Acts 21:15-22:29 (March 10, 2024)

Acts 21–22 as a Recapitulation of Stephen and Jesus

We can open up your Bibles to Acts chapter 21. We left off in the middle of chapter 21 last week. So we'll pick back up there. And as I mentioned last week, we are kind of picking up the pace as we get towards the end of the book of Acts.

That's because there's some larger narrative sections that we don't want to break up. And so this morning we're going to take another large section. We'll go from 21 verse 15 all the way through 22 verse 29.

And so 21, 15 to 22, 29. And since it's such a large section, what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by just summarizing this passage for us. And then we'll look at some specific verses as we go throughout the sermon.

But I want to summarize 21, 15 through 22, 29. We'll remember here that we are at the end of Paul's third missionary journey. As we saw last week, he is traveling with representatives of the Gentile churches and he's headed towards Jerusalem where he hopes to arrive by Pentecost.

We see early on here that he picks up some disciples from Caesarea. And as he does that, Paul and his companions, they enter Jerusalem and they receive a very warm welcome there. In Jerusalem, Paul meets with James and the elders of the church there.

And he begins to tell them of all the things that the Lord has continued to do among the Gentiles. And they glorified the Lord together. But they note a problem that they have. There are lots of new Jewish converts to Christ in Jerusalem and they are zealous for the law.

And they've been told that Paul not only has told the Gentiles that they don't have to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, that is they don't have to become Jewish in order to become Christian. Remember that was the question that came before the Jerusalem council.

Not only were they told about that, but they were also told that he was teaching the Jewish believers out in the dispersion to forsake Moses and to not be circumcised and not walk according to Jewish customs.

See that in verse 22. Now of course this wasn't factually true, but that didn't matter for the rumor mill. And it stirred up these young new believers, zealous for the law. So the solution for the elders here, the solution was for Paul to take four men who were under a vow and to pay their expenses to finish out and fulfill their vow there in the temple.

They would shave their heads, they would offer sacrifices there in the temple. And this would prove to the masses that Paul still respects and keeps Moses. Then in verse 25, they do reiterate what the council had said in Acts 15, where they had declared there that the Gentiles do not have to keep the law.

They just need to keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, from sexual immorality. Of course, these were restrictions that Gentiles have been under since the time of Noah.

So let me pause here before continuing on through the summary. The Jerusalem council had ruled that they shouldn't Judaize the Gentiles. In other words, you shouldn't make it where the Gentiles have become Jewish before they can become Christian.

And now the elders are taking care not to Gentilize the Jews, making them forsake their customs. And so I would remind you again, just kind of where the story fits in history of redemption. This is in the in-between times between the resurrection of Jesus and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, which marks the official end of the old covenant era.

And so the temple is still standing at this point and the old covenant era was not completely abolished yet. Therefore, the Jewish believers of that day could still participate in the life of the temple in some sense.

Of course, the author of Hebrews warns them against turning back from Christ to the shadows. In any event, the solution to this problem that they had was for Paul to prove that he was not trying to make the Jews become Gentiles in order to become Christians.

It's the flip side of Acts 15. And so Paul submitted verse 26. Now this was around the time of Pentecost. And so Jews were from all over had come to Jerusalem for Pentecost. And this included some Jews from the province of Asia where Paul had just spent three years in Ephesus.

And so some of them, they see Paul in the temple and then they stirred up, verse 27, they stirred up the whole crowd against Paul. They falsely accused Paul, crying out, verse 28, men of Israel help. This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law in this place.

And furthermore, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled the holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, with him in the city whom they supposed that Paul had brought to the temple.

So what did they do? They seized Paul. They dragged him out of the temple. They shut the big, massive temple doors behind them and they began to beat him, seeking to kill him. Now Roman soldiers, there's a tower nearby, they look down, they see the commotion, they rush down and they intervene.

And the commander took Paul and bound him with chains, two chains. And then the commander tries to question Paul to find out, you know, who he was. But he could not ascertain the truth because of the tumult.

And so the soldiers started carrying him back to the barracks, verse 34. When they're almost to the barracks, Paul asked if he could speak to the commander. Now the commander was surprised that Paul spoke to him in Greek because he assumed that he was a certain Egyptian assassin.

