39th Day of Easter, Wednesday May 20: Acts 21:17-39

Jerusalem starts well for Paul, meeting with the believers, updating James and the elders about his success with the Gentiles afar, and hearing in turn how successful they were being among the Jews of Jerusalem. However, the local legalists hear that Paul is telling people not to follow the law. The elders encourage Paul to do a public act of piety complying with the law, while honouring the earlier compromise about lower standards for Gentile converts.

The elders’ strategy didn’t work. After seven days of public compliant piety in the temple, Paul is arrested on rumours that he has brought unclean Greek Gentiles into the holy places. This is explosive, recalling desecration of the temple in the previous century, in which a pig was sacrificed on the altar, for instance. Have you ever been in a church fight based on exaggerated talk about others, rather than talking with others? Can you ever see what motivates your opponents?

We’ve got the set-up now, for Paul defending himself before the Roman tribune on the charges brought by legalists. First his identity is clarified – he has been confused with another guy who led 4,000 assassins in insurrection. Paul says he is a Roman citizen, from Tarsus – and then he prepares to speak, in Hebrew to the Jewish crowd, with the rest of us as observers.