Paul’s Arrest
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 21 January 2024
Even though we are going to talk about a very simple historical narrative, that the Spirit of God will use this to be applied to your heart in a very positive way. Paul has been free since his ministry began in Acts 9. He has wandered under the Spirit's direction without any limits at all. But he was a prisoner for some time in Philippi, but the Lord sent an earthquake so the jail fell apart, and he walked out.
But beginning in Acts 21, he becomes a prisoner. And as a prisoner, we find that he gives six separate defenses of his actions. The first defense begins in Acts 21:18. You'll notice that these six defenses are given before the mob; the first one; before the council the second; the third and fourth before the governors Felix and Festus; the fifth one before the king, and the last before the Jews.
And there are three cities involved, the first two were in Jerusalem, the next in Caesarea and the final in Rome. And the result of the first was that he was accused, the next absolved, and the last awaiting trial. And so in each case, he defends himself, and uses it as an opportunity to present again the truth which he has proclaimed so faithfully through the years of his ministry.
Now, we come to the first of these defenses. So the subtitle for Paul's First Defense is, "How to give a positive testimony in a negative situation." All of us have times where we struggle. Some of us get into situations where great disaster occurs and then the whole world watches to see whether our faith is any good or not. So, a good way to learn how is to watch a man, Paul, who did it.
Here we see Paul, who knew how to take a negative situation and make it into a positive testimony. Now we're going to see his boldness. Paul never viewed his situation as anything other than God authored, okay? He's always a prisoner of Jesus Christ. It was Christ who brought him into such predicaments. So his imprisonment represented nothing but the beginning of a new ministry.
He says, "I may be bound, but the Gospel is not bound." In verse 27 of Acts 21, Paul has tried to conciliate the Jewish Christians. They had heard that he was an arch subversive. That he was anti-Jewish; that he had thrown out all the Jewish customs, and he was against everything that had been the ceremony and tradition of Jewish life, and that wasn't true at all.
Paul was himself still very much Jewish. He was here at the feast of Pentecost. He attended the synagogues on the Sabbath. He had taken a Nazarite vow himself in Acts 19, and shaved his own head. Paul had not thrown out all of Jewish tradition. He was in transition. But yet, the Judaizers that told these Christians he was anti-Judaism, and so they were a little anti-Paul.
And so to change his reputation, they had him go to the temple, fulfill a Nazarite vow with four other guys, pay the bill for the whole thing in hopes that the Jewish Christians would say, "Hey, if he would do that, he's certainly not as anti-Jewish as we've been led to believe." And he did that, and I'm convinced that it must've had a positive effect on these Jewish Christians.
But it didn't have any effect on the Jewish non-Christians. And we're now introduced to the mob. They are a wild group of people, who are in a frenzy try to murder Paul. They have no idea of how they're doing, or why they're doing it. Verse 27 says, “When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia Minor saw him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd, and seized him.”
The Greek word ‘stirred up’ used here means ‘confused’. Here is Paul finishing up his Nazarite vows, and these Jews descend on him, grab him, and they stir up confusion of the mob. They shout in verse 28, “Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, and our law. What’s more, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”
Paul wanted to get there at Pentecost, and that was a time when people really travelled to Jerusalem. That's why those Asian Jews were there. This is 50 days after Passover. It was the Old Testament feast of harvest sometimes called the Feast of Weeks. But after the exile, it became a different celebration. It was said that the Torah, the Law of Moses, was given 50 days after the Exodus.
That's important, because it helps us to understand the attitude of the people. They were in the midst of a celebration of the Law, celebrating Jewishness. Paul wanted to be there which indicates that he does revere the Law. He wasn't anti-law. In that sense, he delighted in God's Law. But it also means that the crowd was hyper concerned about the Law and the Law's sanctity.
And so that tends to create the kind of antagonism that this group uses to try to kill Paul. This is some slander that has occurred, desecration of the sanctuary, and they cry out, 'Men of Israel, Help." And then they announce the problem. "This is the man," and they've got him by now, "that teaches all men everywhere against the people and the Law and this place."
Jewish people have never accepted the conversion of a Jew to Christ. Because the Jewish person associates his religion with his race, historically. That's why Jewish people that have come to Christ have been ostracized from their families. So in the Jewish mind that is a total rejection of Judaism. But if they knew anything about the Word of God, it just completes Judaism because Jesus is the Messiah.
And the one who rejects the Messiah would be rejecting his own Judaism. The real rebel against Judaism, is the unbelieving Jew who will not accept his Messiah. The Christian Jew is the one who has accomplished that which God has designed to be accomplished through Judaism; that has faith in his Messiah who has come, died and risen, and is interceding for believers today.
So they said, "Paul is against his people, and against the Law." And at that time of the year at that feast, that kind of accusation would really make everybody mad because they were celebrating the Law. And then they said he's against the Law, they meant he's anti-God. He's anti-Moses. He's anti-biblical. And then to sum it up, "And against this place that is the temple."
