On the next day, we who were Paul’s companions departed, and came to Caesarea. We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.
Now this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. As we stayed there some days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”
When we heard these things, both we and the people of that place begged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
When he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, “The Lord’s will be done.”
After these days we took up our baggage and went up to Jerusalem.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 12, 14, 15 9. Four daughters. This is added for the commendation…
9. Four daughters. This is added for the commendation of Philip, not only that we might know that his house was well ordered, but also that it was famous and excellent through the blessing of God. For, assuredly, it was no small gift to have four daughters all endowed with the spirit of prophecy.
By this means the Lord meant to beautify the first beginnings of the gospel, when he raised up men and women to foretell things to come. Prophecies had now almost ceased many years among the Jews, to the end they might be more attentive and desirous to hear the new voice of the gospel. Therefore, seeing that prophesying, which was in a manner quite ceased, doth now after long time return again, it was a token of a more perfect state. Notwithstanding, it seemeth that the same was the reason why it ceased shortly after; for God did support the old people with diverse foretellings, until Christ should make an end of all prophecies. Therefore, it was meet that the new kingdom of Christ should be thus furnished and beautified with this furniture, that all men might know that that promised visitation of the Lord was present; and it was also expedient that it should last but for a short time, lest the faithful should always wait for some farther thing, or lest that curious wits might have occasion given to seek or invent some new thing ever now and then. For we know that when that ability and skill was taken away, there were, notwithstanding, many brain-sick fellows, who did boast that they were prophets; and also it may be that the frowardness of men did deprive the Church of this gift. But that one cause ought to be sufficient, in that God, by taking away prophecies, did testify that the end and perfection was present in Christ; and it is uncertain how these maids did execute the office of prophesying, saving that the Spirit of God did so guide and govern them, that he did not overthrow the order which he himself set down. And forasmuch as he doth not suffer women to bear any public office in the Church, it is to be thought that they did prophesy at home, or in some private place, without the common assembly.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 14 He speaketh of the seven Deacons which he mentioned…
He speaketh of the seven Deacons which he mentioned before, Acts 6.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 8 And the next day we that were of…
8 And the next day we that were of Paul’s company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him.
Ver. 8. Philip the Evangelist] He was at first but a deacon; but having well used that lower office, he was advanced to this. A fruitful man shall not sit long in a low place: God will call him forth to a higher employment, and make him master of much, that was so "faithful in a little" Luk 16:10.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv8–15 Caesarea; that which was called Caesarea Stratonis, to distinguish…
Caesarea; that which was called Caesarea Stratonis, to distinguish it from Caesarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Libanus, as also from another city of that name in Cappadocia; they having been all so called in honour of Caesar, to flatter and perpetuate that family. The Caesarea here spoken of was in Palestine, and is mentioned Act 10:1; 18:22.
The evangelist; whose office and charge it was to publish the gospel, which Timothy is exhorted to do, 2Ti 4:5. This office is placed between that of an apostle and of a pastor and teacher, Eph 4:11, and was not so confined to a certain place or people as the latter of these were.
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One of the seven; of the seven deacons; of which see Act 6:5. Which office of a deacon Philip having well discharged, did purchase to himself this good degree, as 1Ti 3:13.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv10, 12, 15 Observe here, 1. That during the apostle’s stay at…
Observe here, 1. That during the apostle’s stay at Cesarea, in Philip’s house, a certain prophet named Agabus comes thither, and prophesieth of St. Paul’s bonds at Jerusalem.
Where note, that though Agabus was a prophet, yet by what appeareth of him in scripture, he was always a prophet of evil things, and bad tidings; he foretold the famine before, Act 11:28 and Paul’s bonds now. Such messengers of God. as give warnings of judgments to come, should and ought to be accepted, as well as they that bring us hopes of mercy and deliverance; that message may be true, which yet is displeasing.
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Observe, 2. Agabus useth a sign after the manner of the old prophets, who often prophesied by symbols and significant expressions, that they might the better imprint their predictions on the hearts of men. Thus Isaiah went naked and barefoot, to show what the people of Israel should meet with under the king of Assyria, Isaiah 20. And Ezekiel was to pack up his stuff, and remove, to signify the people’s removal into captivity, Eze 12:1-7.
It pleased God to teach his people by visible signs, as well as by word of mouth; that what was received by both senses, seeing and hearing, might make the deeper impression upon their minds. In like manner here Agabus uses a sign; he takes St. Paul’s girdle, and binds his own hands and feet with it, signifying, that after that manner the Jews at Jerusalem would bind the apostle, and deliver him to the Gentiles; first to the Roman Governor of Judea, and afterwards to Nero the Roman emperor.
From whence we may remark, The great goodness and condescension of God, in giving the apostle of many warnings of his bonds; the Holy Ghost first made it known to him, That bonds and afflictions did betide him. Act 20:23
The disciples at Tyre prophesied the same, Act 21:5 And here Agabus, by a sensible sign, makes it known to him; and all this, that he might thoroughly be prepared for a suffering condition.
God doth not love to take his children unprovided; St. Paul therefore was not surprised, but had warning upon warning of his present danger.
If a sudden and unexpected flood of miseries and calamities break in upon us, for afflictions seldom go single, it is not because we want warning, but because we are not so wise as to take warning. When we are well and at ease, we will not think of death and the cross; and therefore, if we be surprised and unprovided, we may thank our own security. Our apostle here being fore-warned, was fore-armed.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv8, 15 We have here Paul and his company arrived at…
We have here Paul and his company arrived at length at Caesarea, where he designed to make some stay, it being the place where the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, and the Holy Ghost fell upon them, Act 10:1, Act 10:44. Now here we are told,
I. Who it was that entertained Paul and his company at Caesarea. He seldom had occasion to go to a public house, but, wherever he came, some friend or other took him in, and bade him welcome. Observe, those that had sailed together parted when the voyage was accomplished, according as their business was. "Those that were concerned in the cargo staid where the ship was to unlade her burden (Act 21:3); others, when they came to Ptolemais, went as their occasions led them; but we that were of Paul's company went where he went, and came to Caesarea." Those that travel together through this world will separate at death, and then it will appear who are of Paul's company and who are not. Now at Caesarea.
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1. They were entertained by Philip the evangelist, whom we left at Caesarea many years ago, after he had baptized the eunuch (Act 8:40), and there we now find him again. (1.) He was originally a deacon, one of the seven that were chosen to serve tables, Act 6:5. (2.) He was now and had long been an evangelist, one that went about to plant and water churches, as the apostles did, and gave himself, as they did, to the word and prayer; thus, having used the office of a deacon well, he purchased to himself a good degree; and, having been faithful in a few things, was made ruler over many things. (3.) He had a house at Caesarea, fit to entertain Paul and all his company, and he bade him and them very welcome to it; We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, and we abode with him. Thus does it become Christians and ministers, according as their ability is, to use hospitality one to another, without grudging, Pe1 4:9.
2. This Philip had four maiden daughters, who did prophesy, Act 21:9. It intimates that they prophesied of Paul's troubles at Jerusalem, as others had done, and dissuaded him from going; or perhaps they prophesied for his comfort and encouragement, in reference to the difficulties that were before him. Here was a further accomplishment of that prophecy, Joe 2:28, of such a plentiful pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh that their sons and their daughters should prophesy, that is, foretel things to come.