And Paul explained to him that no, he was a Jew from Tarsus. And he implored the commander to permit him to speak to the people, in verse 38 and 39. He's begging this commander, or imploring this commander, let him speak.

He's allowed. And so Paul, he motions with his hands to the crowd. And when they are sufficiently quiet, he begins to speak to them in the Hebrew language. And Paul gives his testimony. Now we've read about Paul's testimony in Acts chapter 9.

And he retells it here with a few more details. But he gives his testimony. And in so doing, he's given a defense of his Jewishness. You remember, they had stirred up the whole city against him, slandering him that he taught Jewish believers to abandon their customs and that he had brought a Gentile to this Jewish only part of the temple.

And so what does he do? He tells them he's a Jew from Tarsus. He had studied at the feet of Gamaliel, a well-known and well-respected Jewish teacher. He was brought up according to the strictness of the law and he was zealous towards God, verses 3 and 4 tells us, chapter 22.

He had persecuted the way unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, he tells us. He had received letters from the council of the elders to go down to Damascus and to imprison Christians there.

But on his way, Jesus intervened. He was blinded by light and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? Paul responded. And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.

Jesus intervenes in Paul's life. He recounts this. And as he was told, Paul went down to Damascus, found a man named Ananias and received both his sight and his salvation and he was baptized. And then Paul tells of returning to Jerusalem and praying in the temple.

And again, notice Paul is defending his Jewishness here, which is on trial. And while he's in the temple, he was in a trance and Jesus told him to get out of Jerusalem quickly for they would not receive his testimony about Christ.

And Paul protests there, verses 19 to 20 says, he was saying, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.

You see, Paul was worried that Christians would not accept him because of his former recent persecution of them. But in sharing his testimony here, he is also demonstrating to this Jewish crowd in the present moment that he too had been a zealot.

He had been just like them. He had been in their shoes and he was there when they killed Stephen. He beat Christians like the Jews had just beat him, but Jesus had changed him and he gets testimony to the work of Christ in his life.

And in this way, this is Paul's Pentecost speech. Peter had a Pentecost speech back in Acts chapter two, but whereas in Acts chapter two, many were cut to the heart and believed here. As you'll see, the hearers are hard-hearted and disbelieve.

They reject Paul and his Messiah and their Messiah. In verse 21, we see Jesus's commission of Paul, where he says, then he said to me, depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. And it was at that point, when he talks about going to the Gentiles, it was at that point that the crowd had enough and they would not hear him anymore.

And they listened to him until this word. And then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth. He is not fit to live. And they cried out and they tore their clothes and they threw dust into the air, signs of lament and judgment and repudiation.

And the commander ordered Paul into the barracks to be interrogated by scourging and they bound him. At this point, Paul invoked his Roman citizenship saying, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?

And after a discussion about his citizenship, they withdrew from him. They did not scourge him. And they were afraid after they found out he was a Roman because they bound him. And so that's the, that's the story here in 2115 through 2229.

That's the scene. That's the story. I want you to think about that story now in a couple of different ways. I want to point out to you first how this is a Stephen story. It's a recapitulation of Stephen from earlier in the book.

Let me show you that in a few different ways. First, Paul and Stephen were seized for the same reasons. See in Acts chapter six, verse 13, it says, they also set up false witnesses who said, this man does not seek to speak, does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.

And so they seized Stephen. Then in chapter 21, 28, we see that they're crying out, men of Israel help. This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place. And furthermore, he has also brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.

So we see both false witnesses are giving false testimony about what Stephen and Paul are doing to the holy place and defiling it. They're arrested for the same reason. Second, Paul begins his speech in the same way that Stephen did.

Stephen in 7 .2, brethren and fathers, listen, Paul in 21, 22 .1, brethren and fathers, here. There's a connection there. Third, Paul was a witness like Stephen as foretold by Christ. And Paul mentioned Stephen in verse 20.

And so verse 15 tells us, Jesus tells Paul that he's going to be a witness. And then in verse 20, Paul is mentioning Stephen and his witness there. And so there's a connection with Stephen. Fourth, both stories mentioned cloaks being thrown off.