So they got some men, and they said, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God." And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and caught him, and dragged him to the council, and they paid off false witnesses." They bribed people to give false testimony. He brought Greeks into the temple and polluted the place.
Verse 29 says, “For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.” They didn't see him in the temple, they just assumed that. That was another lie. Paul didn't take Trophimus into the temple. Gentiles could only go to the outer court. And between that and the inner court, was the Court of the Women.
And between the outer court and the inner court was a barricade. And on the barricade were placed signs written in two languages, Latin and Greek. And there was written, "No man of alien race is to enter within the barricade that goes around the temple. And if anyone is taken in the act, let him know that he has himself to blame for the penalty of death that follows."
And the Romans honored that law. In fact, it was a way of keeping Gentile religion and Gentile gods and idols out of the temple. It was sort of a stopping point for the intrusion of the system of the world. And they didn't let it be violated. Well, when these guys said they took Greeks into the temple that was just enough to stir up everybody, and give a justification for the murder of Paul.
Even if Paul had taken Trophimus in there, it would not have been Paul that died, it would've been Trophimus. This shows that the whole thing was out of place. Paul couldn't be killed for going in there; he was a Jew. If anybody got killed, it would be the Gentile who violated it. So the whole thing was a pretense and in all the confusion, the mob had no idea what they were doing.
Verse 30, “The whole city was stirred up, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul, dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut.” They wanted to make sure they got him out of there so they could go on worshipping God, while they killed God's anointed. Well, fortunately in the great providence of God, the life of Paul was not yet over.
This is what they did at the trial of Jesus. They wanted to make sure they didn't violate the Sabbath while they executed the Messiah: Made sure they didn't violate any of the things that were going on at that particular time. Didn't want to enter into the house of the Gentiles at all, because they would defile themselves. They stayed outside and screamed for the blood of the Messiah.
And so God activated the Romans, and secondly we have the arrest by the Romans in verses 31 to 36. Outside the temple area, butted right up against it on the north side was Fort Antonia. And Fort Antonia had a great tower, and from that tower there was a clear observation of the temple court. And it was occupied by at least 1, 000 Roman soldiers who were highly trained riot squads.
Verse 31, “As they were trying to kill him, word went up to the commander of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in chaos.” Notice the commander. The Greek word means a commander of a thousand soldiers. His name is given is Acts 23 as Claudius Lysias, and history tells us he was a man of considerable character and ability. And so he acted immediately.
Verse 32, “Taking along soldiers and centurions, he immediately ran down to them. Seeing the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.” And when they got there, the commander saw what had happened, and already had a good idea who this guy was. He was actually wrong, but he figured, "I'll make a formal arrest, and then I'll find out what the charges are."
Verse 33, “Then the commander approached, took him into custody, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He asked who he was and what he had done.” He assumed that the crowd wouldn't do this unless he was guilty of some crime. It's interesting that this fulfilled the prophecy of Agabus. The Jews have captured him, and they deliver him to the Gentiles, who chained him.
Verse 34, “Some in the crowd were shouting one thing and some another. Since he was not able to get reliable information because of the uproar, he ordered him to be taken into the barracks.” He couldn't get any information out of the crowd. Nobody had the faintest idea what was going on. They were just in a mob and they were screaming and yelling, and he couldn't get an answer.
Verse 35, “When Paul got to the steps, he had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd.” The disappointed crowd had been robbed of its prey, and now it was pushing and shoving, and screaming what it had screamed twenty five years before to the Messiah. Verse 36, “for the mass of people followed, yelling, “Get rid of him!” And that's what they said to Jesus.
Paul gave a speech in defense of himself in the Greek. It's testimony of his experience and what God has done in his life. Let's watch how Paul makes an opportunity out of a negative situation. Verse 37, “As he was about to be brought into the barracks, Paul said to the commander, “Am I allowed to say something to you?” He replied, “You know how to speak Greek?
Verse 38, “Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt some time ago and led four thousand men of the Assassins into the wilderness?” Josephus says he was an Egyptian rebel, who with 4,000 assassins were going to create havoc in Jerusalem and the governor killed 400 of them, and routed them all. Although they captured and killed a total of 600, the rest escaped including this leader.
Verse 39, Paul said, “I am a Jewish man from Tarsus of Cilicia, a citizen of an important city. Now I ask you, let me speak to the people.” Tarsus was ranked anciently with Athens and Alexandria as a city of culture, art and education. Paul is a master at holding back. He never lets everything out. Now that took boldness, didn't it? Paul only knew how to deal with a situation one way, confrontation.
Verse 40, “After he had given permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When there was a great hush, he addressed them in Aramaic.” And he stood on the stairs, and he beckoned with the hand, a characteristic of Paul on several occasions in Acts, which means silence. So he spoke to them in their own vernacular. Accept the situation as from God and use it as an opportunity.
Every situation in your life is what you make of it. But it is God who decides what He wants you to say. Paul is given to us as an example of how to live. He was never afraid and He boldly tells about his early life. We all can tell about our lives before Christ and after Christ, where we live without the Holy Spirit and how we live now under the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ gives us the power we need. Let us pray.