this).
Now that Paul has made his case that he is not only “one of them”, but he is actually in the
upper ranks of Judaism and among the most zealous of religious Jews, in verse 5 he starts to
tell the story of his encounter with the risen Christ. As he was pursuing some fleeing members
of The Way he received letters of authorization as an agent directly working for the High Priest,
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to go to Damascus to find and arrest any Believers he encountered and to bring them back to
Jerusalem for prosecution. But on the road to Damascus something startling happened to him.
A blinding light appeared on the roadway that he and his traveling companions saw. It flashed
all around the group and as Paul fell to the ground, disoriented, he heard a voice from above
speaking to him. It said, “Why are you persecuting me?” Paul, not knowing whose voice it
was, asked for some ID. The response was equally as disorienting: “I am Yeshua from
Nazareth and you are persecuting me!” Paul says that the witnesses to all this indeed were
also stunned by the brilliance of the light; they heard Paul speaking but they didn’t see who it
was that Paul was speaking to nor did they hear any kind of reply. Paul believed that what was
happening was real, and that the person who was talking to him was actually Yeshua of
Nazareth; a man he well knew had died on a Roman execution stake. What he believed
beyond that is unknown to us.
The voice then issued an instruction: “Get up and go into Damascus and there you will be told
what your mission is going to be”. Wow. Can you imagine? All in one breath you are saved
and told that shortly someone is going to tell you what God’s purpose for your life is. Paul is
still blind from the bright light, but he goes, led by the hand, to Damascus. There a man named
Hananyah would restore Paul’s sight and gave him his marching orders as God’s prophet. A
sort of parenthetical comment in verse 12 says that Hananyah was “an observant follower of
the Torah”; this is something we must not pass by. Hananyah was obviously a Believer; but he
was also an observant Jew who continued to follow the Law. So in this chapter 22 we have
Paul professing to be zealous for the Law, and we have the man whom Christ used to tell Paul
his mission, Hananyah, who is also zealous for the Law. I think it is difficult to find the Book of
Acts, thus far, as telling modern Believers that the Law is bad, dead, and irrelevant. Rather
Luke clearly meant for us to know that Paul’s commission that Yeshua said he would receive,
was given through the mouth of a pious, Torah observant, Believing Jew.
We are told that Hananyah was highly regarded by the Jewish community in Damascus; no
doubt it was because of his devotion to the Law. But now Hananyah says something that is
easy to overlook; it is that “the God of our fathers” was the one who determined in advance
that Paul should know God’s will for his life. So it was the Father, YHWH, who determined in
advance that Paul would know God’s will for his life. We now have both God the Father and
Yeshua the Son playing roles in this story, and they are separately spoken of in Acts 22.
Hananyah also tells Paul that he will hear directly, audibly, from the Righteous One (the
Tzaddik in Hebrew).
This term the Righteous One is unusual; we only find it in a couple of places in the Bible, and
outside of Acts I could only find it used once in Proverbs and twice in the Book of Isaiah. What
is fascinating is that the Essenes, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, spoke regularly in their
Community Documents about the expected coming of the Righteous One. Damascus was the
headquarters, outside of the Holy Land, for the Essenes (a faction of Judaism). It is also fair to
say that when the theology of the Essenes is carefully studied it has many similarities to the
theology of the Pharisees. So I think with Hananyah’s use of the term “The Righteous One”
we are hearing overtones of Essene theology and terminology and very probably Hananyah
studied with the Essenes in Damascus (as, it seems, did the John the Baptist as well, but in
Qumran by the Dead Sea and not in Damascus). There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that
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Yeshua spent time with the Essenes as we find Him using terms in His Sermon on the Mount
that not only were regularly used within the Essene community, but even a couple of unique
terms that the Essenes used to refer to themselves (such as “the meek” and “the poor in
spirit”).
Paul is told that he is going to be a witness to everything he has seen and heard. No doubt we
do not have recorded for us everything that he has seen and heard. So Hananyah instructs
Paul to immerse himself. Self-immersion was the standard Jewish practice for immersion
(baptizing), rather than someone immersing them. Upon this immersion in Yeshua’s name,
Paul will have his sins washed away and therefore be prepared for his mission. Christ is now
the new, dominant force in Paul’s life.
In verse 17 Paul advances his story to when he left Damascus and came back to Jerusalem.