Those who stoned Stephen take their cloaks off to stoning. And in the story here in chapter 22, they tear their cloaks and they throw dust into the air. Fifth, they throw stones at Stephen to repudiate him.

They throw dust in the air to repudiate Paul. Of course, this doesn't mean that Paul gets off easy in relation to Stephen. They also try to kill Paul as they killed Stephen. There's an attempt on his life.

And so we see all of these connections with the Stephen story. Now, why is it important to make those connections, though? I think there's at least two reasons. First is that Luke is making the case against Jerusalem.

See, they are constantly rejecting Jesus and they're constantly rejecting his messengers. Now, God is long-suffering. God is patient. But disobedience does reach a point where he brings judgment. And this is what is happening with Jerusalem at this point in time.

But God, he's not unjust and he's not going to judge unjustly. And so part, if you remember Old Testament, part of the law is to establish the fact you got to have what? Two or three witnesses. And so we see these witnesses that Luke is laying out.

You see, the Jews had rejected Jesus and Peter had established that fact on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. That they had killed this Jesus, whom you crucified. And then they rejected Stephen, who was one of the seven, full of faith in the Holy Spirit.

And they stoned him. And now they've rejected Paul. And they've sought to kill him too. And notice that, notice when it was that they rejected him. It was when he spoke of Jesus sending him to the Gentiles.

That's when they had had enough. And so they weren't just rejecting Paul. They're rejecting God's covenant promises to Abraham to bless all the families of the earth. And in so doing, they're rejecting God.

And Luke is making this case, building this case against Jerusalem. They had rejected God. Of course, they had already rejected God when they, when they rejected and crucified Jesus, the Son of God. But now they're filling up their wrath.

And this rejection of God in Christ, it's the second reason why it's important to connect with Stephen. That's because Stephen's martyrdom, if you remember from our sermon back on Acts 7, Stephen's martyrdom was a recapitulation of the crucifixion of Christ.

There are many similarities there. And so Luke, he's tying all of these threads together in this story about Paul, because it too is a retelling of the Jesus story. I want to point out a few parallels between our passage here and Jesus's passion narrative.

You see, Jesus entered into Jerusalem to a wildly receptive city, to a wildly receptive crowd there on Palm Sunday. They cheered him on as he entered in on the cult. Well, Paul was welcomed. He received a warm welcome into Jerusalem here in chapter 21, verse 17 says the brethren received him gladly and they glorified the Lord at his report, verse 20.

Jesus was paired with a revolutionary insurrectionist, Barabbas, when Pilate let the people choose whom he would release at Passover, which was their custom. And Jesus remained in custody as they chose Barabbas.

And here Paul is mistaken for a revolutionary assassin, the Egyptian, by the Roman commander who kept Paul in custody. In Luke 23, 18, when choosing Barabbas over Jesus, the crowds cried out, away with this man.

And in Acts 21, 36, the multitudes of the people followed after crying out, away with him. And then it escalated a few verses later in Luke 23, 21, when the crowds, they shouted, crucify him, crucify him.

And when killing, likewise by 22, 22, the crowd had escalated their shouts of away with him to away with such a fellow from the earth, for he's not fit to live. Again, it's a call to kill him. It's a recapitulation of the Jesus story.

I want you to remember that Luke wrote both the gospel of Luke and he wrote Acts. And I believe he is intentionally telling this story in such a way that it would call to mind the crucifixion narrative of Christ for us.

And the point that he's making is that the Jews are rejecting Jesus. They're rejecting God's covenant promises. And in so doing, they're rejecting God. Now I want us to revisit verses 21 and 23 of chapter 22 before making just a little bit of application.

Those verses say, then he said to me, this is the end of Paul's testimony, then he said to me, depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live.

Then, as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air. At the mention of the Gentiles receiving the gospel, the mention of the Gentiles receiving the kingdom, receiving the forgiveness of sins and eternal life and equal standing with the Jews before God.

At the mention of this, they lost their ever-loving minds. They stopped listening. They started shouting and they started hurling threats against Paul in his life. Why? Well, to answer that, I want to call to your mind one other story from earlier in the Bible, a familiar story, the story of Jonah.