II. A plain and full prediction of the sufferings of Paul, by a noted prophet, Act 21:10, Act 21:11. 1. Paul and his company tarried many days at Caesarea, perhaps Cornelius was yet living there, and (though Philip lodged them) yet might be many ways kind to them, and induce them to stay there. What cause Paul saw to tarry so long there, and to make so little haste at the latter end of his journey to Jerusalem, when he seemed so much in haste at the beginning of it, we cannot tell; but we are sure he did not stay either there or any where else to be idle; he measured his time by days, and numbered them. 2. Agabus the prophet came to Caesarea from Judea; this was he of whom we read before, who came from Jerusalem to Antioch, to foretel a general famine, Act 11:27, Act 11:28. See how God dispenseth his gifts variously. To Paul was given the word of wisdom and knowledge, as an apostle, by the Spirit, and the gifts of healing; to Agabus, and to Philip's daughters, was given prophecy, by the same Spirit - the foretelling of things to come, which came to pass according to the prediction. See Co1 12:8, Co1 12:10. So that that which was the most eminent gift of the Spirit under the Old Testament, the foretelling of things to come, was under the New Testament quite outshone by other gifts, and was bestowed upon those that were of less note in the church. It should seem as if Agabus came on purpose to Caesarea, to meet Paul with this prophetic intelligence. 3. He foretold Paul's bonds at Jerusalem, (1.) By a sign, as the prophets of old did, Isaiah (Isa 20:3), Jeremiah (Jer 13:1; Jer 27:2), Ezekiel (Eze 4:1; Eze 12:3), and many others. Agabus took Paul's girdle, when he laid it by, or perhaps took it from about him, and with it bound first his own hands, and then his own feet, or perhaps bound his hands and feet together; this was designed both to confirm the prophecy (it was as sure to be done as if it were done already) and to affect those about him with it, because that which we see usually makes a greater impression upon us than that which we only hear of. (2.) By an explication of the sign: Thus saith the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of prophecy, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and, as they dealt with his Master (Mat 20:18, Mat 20:19), shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles, as the Jews in other places had all along endeavoured to do, by accusing him to the Roman governors. Paul had this express warning given him of his troubles, that he might prepare for them, and that when they came they might be no surprise nor terror to him; the general notice given us that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God should be of the same use to us.
III. The great importunity which his friends used with him to dissuade him from going forward to Jerusalem, Act 21:12. "Not only those of that place, but we that were of Paul's company, and among the rest Luke himself, who had heard this often before, and seen Paul's resolution notwithstanding, besought him with tears that he would not go up to Jerusalem, but steer his course some other way." Now, 1. Here appeared a commendable affection to Paul, and a value for him, upon account of his great usefulness in the church. Good men that are very active sometimes need to be dissuaded from overworking themselves, and good men that are very bold need to be dissuaded from exposing themselves too far. The Lord is for the body, and so we must be. 2. Yet there was a mixture of infirmity, especially in those of Paul's company, who knew he undertook this journey by divine direction, and had seen with what resolution he had before broken through the like opposition. But we see in them the infirmity incident to us all; when we see trouble at a distance, and have only a general notice of it, we can make light of it; but when it comes near we begin to shrink, and draw back. Now that it toucheth thee thou art troubled, Job 4:5.
IV. The holy bravery and intrepidity with which Paul persisted in his resolution, Act 21:13.
1. He reproves them for dissuading him. Here is a quarrel of love on both sides, and very sincere and strong affections clashing with each other. They love him dearly, and therefore oppose his resolution; he loves them dearly, and therefore chides them for opposing it: What mean you to weep and to break my heart? They were an offence to him, as Peter was to Christ, when, in a like case, he said, Master, spare thyself. Their weeping about him broke his heart. (1.) It. was a temptation to him, it shocked him, it began to weaken and slacken his resolution, and caused him to entertain thoughts of tacking about: "I know I am appointed to suffering, and you ought to animate and encourage me, and to say that which will strengthen my heart; but you, with your tears, break my heart, and discourage me. What do you mean by doing thus? Has not our Master told us to take up our cross? And would you have me to avoid mine?" (2.) It was a trouble to him that they should so earnestly press him to that in which he could not gratify them without wronging his conscience. Paul was of a very tender spirit. As he was much in tears himself, so he had a compassionate regard to the tears of his friends; they made a great impression upon him, and would bring him almost to yield to any thing. But now it breaks his heart, when he is under a necessity of denying the request of his weeping friends. It was an unkind kindness, a cruel pity, thus to torment him with their dissuasions, and to add affliction to his grief. When our friends are called out to sufferings, we shall show our love rather by comforting them than by sorrowing for them. But observe, These Christians at Caesarea, if they could have foreseen the particulars of that event, the general notice of which they received with so much heaviness, would have been better reconciled to it for their own sakes; for, when Paul was made a prisoner at Jerusalem, he was presently sent to Caesarea, the very place where he now was (Act 23:33), and there he continued at least two years (Act 24:27), and he was a prisoner at large, as appears (Act 24:23), orders being given that he should have liberty to go among his friends, and his friends to come to him; so that the church at Caesarea had much more of Paul's company and help when he was imprisoned than they could have had if he had been at liberty. That which we oppose, as thinking it to operate much against us, may be overruled by the providence of God to work for us, which is a reason why we should follow providence, and not fear it.
2. He repeats his resolution to go forward, notwithstanding: "What mean you to weep thus? I am ready to suffer whatever is appointed for me. I am fully determined to go, whatever comes of it, and therefore it is to no purpose for you to oppose it. I am willing to suffer, and therefore why are you unwilling that I should suffer? Am not I nearest myself, and fittest to judge for myself? If the trouble found me unready, it would be a trouble indeed, and you might well weep at the thoughts of it. But, blessed be God, it does not. It is very welcome to me, and therefore should not be such a terror to you. For my part, I am ready," etoimōs echō - I have myself in a readiness, as soldiers for an engagement. "I expect trouble, I count upon it, it will be no surprise to me. I was told at first what great things I must suffer," Act 9:16. "I am prepared for it, by a clear conscience, a firm confidence in God, a holy contempt of the world and the body, a lively faith in Christ, and a joyful hope of eternal life. I can bid it welcome, as we do a friend that we look for, and have made preparation for. I can, through grace, not only bear it, but rejoice in it." Now, (1.) See how far his resolution extends: You are told that I must be bound at Jerusalem, and you would have me keep away for fear of this. I tell you, "I am ready not only to be bound, but, if the will of God be so, to die at Jerusalem; not only to lose my liberty, but to lose my life." It is our wisdom to think of the worst that may befall us, and to prepare accordingly, that we may stand complete in all the will of God. (2.) See what it is that carries him out thus, that makes him willing to suffer and die: it is for the name of the Lord Jesus. All that a man has will he give for his life; but life itself will Paul give for the service and honour of the name of Christ.