He says he was praying in the Temple when he went into a trance. This is probably referring to
when he came back to Jerusalem in Acts 9:26. Notice how he weaves in the matter of the
Temple because, recall, he had been accused of speaking against it. Here he is venerating the
Temple by praying there, and God validates Paul’s pious prayers by giving him a vision. This
information would have greatly impressed Paul’s listeners. Paul also says that he saw “him”
(God) and God told him to hurry and leave Jerusalem because the Jews there won’t accept
what Paul learned and experienced in Damascus. Who, exactly, did Paul claim to see? God
the Father or God the Son? In what form? It is unclear.
Paul attempted to convince the Lord to allow him to stay in Jerusalem by saying that the
people would know who he is and therefore be more easily convinced that the sudden change
in his negative attitude and antagonism towards Yeshua and The Way had to have been
caused by divine intervention. So perhaps they’d be more open to hearing from him. But the
opposite happened; the Lord of course was proved right. By knowing who Paul was before he
turned to Yeshua, it made the Believing Jews too afraid of him to accept him, and it made the
Hellenist Jews want to kill him! And Paul confesses to the crowd that he was far more than an
innocent bystander in the death of Stephen. Even though Paul didn’t directly participate in
stoning Stephen, he helped those who did by holding their cloaks. And, admits Paul, he was in
full agreement with the killing of Stephen. God was having none of it; “be on your way” He tells
Paul; Paul is going far away to foreign lands to witness to Gentiles.
Apparently the last word out of Paul’s mouth before the crowd again exploded into incensed
hysteria was “gentiles”. The idea that Paul would take a means of salvation and deliverance to
the enemy of the Jews (gentiles), and that a Jewish Savior would be their means of salvation
(whether or not the crowd even accepted such a thought), was just too much. Verse 22 makes
it clear that the primary issue was that the mob wanted him dead because of his association
with gentiles. These oppressed Jews couldn’t stomach the notion that God would give gentiles
equality with the Jews on account of His Messiah; there was just too much hatred against
gentiles to accept such a thing. Some began tearing at their clothing; some ripped off part of
their garments and waved them in the air; we’re told that they began to fling dust. It is quite
impossible to determine with any certainty what this dust flinging was about. Either it was
throwing dirt because they didn’t have any rocks handy to pelt Paul with; or it was a show of
grief and devastation (a rather standard Jewish mourning tradition) over Paul consorting with
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gentiles. Perhaps it meant something else entirely.
Seeing the crowd grow unruly again, Lysias had Paul brought inside the fortress with the intent
to flog him in order to obtain the truth of Paul’s offense. So far all Lysias knew was that Paul
was not the Egyptian and that whatever it was that Paul had done it was serious enough that a
huge crowd was willing to risk Roman wrath coming down upon them for their civil disturbance.
It needs to be said that the type of flogging that the Romans inflicted upon a prisoner often as
not resulted in death. It was not a whip, like we might picture. Rather the device is called a
scourge (a flagellum). It was not an instrument of discipline, but rather of torture. It consisted of
a wooden handle with long leather thongs, and bits of sharpened metal or bone attached at the
ends. It tore at the flesh and the muscle tissue, causing intense bleeding. If one survived it,
they were usually disabled for life.
The good news is that this was a form of treatment from which Roman citizens were exempt.
So after being silent about it to this point, and as he was being stretched out and tied down for
the whipping to begin, in verse 25 Paul asks a rhetorical question of one of his guards: “is it
lawful for you to flog a Roman citizen who has received no proper trial?” The preparation came
to a sudden halt, and the guard went to commander Lysias and informed him that Paul claimed
he was a Roman citizen. Of course the Roman soldiers knew it was not legal for a Roman
citizen to be flogged without a trial, and so Lysias asked Paul if it was true. Paul replied that it
was. The commander made an odd response; he said that his citizenship cost him a great deal
of money. The implication was: how could this poor Jew have enough money to buy
citizenship? But Paul coolly replied that he was born into Roman citizenship (he didn’t have to
buy it). This meant that Paul’s father was a Roman citizen (unusual for a Jew).
The result was that the soldiers immediately stopped what they were doing, and even removed
Paul’s chains, because they had come perilously close to big trouble. Had they done this to
Paul, Roman law would have required that the soldiers have the same done to them. The
problem is that the commander still doesn’t know what it is that Paul did to cause this mob
action. So he put Paul into a cell, without any shackles, and asked for the Sanhedrin to
convene so that they could question him.
One final comment. At this particular time Judea was without a procurator (a provincial
governor). For the moment, because he was the senior military man in Jerusalem, Lysias had
nearly the authority of a procurator. So when he orders that the Sanhedrin is to meet, they
have no choice.
We’ll begin Acts chapter 23 next time as Paul is taken to the Sanhedrin for questioning.
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