You see, God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh. You remember the story. He preached that God would destroy the city unless they repented. And what did Jonah do? He got in a boat and went the opposite direction.

Now, why? Right, several reasons we could think of, but one of them was that he knew judgment was coming upon Israel for their own unbelief in false worship. Because back in Deuteronomy, God had promised Israel that when they rejected him and followed after foreign gods, God would reject them and go to Gentile nations.

Jonah rebelled because he knew that grace to the Gentiles meant judgment for the Jews. Jesus talked about that in Luke 11, saying that in that evil generation that sought a sign, that the only sign that would be given to them was the sign of Jonah.

Now, Jonah did no miracles in Nineveh. He just went and preached. And Nineveh repented. But one greater than Jonah had come and preached and worked miracles and like Jonah in the belly of the fish, he spent three days and three nights in the belly of the earth.

And still, Israel rejected him. That same passage in Luke 11, Jesus told about the Queen of Sheba, who would rise up in the judgment and condemn that generation for their unbelief. For she had crossed thousands of miles and continents to come and behold the witness of the wisdom of Solomon.

And yet this generation had one greater than Solomon. They had the wisdom of God enfleshed. And yet they did not believe, but rejected him. When Paul tells the crowds how Jesus had commissioned him to preach to the Gentiles, their memory and their instincts went back to Deuteronomy and to the prophets, and they knew that grace to the Gentiles meant judgment for them, and they lashed out.

They further hardened their hearts in unbelief. So what does this mean for us? What does this mean for us? I want to apply this two ways for us, one individually and two nationally. First, individually.

Hebrews 12 tells us that God disciplines the ones that he loves. He disciplines his children whom he loves. Verse 12, 6 of Hebrews, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

Hebrews goes on to say that he disciplines us for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness, that it might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.

And so the question before you is this, does the chastening hand of the Lord lead you to repentance or further rebellion? Does the chastening hand of the Lord upon you lead to repentance or further disobedience?

When faced with the natural consequences of your sin, or when faced with the God-wrought consequences of your sin, do you alter course? Do you turn back? Do you turn to Christ? Do you repent? Jerusalem did not.

They were judged for it and cut off. A related question, do you receive the discipline of the church gladly? And here I'm not talking about bringing somebody before the church on charges for excommunication.

I just mean the regular discipline of the church. The preaching of specific application. The preaching about specific sins. Do you receive that gladly? Or how about a corrective word? Or maybe even just a question pertaining to a sensitive issue in your life from maybe a pastor, from a fellow church member, a Sunday school class member.

Do you receive that? Or do you say the equivalent of away with him? We need to receive the discipline from the Lord. We need to receive that through the body of Christ the church so that it leads us to godliness.

So that leads us to repentance. So that's individually. Let's apply this nationally as well. I want to paraphrase here and kind of draw from something I read from a pastor up in Minnesota, Andrew Isker.

It said that a lot of people think nothing bad is ever going to happen to our country because we are Americans. We are the city up on a hill. And God loves us in a special way because we're Americans.

It is true. We've been incredibly blessed here in our country. And so it's understandable how people come to this conclusion. And just a few generations ago Christianity was so prevalent that to be an American meant to be a Christian in some sense.

At least culturally. I'm not necessarily meaning actual born-again believing Christians. But that cultural Christianity is not the case anymore. But the idea that we are a special, exceptional, God-favored people is still very much present.

And so we're in the same danger as the Jews of Jerusalem at the time of Paul. That danger being rather than repenting at the proclamation of God's word, we reject it. And in so doing, we reject God. You see, we have the idea that nothing catastrophically bad will ever happen here.

We're the good guys. One World War II, we send a guy to the moon. We're the good guys. We're exceptional. We have churches everywhere. And yet, we kill our babies. We chemically mutilate children. We enshrine so-called same-sex marriage into law.

We've trafficked women and children. We've targeted both rural and urban communities with dangerous drugs. We've prosecuted unending and unjust wars and meddled in the affairs of other nations. We do not honor the Lord's Day.