V. The patient acquiescence of his friends in his resolution, Act 21:14. 1. They submitted to the wisdom of a good man. They had carried the matter as far as they could with decency; but, "when he would not be persuaded, we ceased our importunity. Paul knows best his own mind, and what he has to do, and it becomes us to leave it to himself, and not to censure him for what he does, nor to say he is rash, and wilful, and humoursome, and has a spirit of contradiction, as some people are apt to judge of those that will not do just as they would have them do. No doubt, Paul has a good reason for his resolution, though he sees cause to keep it to himself, and God has gracious ends to serve in confirming him in it." It is good manners not to over-press those in their own affairs that will not be persuaded. 2. They submitted to the will of a good God: We ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. They did not resolve his resolution into his stubbornness, but into his willingness to suffer, and God's will that he should. Father in heaven, thy will be done, as it is a rule to our prayers and to our practice, so it is to our patience. This may refer, (1.) To Paul's present firmness; he is inflexible, and unpersuadable, and in this they see the will of the Lord done. "It is he that has wrought this fixed resolution in him, and therefore we acquiesce in it." Note, In the turning of the hearts of our friends or ministers, this way or that way (and it may be quite another way than we could wish), we should eye the hand of God, and submit to that. (2.) To his approaching sufferings: "If there be no remedy, but Paul will run himself into bonds, the will of the Lord Jesus be done. We have done all that we could do on our parts to prevent it, and now we leave it to God, we leave it to Christ, to whom the Father has committed all judgment, and therefore we do, not as we will, but as he will." Note, When we see trouble coming, and particularly that of our ministers' being silenced or removed from us, it becomes us to say, The will of the Lord be done. God is wise, and knows how to make all work for good, and therefore "welcome his holy will." Not only, "The will of the Lord must be done, and there is no remedy;" but, "Let the will of the Lord be done, for his will is his wisdom, and he doeth all according to the counsel of it; let him therefore do with us and ours as seemeth good in his eyes." When a trouble is come, this must allay our griefs, that the will of the Lord is done; when we see it coming, this must silence our fears, that the will of the Lord shall be done, to which we must say, Amen, let it be done.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv8–15 And the next day we that were of Paul's…
And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed,.... From Ptolemais, as Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Timotheus, Tychicus, Trophimus, and Luke, the writer of this history; see Act 20:4
and came unto Caesarea; not Caesarea Philippi, mentioned in Mat 16:13 but that Caesarea which was formerly called Strato's tower, and was a very good sea port; see Act 8:40.
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and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist; not a writer of a Gospel, but a preacher of the Gospel, and perhaps not an ordinary one, but was one of those spoken of in Eph 4:11 which was an office inferior to an apostle, and yet above an ordinary pastor and teacher; this man, very likely, was the same that taught in Samaria, and baptized the eunuch, and who after that settled at Caesarea; see Act 8:40.
which was one of the seven; of the seven deacons of the church at Jerusalem, Act 6:5 and abode with him; so long as they continued at Caesarea.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 We came to Cesarea - So called from a…
We came to Cesarea - So called from a stately temple which Herod the Great dedicated there to Augustus Caesar. It was the place where the Roman governor of Judea generally resided and kept his court. The evangelist, who was one of the seven deacons - An evangelist is a preacher of the Gospel to those who had never heard it, as Philip had done to the Samaritans, to the Ethiopian eunuch, and to all the towns from Azotus to Cesarea, chap. viii, 5, 26, 40. It is not unlikely he spent the following years preaching in Tyre and Sidon, and the other heathen cities in the neighbourhood of Galilee, his house being at Cesarea, a convenient situation for that purpose. We abode with him - We lodged at his house during our stay at Cesarea.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv8–15 Verse 8. We that were of Paul's company] Οἱ…
Verse 8. We that were of Paul's company] Οἱ περι τον Παυλον· This clause is wanting in ABCE, and many others; the Syriac, Coptic, Vulgate, Armenian, &c.
Came unto Caesarea] This was Caesarea of Palestine, already sufficiently described, See Clarke on Ac 8:40.
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Philip the evangelist] One of the seven deacons, who seems to have settled here after he had baptized the eunuch. See Clarke on Ac 8:40.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv10, 15 Act 21:10-14. And as we tarried there many days…
Act 21:10-14. And as we tarried there many days — There being many disciples in that city, the fruit, as appears, of the ministry and miracles of Philip; there came from Judea a prophet named Agabus — Paul, and some part of his company, had become acquainted with this prophet some years before, at Antioch, where he foretold the famine which afterward happened in the days of Claudius Cesar, Act 11:28. And when he was come unto us — Several of the disciples of Cesarea and Paul’s friends being together; he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet — In the manner that malefactors were wont to be bound when apprehended; and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost — By whose inspiration I now speak and act; So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle — Thus Agabus, like the prophets of old, accompanied his prediction with a significant prophetic symbol: and thus the nearer the event was, the more express and impressive were the predictions intended to prepare Paul for it. When we — Of Paul’s company; and they of that place — The brethren of Cesarea; heard these things — And believed if he went to Jerusalem the prediction would be fulfilled; we besought him not to go — In the most pressing manner, and with many tears of sincere and fervent affection, Act 21:13; being ignorant, it appears, that this and the former prediction were intended, not to hinder him from going to Jerusalem, but to make him the more courageous, by signifying to him beforehand what was to befall him, (Act 20:22-23,) and that he would not be put to death at Jerusalem. Then Paul — Sensibly touched with the concern which they expressed on his account, and yet resolutely bent upon following what he apprehended to be the call of duty, whatever sufferings it might expose him to; answered, What mean ye to weep and break my heart? — By these affectionate salutations? Observe, reader, the admirable mixture of tenderness and firmness of spirit manifested in this answer. I am ready, not to be bound only — And cast into prison; but also to die at Jerusalem — Or wherever else I may be called to it; for the name of the Lord Jesus — For he feared neither sufferings nor death in any form, if he might thereby defend the gospel, and promote the glory of its Author, which were the ends he had chiefly in view in all his labours and sufferings, and which he preferred to all other things whatever. And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased — It was not obstinacy in Paul that hindered his yielding to their persuasions, but true Christian resolution, not to relinquish what he believed to be the line of duty. We should never be persuaded either to do what we know to be evil, or to omit what we believe to be good, when it is in our power: saying, The will of the Lord be done — Which they were satisfied Paul knew.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 We that were of Paul’s company - From this…
We that were of Paul’s company - From this it would appear that they had been attended thus far by some persons who were going only to Ptolemais. This clause, however, is missing in many mss., and has been omitted by Bengel, Griesbach, Knapp, and others as spurious. It is also missing in the Syriac and the Vulgate.
Unto Cesarea - See the notes on Act 8:40.
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Into the house of Philip - One of the seven deacons, Act 6:5. After his conversation with the eunuch of Ethiopia, he went to Caesarea, and probably there abode.
The evangelist - This word properly means one who announces good news. In the New Testament it is applied to a preacher of the gospel, or one who declares the glad tidings of salvation. It occurs only in two other places, Eph 4:1; 2Ti 4:5. What was the precise rank of those who bore this title in the early Christian church cannot perhaps be determined. It is evident, however, that it is used to denote the office of preaching the gospel; and as this title is applied to Philip, and not to any other of the seven deacons, it would seem probable that he had been entrusted with a special commission to preach, and that preaching did not pertain to him as a deacon, and does not properly belong to that office. The business of a deacon was to take care of the poor members of the church, Act 6:1-6. The office of preaching was distinct from this, though, as in this case, it might be conferred on the same individual.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv8–9 Philip, the evangelist, so called from his preaching the…
Philip, the evangelist, so called from his preaching the gospel, though he was one of the seven, that is, of the seven deacons. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 next day we that were of Paul's company departed--(The…
next day we that were of Paul's company departed--(The words "the were of Paul's company" are omitted in the best manuscripts. They were probably added as the connecting words at the head of some church lessons).
and came to Cæsarea--a run along the coast, southward, of some thirty miles.
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Philip the evangelist--a term answering apparently very much to our missionary [HOWSON], by whose ministry such joy had been diffused over Samaria and the Ethiopian eunuch had been baptized (Acts 8:4-40).
one of the seven--deacons, who had "purchased to himself a good degree" (Ti1 3:13). He and Paul now meet for the first time, some twenty-five years after that time.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 8. Departed—Left first the ship, and then the city,…
8. Departed—Left first the ship, and then the city, and took the land route to Cesarea. “Issuing from the southeastern gate, in ten minutes they would cross the Belus, now the Nahmen; then for three hours would proceed along the beach with the surf breaking at their feet; at the base of Carmel would ford the mouth of the Kishon, (El-mukatta,) and, turning that headland, follow the line of the coast of Cesarea. The distance hither from Akka (Ptolemais) is about forty miles.”—Hackett.
Cesarea—(See note on Act_8:40.)
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Philip the evangelist—(See notes on Act_8:26-40.) Residing at Cesarea, Philip may have still performed the work of an evangelist, or Gospel-preacher, wherever he was providentially called.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv8–15 8. And the next day] Rev. Ver. “And on…
8. And the next day] Rev. Ver. “And on the morrow.”
we that were of Paul’s company] The Greek for the last five of these words is omitted in the best MSS. We can see at once how such a marginal comment, thought useful by the reader of an early MS., would be brought into the text without scruple by the next copyist.
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unto Cesarea] Though it was possible to have made this journey by sea, the verb seems rather to leave us to infer that it was a land journey. The road between the two places was of the best.
and we entered … and abode with him] Rev. Ver. (as Greek) “and entering … we abode, &c.” Philip is named next after Stephen in the narrative (Act_6:5) of the choosing of the seven, and though no such prominent exhibition of his zeal is narrated as of Stephen, yet we are told, that he went away from Jerusalem and was the first to carry the Gospel to the Samaritans (Act_8:5). He also was directed by the angel of the Lord to go and baptize the Ethiopian eunuch (Act_8:16-38), thus being doubly an ambassador to the Gentiles, and earning his title of “Evangelist.” He preached afterwards at Ashdod, and from the chapter before us we may conclude that he had made his home at Cæsarea. Such a situation, the meeting-place of Gentiles with Jews, was the proper scene for such a missionary to labour in, and such a labourer would rejoice greatly to welcome to his house the great apostle who had gone forth once and again unto the Gentiles and with such mighty blessing on his work.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv8–15 (8) We that were of Paul’s company departed.—Better, simply,…
(8) We that were of Paul’s company departed.—Better, simply, we departed. The Greek which answers to the intervening five words is wanting in the best MSS., and seems a needless interpolation, there being no apparent reason for any change in the writer’s previous phraseology, or for his distinguishing “Paul’s company” from some other person or persons unknown. In some of the MSS. in which it is found, the verb is in the third person: “They that were of Paul’s company came . . . .”
Came unto Cæsarea.—Comp. Act_8:40; Act_10:1. This was, it will be remembered, St. Paul’s third visit there (Act_9:30; Act_18:22), and we may well believe that he was simply renewing the intercourse of a previous friendship with Philip.
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Philip the evangelist.—The title given to him is interesting as showing that the work of “serving tables,” i.e., of superintending the distribution of alms, had been merged in the higher work of a missionary preacher. (See Note on Act_6:3.) He was no longer known, if, indeed, that title had ever been applied to him, as Philip the deacon, but as Philip the evangelist. The office so described is recognised by St. Paul in his enumeration of spiritual gifts and functions, in Eph_4:11, as coming next in order of importance to those of apostles and prophets, and before pastors and teachers. It would seem, accordingly, to have been distinct from the “orders,” in the later sense, of presbyter or deacon, though capable of being united with either of them. Timotheus was exhorted by St. Paul when he was left at Ephesus, with the authority of a bishop, or, more strictly, of a vicar apostolic, to “do the work of an evangelist,” as that to which he had been called (2Ti_4:5). It followed, from the nature of the office, as analogous to that of the missionary of later times, that, though residing mainly at Cæsarea, Philip’s labours extended beyond its limits; and we have seen reason to trace his work (see Notes on Act_8:40; Act_15:3; Act_21:3; Act_21:7) all along the coasts of Palestine and Phoenicia. As far as we know, Philip and St. Luke had not met before, and we can imagine the satisfaction with which the latter, himself, probably, an evangelist in both senses of the word (2Co_8:18), and already contemplating his work as an historian, would welcome the acquaintance of the former, how he would ask many questions as to the early history of the Church, and learn from him all, or nearly all, that we find in the first eleven chapters of this book.
Which was one of the seven.—We note how entirely the Seven of Act_6:3 are regarded as a special or distinct body. If the term deacon had ever been applied to them, which is very doubtful, it ceased to be applicable by its wide extension to the subordinate functionaries of the churches throughout the empire.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv8–15 On the morrow for the next day A.V.; we…
On the morrow for the next day A.V.; we for we that were of Pauls company, A.V. and T.R.; entering we for we entered and, A.V.; who for which, A.V. Unto Caesarea. They seem to have come from Ptolemais to Caesarea by land, a two days" journey; the word. ejxelqontev, as Howson justly remarks, pointing to a land-journey. Philip the evangelist. When last we heard of him (Act_8:40) he had just reached Caesarea; apparently he had been working there as an evangelist ever since. His old home at Jerusalem (Act_6:5) had been broken up by the persecution, (Act_8:5) and thus the deacon had become an evangelist. (Act_8:12) Evangelists are mentioned by St. Paul (Eph_4:11) as one of the higher orders of the Christian ministry; and Timothy is bid "do the work of an evangelist". (2Ti_4:5) In later times the term was restricted to the four writers of the Gospels. Philip"s old association with Stephen in the diaconate must have been keenly remembered by St. Paul. We abode with him. This seems to imply that Philip was well to do, and had a good house.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv8, 13, 15 And the next day we … came to Caesarea:…
Act_21:8-15
And the next day we … came to Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the Evangelist.
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Paul at Caesarea
I. Paul visits Philip. Learn--
1. That fidelity in our present calling is the highway to promotion to a more important one. Philip had acquitted himself well in the lowest ecclesiastical office, that of deacon, and was now promoted to one of the highest, that of evangelist--the founder of new churches, and the stimulater of existing ones.
2. That every converted daughter should be at work in endeavouring to bring others to the Saviour. Philips daughters were decided Christians, and engaged in active service for Christ. In the Apostolic Church women did great service in the gospel cause. See Pauls list of useful women in Rom_16:1-27.
II. Agabus visits Paul. We have here--
1. An instance of intense human love and sympathy; beautiful traits of sanctified human nature; but mark, these must not be carried so far as to interfere with our friends calls to duty.
2. Pauls tenderness of heart. He was an intellectual giant, but he had a womans tenderness of heart. Every tear and sob went to his soul. Illustrate further by other instances of his compassion and tears.
3. Pauls unalterable determination. Duty called and he obeyed. Wherever duty called he went, despising all toil and danger. He was a man. He could say No. Imitate. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. (Christian Age.)
St. Paul in Philips family
1. Philip, at the conclusion of the missionary tour which succeeded the conversion of the eunuch, had settled at Antioch, which, from its being the centre of political influence, and from the extensive commerce facilitated by its harbour, was a most important sphere of missionary operations. Caesarea, too, was the place where, by the conversion of Cornelius, the door of faith was first opened to the Gentiles.
2. In this last notice of Philip, the evangelist falls into the background, and the eye of the reader is fixed on Paul. Planetoids, many of which are wandering about in space, sometimes come within the attraction of a comet, and are drawn in towards the larger body; and here the evangelist is drawn into the apostles orbit and quenched there.
3. It was natural that Paul should go to the house of Philip--a man like-minded with himself; and there was another who would take as much delight in Philips company--Luke, the writer of the Acts, for which history he was now collecting materials; and we cannot doubt that he here obtained the narrative of the conversion of the eunuch. How remarkable this gathering. Paul and Luke wrote the greater part of the New Testament; Philip had taken the place of Stephen, to whose death Paul had consented; yet here are the colleague and the murderer each emulating the martyrs example, We can well understand the refreshment and nerve for future effort which must have been gained by such intercourse.