We divorce without calls and without care, dishonoring the institution of marriage. And we could go on and on and on and name a host of other sins and crimes that our people nationally embrace and celebrate as good.

And then God sends judgments. We've seen things happen that are the same kinds of things that we read about in the scriptures as God bringing judgment. They rhyme with what we read about in the scriptures about judgment, pandemic, shutting down houses of worship, violence in the streets, wicked rulers, mass illegal immigration, barrenness of the womb, we're well below replacement level birth rates, massive inflation of the currency.

All of these things we see, you can find them in the Bible, related to when God judges a nation. And then what do we do? Like the Jews of Jerusalem, we dig our heels in. And as a people, we continue to reject God and His word.

I believe that God uses means, okay? And so I'm a proponent of political action. I believe that Christians need to seize power and wield it for good ends. But at the same time, I proclaim to you this, the only way out of our current situation, and there is only one way out of our current situation, meaning we can't vote our way out of it.

We can't vaccine our way out of it. We can't anti-vaccine our way out of it. And we can't just wait it out. There's one way out of this situation. That's repentance. There's one way out of judgment. And that's for us to turn back to the Lord.

Repentance. Don't let the Ninevites rise up against our generation in the judgment because we wouldn't repent at the name of the one greater than Jonah. Now, of course, the problem is none of us individually can repent on behalf of the nation.

We can't do it in their place. And so what do we do? What do we in this room do? I would say, number one, repent of your own specific sins. Repent of your own sins, and not just generally, Lord, forgive me for my sin.

Do that, but specific sins. Where have you specifically sinned against God in the last week? Examine your heart. Confess that. Be forgiven by the blood of Christ. Especially, I would say, repent for any participation and complicity in the sins and sinfulness of our nation.

Are there any ways that my actions or my past actions have contributed to these national besetting sins? And if so, repent for your complicity in that. Second thing I would say is pray for repentance.

Pray for revival in our nation that would be marked by repentance and turning back to the Lord. Pray for it fervently. You can do that. Third thing I would say is proclaim repentance to others. Give your friends and neighbors and co-workers and family members and strangers, give them both the law and the gospel.

Thus saith the Lord, and thus the Lord has done for you. Give them both law and gospel, that they might be by the Spirit of God convicted of sin and righteousness, and that they would turn to Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, that they might receive eternal life.

Fourth thing you can do, fear God. The God who weighs us all in the balance. The God who has power to cast into hell. The God who holds us in his hands and holds all things in his hands. Fear God. It's the beginning of wisdom.

Fear God. And then lastly, what can you do? You can hope in God. You can hope in God. You do not need to despair. God is our rock and our refuge in times of trouble, in uncertain times. He is our fortress.

He has all things in his hands and he's working all things according to his good pleasure and the counsel of his will. So hope in God. God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Hope in God. Hope in God. Because Christ washes away our sin and grants unto us eternal life if we but believe and trust in him. Hope in God. For Christ is ruling and reigning right now. Christ is on his throne.

He is at the right hand of the Father and he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet. Hope in God. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, Lord, I pray that we would be a repenting people.

That we would never think or act or live like, yeah, I repented of my sins when I accepted Christ 40 years ago. Yet we don't repent now. Lord, let us look inside and see. Let's examine ourselves and you make us aware of where we failed.

But Lord, in that, don't let us become too introspective. Let us quickly turn our eyes to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Let's quickly turn our eyes to Jesus who washes away all of those sins.

Let us not become morbidly introspective, but look, examine, be quick to confess, repent and turn to Christ and walk in the noodles of life that he's given to us. Lord, I pray that not only for us in here, but I pray that for our nation.

Lord, I pray that we would turn and we would honor you. Lord, I pray that when we're confronted with your word, when we're confronted with your covenant promises, when we're confronted with Christ, that we would not reject him.

We would not reject you, but we would believe, we would trust, we would submit. And so in all of this, Father, I ask for your help. In all of this, Father, I ask for your grace. In all of this, we ask for your strength that we might live in ways that honor you.

Accepting your word, believing it and trusting it, holding fast to it, meditating on it day and night, being like a tree planted by streams of water that we would not wither, but we flourish. We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.