4. Philip had four daughters, in whom Joels prediction had received a literal accomplishment (Joe_2:18), and who may have given the first intimation of the disasters which threatened the apostle. Thus the fourfold ministry of Eph_4:12 was here represented--the apostle Paul, the evangelist Philip, the teacher Luke, the prophetesses Philips daughters.
5. Whether these women made the prediction or not, it was certainly made under the same roof by Agabus, who began with one of those symbolic actions which the old prophets were accustomed to use, by which the senses were impressed with the truth they were commissioned to convey. A religion wholly devoid of symbolism would not be a religion adapted to the wants of man. Man, though a spiritual being, is not a purely spiritual being, and is more vividly affected by a truth exhibited to the eye than spoken in the ear. To meet this constitution of our nature God has made the sacraments an essential part of Christianity, and chosen the Incarnation as His mode of manifestation to the senses of men. But on the other hand this principle, as all Church history shows, may be easily carried to mischievous lengths. The limits are admirably traced in the discourse Of Ceremonies prefixed to the Prayer Book.
6. The prophecy of Agabus aroused great anxiety, and Paul was entreated by those instigated by the Spirit to alter his purpose. Yet the apostle persisted. And not from obstinacy, for on two occasions, at Damascus and Ephesus, he had yielded to the solicitations of the brethren. Nor was he a man of stoical insensibility (verse 13). The reason for the apostles persistency is indicated in Act_19:21; and to this obligation he adverts in Act_20:22. He was not going to Jerusalem without the direct sanction of the Spirit, by which Agabus had spoken. He must, then, act upon his own light, Nor was Agabuss prediction without its attraction for the apostle (Act_9:16; Php_3:10). If he was to be bound at Jerusalem, etc., was there not here the closest conformity to the fate of his Master? His friends eventually desisted, not doubting that he had made up his mind under the influence of the Spirit. They had been praying that if it were possible the cup might pass from their beloved apostle. Now, in the spirit of their Divine Master, they added, Nevertheless, not our will, but Thine be done.
7. From this explanation of the motives of Paul in declining to listen to the advice of his friends, we may gather the important practical lesson that in matters of duty every man must be guided by the light which his conscience affords. He must take every method of enlightening his conscience, but he must never defer to the conscience of another when it prescribes a course at issue with his own convictions. (Dean Goulburn.)
And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.
Prophecy
Teachers possessing in a special manner the inspiration of the Spirit of God indicated in some peculiar supernatural gift as that of healing or of foretelling. Observe that in the Apostolic Church women are not only teachers (Act_18:26), as in the Jewish Church (Act_22:14), but also inspired teachers. The prophet was not necessarily a foreteller. The Hebrew word is derived from a root signifying to boil or bubble over, and simply conveys the idea of the bursting forth, as of a fountain of truth, with which God has inspired the soul. The early English kept tolerably near this original idea. Thus Jeremy Taylor, in the reign of Elizabeth, wrote a treatise on the Liberty of Prophesying--i.e., of preaching. In the classics the Greek word is used to describe those who interpreted the unintelligible oracles, and, metaphorically, the poets as interpreters of the gods or muses. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament the prominent idea in prophecy and prophesying is not prediction, but inspiration--not telling before what is to happen, but delivering messages of warning, instruction, comfort, helpfulness--such as are commissioned by or given under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit. This characteristic of prophecy appears very clearly from the titles given to the prophet in the Scriptures. He is called the interpreter, the messenger of Jehovah, the man of Spirit, the man of God; and it is declared that the Spirit of Jehovah enters into him, or clothes him, or, as here, that he speaks by the Spirit. In the New Testament Paul gives some detailed description of prophesying, which is distinguished from what we should call preaching only in that the presence and power of God is, perhaps, more prominent. (E. Abbott, D. D.)
There came down from Judaea a certain prophet named Agabus; and when he was come to us, he took Pauls girdle, and bound his own hands and feet.--
The girdle of Paul
An admonitory memorial for all his successors, to remind them of the--
I. Apostolic fidelity, with which he was bound to the Lord, even to death.
II. Apostolic bonds, in which he must experience the hatred of the world.
III. Apostolic zeal, with which he was at all times girt, to hasten to the combat appointed to him. (K. Gerok.)
The only bonds by which a servant of God feels himself to be indissolubly bound
I. Not the bonds of his own flesh and blood, which he has torn asunder by the power of the Spirit.
II. Not the bonds of human force and enmity (Paul bound at Jerusalem), which cannot injure him contrary to the will of God.
III. Not the bonds of brotherly love and friendship: for whosoever loveth brethren and sisters more than the Lord is not worthy of Him.
IV. But only the bonds of love to the Lord, to whom he is bound in grateful love and childlike fidelity even unto death (K. Gerok.)
Prophetic warnings
I. Instances of--
1. Joseph warning Pharaoh (Gen_41:32-33).
2. Moses warning the Israelites (Exo_4:29-31).
3. Moses warning Pharaoh (Exo_9:29-30).
4. Joshua warning Israel (Jos_3:9-13).
5. Nathan warning David (2Sa_12:7-10; 1Ki_1:22-25).
6. A prophet warning Ahab (1Ki_20:38-39).
7. Elisha warning Jehoshaphat (2Ki_3:11-13).
8. Jonah warning the Ninevites (Jon_3:4; Mat_12:41).
9. John the Baptist warning the Jews (Mat_3:1-2; Luk_3:3).
10. Agabus giving warning of a famine (Act_11:28-29).
11. Agabus warning Paul of danger (Act_21:10-11).
II. Inspired by--
1. The visions of God (2Ch_26:5; Eze_1:1).
2. The writing of God (1Ch_28:19).
3. The Word of God (Luk_3:2).
4. The words of God (Jon_3:1; Hab_2:2).
5. The Spirit of God (1Sa_10:6; Joe_2:28; Act_2:4).
6. The various agencies of God (Heb_1:1).
III. Nature of--
1. A gift of Christ (Eph_4:11; Rev_11:3).
2. Christ usually the subject of (Act_10:43; 1Pe_1:10-11).
3. Concerning the need of repentance (Mar_1:4).
4. Regarding present safety (Act_21:11).
5. Concerning eternal salvation (Rev_14:13).
6. Regarding future events (Gen_49:1; Num_24:14). (S. S. Times.)
And when we heard these things … we … besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.--
Anti-Christian prudence
The poorest advice in the world to a man in time of danger is, counsel to shun the path of duty. If he is a pliable man, it may work his ruin. If he is a determined man, the foolish entreaty only tends to break his heart, or to increase his trial. If duty points a man to Jerusalem, let all who love him point in the same direction. Let the mother tell her son to be truthful and honest, if he starves. Let the wife urge her husband to pay his debts, if his family must be turned into the streets because of his fidelity. Let the teacher commend his scholars for their purpose of daring everything for the right. Let every Christian man and woman speak words of cheer to every other Christian who must face danger at the call of God. Let none beseech a brother not to go where he ought to go; but let the word sound in heartiness, Be thou strong, and show thyself a man. And if friends try to swerve us from a right purpose, let us be firm against their strongest persuasions. If they weep, and our hearts break in consequence, let us keep our faces as a flint towards the right, and if we fall, let it be in the path in which God has called us to be. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On v15 15–17. Took up our carriages. Our baggage. See Revision.…
15–17. Took up our carriages. Our baggage. See Revision. “Carriages” once meant the things carried.
Went with us certain disciples of Cæsarea. Paul was often thus attended. They seem to have gone in order to find a place for him with an old disciple, a native of Cyprus, now dwelling in Jerusalem, named Mnason.
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Come to Jerusalem. This is the fifth time Paul entered the Holy City since his departure on that memorable journey to Damascus about twenty-two years before. The present probable date is near Pentecost (the latter part of May), a.d. 58.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v15 Act_21:15. We took up our carriages, or things to…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_21:15. We took up our carriages, or things to be carried (see Jdg_18:21).—ἀποσκευασάμενοι. The reading of the Received text should be translated, having packed away our baggage—i.e., the superfluous part of it (Olshausen); or having discharged our baggage—i.e., unpacked the matters necessary for our journey to Jerusalem. But the best reading, ἐπισκευασάμενοι, signifies, having packed up our baggage, and so made ourselves ready for the journey to Jerusalem (Hackett, Alford, Holtzmann, and others).
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Act_21:16. An old, better, an early disciple.—i.e., one who had long been a disciple, having been probably converted on the day of Pentecost. Whether the Cæsarean brethren brought Mnason with them to Jerusalem (Calvin, Beza, Plumptre), or brought Paul to Mnason at Jerusalem (Bengel, Olshausen, Meyer, De Wette, Holtzmann) is uncertain. Both translations are admissible. Mnason was of Cyprus, and therefore a countryman of Barnabas (Act_4:36).
Act_21:17. The brethren were not the Church or the apostles (Kuinoel), but private Christians, such as Mnason and others (Wendt, Holtzmann, Hackett, and others).
Act_21:18. James.—See on Act_12:17, Act_15:13. The apostles, not mentioned, may by this time have been dispersed from Jerusalem, while some may have been dead. The Jerusalem Church was manifestly presided over by James and the elders.
Act_21:19. Particularly, what things, or one by one, each of the things which.—Compare Act_15:4; Act_15:12. That nothing is here said about the delivering up of the collections for the poor saints at Jerusalem has been explained by supposing that the “we” sources were no more at the author’s command, but may be satisfactorily accounted for by assuming that Luke did not consider this necessary to be stated. It is perfectly arbitrary to assert that—in order, shall it be said, to guarantee the apostle’s good faith?—information should have been given about the final disposition of those contributions which the apostle had been collecting, and with which he hoped to appease the irritated minds of his Jewish brethren (Holtzmann).
Act_21:20. They glorified the Lord—Rather, God (as in Gal_1:24), on Paul’s account, and not as if they themselves did not share in the general suspicion or anxiety (Holtzmann), but more likely as if they were somewhat troubled about the inferences that were being publicly drawn from Paul’s Gentile mission—called his attention to the many thousands, or myriads, of Jewish Christians, not in the world (Overbeck), but in Jerusalem and Judaea (Wendt, Zöckler), who were all (not “some “as in Act_15:1; Act_15:5) zealous, not of, but for the law, as Paul himself had formerly been (Gal_1:14).
Act_21:21. That thou teachest all to forsake Moses.—Lit., that thou teachest apostasy from Moses. The allegation contained an element of truth in so far as it was undoubtedly Paul’s aim to persuade his countrymen to embrace the gospel, and in so far as their reception of the gospel would in due course emancipate them from the bondage of the law; but it was not Paul’s object or business to inculcate on Jewish Christians the discontinuance of either circumcision or the ritual of Moses. (See further in “Homiletical Analysis.”)
Act_21:22. The multitude (or a crowd, πλῆθος, without the article) must needs come together.—The best MSS. omit this clause along with γὰρ, for, and read, they will certainly hear that thou art come.
Act_21:23. We have four men.—The clause shows how closely the Jerusalem Church adhered to the ritual of Moses. That the vow, taken by the men, was that of the Nazarite is suggested by the reference to shaving the head.
Act_21:24. Purify thyself with them and bear charges with, rather, for them.—James, who gave this advice, was himself a Nazarite—“Drank no wine nor strong drink, neither did he eat flesh. No razor ever touched his head; he did not anoint himself with oil; he did not use the bath.… He would enter into the temple alone, and there be found kneeling on his knees and asking forgiveness for the people; so that his knees grew hard like a camel’s knees, because he was ever upon them worshipping God and asking forgiveness for the people” (Euseb, Hist., Act_2:23). The term for a Nazarite vow, though not prescribed by the law, was usually thirty days; but Jewish practice had rendered it possible for one who could not undertake a vow for so long a time to join in with another in the last days of his Nazaritic period on condition of bearing all the temple charges for offerings for himself and that other. The Jews considered it a specially meritorious act to assist a poor Nazarite in this manner. Agrippa I., on obtaining the sovereignty of Palestine, paid the expense of numerous indigent Nazarites who were waiting to be released from their vows (Jos., Ant., XIX. vi. 1). As Paul was a poor man, it is supposed he paid, or proposed to pay, the charges for the Nazarites out of the Gentile contributions which he brought for the poor saints in Jerusalem. Ramsay challenges the statement that Paul was a poor man, and suggests that the charges here specified, as well as the cost of his subsequent trial, were borne out of his own patrimonial estate, or hereditary property (St. Paul the Traveller, etc., pp. 310 ff). All may know should be all shall know.
Act_21:25. The best MSS. omit the clause that they observe no such thing. This reference to the apostolic decrees confirms the credibility of the account in chap. 15.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_21:15-25
With James and the Elders at Jerusalem; or, Mistaken Counsels
I. Paul’s journey to the capital.—
1. The point of departure. Cæsarea; the abode of Philip the evangelist (Act_21:8), the city of Cornelius (Act_10:1), the scene of Herod’s death (Act_12:19-23) and of Paul’s subsequent imprisonment (Act_23:31-35). The apostle little dreamt, on leaving Cæsarea, that before many days had passed he would return to it a prisoner, though, had he foreseen such, the knowledge would hardly have discomposed him (Act_21:13). Paul one of those heroic spirits that rise superior to external circumstances, and when confronted by extremest danger “forget they ever heard the name of death” (Shakespeare).
2. The time of departure. After the interview with Agabus. The pathetic scene with the disciples (Act_21:12-14), and in particular the courageous declaration of Paul, not to mention other reasons, clearly rendered it impossible for him to remain longer at Cæsarea. Had he done so, even the disciples might have begun to think, if not to say, when they recalled his spirited utterance—“These be brave words, O Paul! but where is thy performance?” And Paul was not the man to suffer any one to charge him with either timidity or inconsistency.
3. The manner of departure. With “carriages” or things to be carried—i.e., baggage taken up—this including both articles necessary for the journey and the gifts Paul was bearing to the poor saints in Jerusalem. Paul’s anticipations of sorrow for himself had no power to make him forget the contributions he had gathered for the needs of others. Paul was ever a rare example of self-forgetfulness.
II. Paul’s travelling companions.—
1. Those who had accompanied him from Asia. Whether all the seven mentioned in Act_20:4 (Besser), or only Trophimus, Aristarchus, and Luke is debatable, though the latter opinion is the more probable.
2. Certain disciples from Cœsarea. Most likely Gentile converts, though they may have been Jewish Christians travelling to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Pentecost. Wherever Paul went his noble personality, rendered more magnetic by the grace of God that was in him, drew around him circles of friends, and grappled them to his bosom as with hooks of steel. The time had not yet arrived when all men would forsake him (2Ti_4:16) as they had formerly forsaken his Master (Mat_26:56).
3. Mnason, an old or “early” disciple—i.e., one who had long been a Christian, having been (it may be supposed) one of the first converts, gathered into the Christian fold on the day of Pentecost. A native of Cyprus like Barnabas, he may also have been one of those “men of Cyprus” who came to Antioch and were among the first to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (Act_11:20). Whether he lived at Cyprus but possessed a house as well in Jerusalem, or usually resided in Jerusalem but had been visiting at Cæsarea and was now returning home, or had not been to Cæsarea at all, but was still in Jerusalem, and Paul (according to another translation) was being conducted to him, are points concerning which no authoritative decision can be given. The one clear fact is that Paul and his companions obtained a lodging in Mnason’s house, presumably because in the state of public feeling among Jewish Christians concerning Paul’s Gentile mission, it might have been difficult, if not dangerous, to seek accommodation for him with one of these.
III. Paul’s arrival in the city.—
1. The date. That he reached Jerusalem in time for the Feast of Pentecost is apparent. His departure from Philippi took place after the days of unleavened bread, since then he had been occupied in travelling as under:—
From Philippi to Troas (Act_20:6)
5 days.
Where he abode
7 days.
From Troas to Miletus (Act_20:13-15)
4 days.
Where he stayed (say)
3 days.
From Miletus to Patara (Act_21:1)
3 days.
From Patara to Tyre (say)
4 days.
Where he remained (Act_21:4)
7 days.
From Tyre to Ptolemais (Act_21:7)
1 days.
From Ptolemais to Cæsarea (Act_21:8)
2 days.
Where he halted (Act_21:10, say)
6 days.
From Cæsarea to Jerusalem
2 days.
In all
44 days.
If to this be added six for the days of unleavened bread (Act_20:6), the total of fifty will be obtained, which is the interval between Passover and Pentecost.
2. His reception. The brethren—i.e., the private Christians (among them Mnason and his friends) to whom his coming was made known welcomed him and his companions gladly—Mnason to his house and all of them to their hearts. Sympathising fervently with Paul’s missionary enterprise they rejoiced to see him home again with tidings from the regions beyond.
IV. Paul’s interview with the Church leaders.—
1. Fraternal greetings. As on a former occasion (Act_18:22), Paul saluted or embraced the recognised heads of the Christian community, who had convened to accord him welcome. These were James the brother of Our Lord—not James the younger (Hackett)—who, ten or eleven years later, suffered martyrdom as a believer in Jesus of Nazareth, by being hurled from the pinnacle of the temple and despatched by stoning (Euseb., H. E., Act_2:23); and the elders or spiritual rulers, overseers, presbyters of the various congregations in Jerusalem. That none of the apostles are mentioned as having been present suggests that none of them at that time resided in the Holy City. Some may have set forth on missionary tours, while others may have “departed to be with Christ, which is far better.”
2. Glowing recitals. Salutations over, the apostle, as he had done on returning from his first missionary tour (Act_14:27), declared particularly or rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry—noting specially his hearing of Apollos (Act_18:24), meeting with John’s disciples (Act_19:1), and successful preaching (Act_19:20) in Ephesus; his journey to Macedonia and Achaia (Act_20:1-2); with the various incidents that occurred on the homeward route, in Troas (Act_20:9), at Miletus (Act_20:17), in Tyre (Act_21:4), and at Cæsarea (Act_21:8). More might be done to deepen the home Church’s interest in the missionary enterprise by returned missionaries, were they to lay before their Christian brethren, in fitting language, the story of what God is at present doing among the heathen.
3. Fervent thanksgivings. When the assembled elders had listened to the thrilling narrative, they glorified God for having raised up such a veteran missionary within the Church, and for having performed, through his instrumentality, such wonders of grace among the Gentiles (compare Act_4:21, Act_11:18). Henceforth they could entertain no doubt or suspicion, more of the earnestness of the man or of the Divine authority of his mission; and whatever friction may have previously existed between the apostle and the Jerusalem leaders, at this moment it had disappeared. The anti-Gentile spirit, if it slumbered in the Church of the Metropolis, which is doubtful, was not shared in by its rulers.
4. Mistaken counsels.
(1) The circumstances out of which these arose were two; the multitudes (myriads or tens of thousands) of Jewish Christians from all parts of the world, who were then present in the Holy City, and the misconception under which they laboured of Paul’s work, which they imagined to be a crusade against circumcision and the customs of Moses, when it was no such thing. Certainly Paul taught the Gentiles that circumcision and the customs of Moses were not required for a sinner’s justification so that the Gentiles had no need to embrace these with a view to salvation. To the Jews among the Gentiles—i.e., to the Jewish Christians he explained that even for them circumcision and the customs of Moses formed no ground of acceptance before God; but he never insisted on the discontinuance, by Jewish Christians, of either circumcision or the customs. Doubtless Jewish Christians, who came to understand the complete religious worthlessness of circumcision, and the customs as mere external performances, would gradually lay these aside; and so the notion might (and probably did) diffuse itself that Paul directly aimed at this result by means of his gospel. It was of course an error fitted to be hurtful.
(2) The motive which dictated the advice given by James and the elders was unquestionably good. They desired, if possible, to disabuse the public mind of the unjust suspicions it entertained of Paul’s Hebrew orthodoxy, and to remove every stumbling block out of the way of his ministerial usefulness among his countrymen. On this principle Paul himself was always prepared to act (1Co_9:20).
(3) The advice itself ran that Paul should associate himself with four poor Christian Jews who had taken on themselves Nazarite vows, which required them to let their hair grow, to abstain from intoxicating liquor, and generally to lead ascetic lives for a period usually of thirty days, from which vows they could not be released without the presentation in the temple of certain specified offerings (Num_6:1-21). It was suggested that Paul should, according to a custom then prevailing, join himself to these four men during the last seven days of their vow, should along with them abstain from wine, and lot his hair grow; and that at the end of these days he and they should shave their heads, while he paid for the necessary offerings to clear himself and them—again after the manner of pious Jews of a wealthier sort, who were accustomed thus to assist their poorer brethren. James and the elders believed that by so doing Paul would demonstrate to his excited countrymen that there was no truth in the information they had received, and that he, Paul, was as good and orderly a Jew as any one among themselves. To the suggestion of this course they may have felt prompted by remembering that Paul had once at least before at Cenchrea undertaken a similar vow (Act_18:18).
(4) The consideration by which James and the elders hoped to urge this course upon the apostle was that they had gone a long way in making concessions to the Gentiles, having written and concluded or given judgment, that they, the Gentiles, should observe no such thing as circumcision and the customs of Moses, but only that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols and from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication.
(5) Nevertheless the advice was a mistake. What it recommended, if carried out, as it was, might not have been sinful in itself or unlawful for Paul from his point of view (1Co_6:12; 1Co_10:23), but it was certainly of doubtful policy as tending to confirm Jewish Christians in the idea that Paul did regard the law as in some fashion indispensable for salvation, while in point of fact he did not, and practically worthless, since it neither effected what they hoped for, nor averted what they feared, neither allayed the groundless suspicions against Paul, nor prevented an outbreak of hostility against him (Act_21:28).
Lessons.—
1. The lawfulness of Christian prudence—exemplified in lodging Paul with Mnason.
2. The duty of Christian brotherly kindness—illustrated in Paul’s reception by the Christians of Jerusalem and the leaders of the Church there.
3. The doubtfulness even of Christian compromises—as seen in the course recommended by James and followed by Paul.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_21:16. An Old Disciple.—Exemplified in Mnason of Cyprus.
I. A striking proof of Divine faithfulness.—In preserving Mnason to be a Christian of long standing.
II. A satisfying evidence of the reality and power of religion.—Had Mnason not found it so, he had not adhered to it so long.
III. A precious storehouse of Christian experience.—One who has long been a disciple must have learnt much of the secret of the Lord.
IV. A possible instrument of valuable service.—To the Church and the world. As there are tasks that can better be performed by young believers, so there are offices that can be more efficiently filled by aged disciples.
V. A deserving object of Christian honour and esteem.—If the hoary head is entitled to respect and veneration, much more is it so when found in the way of righteousness.
VI. A Christian pilgrim drawing near the better land.—Heaven may be near the young believer, it never can be far off from the old disciple.
Act_21:17-20. A Foreign Missionary’s Return.
I. The welcome he received.—Joyful.
II. The salutation he brought.—Peace.
III. The story he told.—The triumphs of the cross.
IV. The enthusiasm he enkindled—They glorified God.
Act_21:20-24. Concessions to Weak Brethren.
I. Legitimate.—
1. When they can be made without violating conscience—i.e., when they refer to things indifferent.
2. When they help to remove stumbling-blocks out of the weak brother’s way.
3. When they assist in promoting peace.
II. Illegitimate.—
1. When, though right in themselves, they tend to mislead the weak brother by causing him to think his position only right.
2. When adopted more from a desire of peace than with a view to promote what is right.
3. When they are calculated to offend as many as they please.
Act_21:21-24. The World’s Misrepresentations of the Followers of Christ.
I. Are frequently wide-spread.
II. Mostly have nothing in them.
III. Always are difficult to remove.
IV. Seldom get corrected by compromise.
Act_21:26. Doubtful Actions; or, the inconsistencies of great and good men.
I. State the case referred to.—Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem; welcome from the brethren; meeting with the elders and James. James’s proposal and the reason of it. Danger apprehended from probable suspicions of Jewish Christians. Paul’s adoption of the course recommended, and joining of himself with the four men who had a vow.
II. Was this action wrong?—Consider—
1. How it may have looked to James.
(1) Unless James had deemed the course recommended legitimate it may be assumed he would not have made the proposal.
(2) James’s motives were unquestionably right—to ensure Paul’s safety by disarming the hostility of the Jews; to gain a hearing from his co-religionists for Paul’s gospel; to set the apostle right with the Jewish Christians.
(3) Yet the course recommended may have been wrong, though the course itself may have appeared right and the motives prompting it may have been good.
2. How it may have looked to Paul.
(1) Of great importance to allay the wide-spread suspicion that was abroad concerning him, and to gain a hearing for the gospel.
(2) No small matter to disabuse the minds of his weaker brethren of their misconceptions concerning himself and his mission.
(3) Not against his principles to take a vow, since he had done so at Cenchrea (Act_18:18).
(4) In harmony with his conduct in circumcising Timothy (Act_16:3).
(5) Not inconsistent with his refusal to perform the same rite on Titus (Gal_2:3).
(6) Not the same as Peter’s eating with the Gentiles at Antioch and then withdrawing (Gal_2:11-12).
(7) It was only a carrying out of Paul’s principle of becoming all things to all men to gain some (1Co_9:20, etc.).
3. How it may look to some still.
(1) Of doubtful morality. Not that to recommend or adopt such a course of action was wrong; but that being liable to misconstruction it should neither have been recommended nor adopted without serious consideration. Neither Paul nor James believed that observance of the moral law was indispensable for salvation; but what about the multitude of Jews? Would they not reason, that if Paul observed the customs they must be absolutely binding on the conscience?
(2) Of doubtful expediency. It was meant to save Paul, but did not; intended to gain the Jews, but did not; designed to recommend Christianity; but is it certain it did not rather confirm the Jews, both Hebrew and Christian, in the notion of the permanent obligation of the law of Moses?
III. Lessons from the story.—
1. Compromises are seldom successful.
2. Good men may give bad advice and take false steps.
3. The short road to victory is ever steadfast adherence to principle.
Note.—“Surely these records of the ‘Acts,’ with their unflinching truth, speak with a strange mighty power to us after all these ages. We feel, while we read of the awful fall and miserable death of one of the Twelve (Act_1:16-20); of the sin and punishment of two of the most notable believers of the first age (Act_5:1-11); of the jealous murmuring and discontent of the poor saints (Act_6:1); of the failure in courage of Mark and the bitter quarrel of two of the most prominent Christian leaders (Act_15:38-40); and here of this doubtful compromise of Paul and James that we have before us a real picture, painted from life, of the Church of the first days, by one who never shrinks to paint the errors, the faults, and the grievous mistakes of even the most distinguished of the first believers.”—Spence.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv9, 15 9-14. God has been good to him, giving him…
9-14. God has been good to him, giving him four daughters, all happily endued with the gift of prophecy, and efficient helpers in his evangelistic work. While Paul and his comrades enjoy the kind hospitality of the prophet’s mansion seven days, the same prophet, Agabus, mentioned in Chapter 11, eighteen years ago having come from Judea, meets Paul, taking his girdle, binding his feet and hands, said: “These things, saith the Holy Ghost, the man whose girdle this is will the Jews in Jerusalem thus bind and deliver into the hands of the Gentiles.” This prediction powerfully stirred the saints at Caesarea importunately to plead with Paul to desist from going up to Jerusalem, till he finally begs them no longer to break his heart with their tears, because he is ready “even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then they acquiesced, saying, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v15 Subdivision 2. (Act 21:15-40; Act 22:1-29.)
Subdivision 2. (Act 21:15-40; Act 22:1-29.)
The Arrest.
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The story of how Paul actually falls into the hands of his enemies implicates the Christians in Jerusalem, who by their advice, which he takes, and to satisfy their zeal for the law, puts himself into the very place of chiefest danger, and where the presence of one known to advocate the equal footing of Jew and Gentile would be sure to lash the unconverted Jew to fury. His own compliance, though from pure desire to be to the Jew a Jew, to win the Jew, yet not only puts him into the hands of his enemies, but takes him off the higher ground upon which he habitually walked, and renders his steps less certain. It is a painful history all round.
1. The cause of Paul’s arrest is traced briefly but clearly, and shown to rest with the Jewish Christians. Before we come to this, it will not be amiss to note that it cannot be for nothing that we are told of the place in which the apostle at this time lodges: some meaning must certainly attach to this, whether or not we are able to find the meaning; and some relation there must be also to the narrative with which it is connected. Those also who believe in God’s absolute control of history, and that Scripture everywhere shows this control, can have no difficulty in accepting a meaning flashed out of a name as a true, if hidden, indication of the mind of God. Now Mnason, at whose house Paul lodges at this time, is from a word which means "to sue for, court," and Paul is certainly here as a suitor, and in a strange place for him: he is in a place not his own. The man in Christ, which he has but lately told others it was all his boast to be (2Co 12:5), is here in the guise of one walking orderly and keeping the law. And it is the suit he has in hand that brings him down to this. He is really lodging with Mnason, the disciple from the beginning, or early disciple, as the term used is. Was it not, in fact, such early disciples, belonging to the time when Christians could be reckoned but as a sect of the Jews, among whom would naturally be found those of whom it was asserted as a universal truth that they were "all zealots for the law"? Mnason himself would be actually included here. Could Paul be ranged among these? No one could imagine it. But he certainly was laboring to make himself acceptable to these. No doubt, the law was to him a thing indifferent, and that it was his acknowledged principle to become to the Jew a Jew, that he might gain the Jew. But would they not have understood by it something more? and does not "walking orderly and keeping the law" imply that he belonged to the house of Mnason, rather than that he was but lodging there? There surely was not a selfish thought in the apostle’s heart. He was walking in the spirit of pure self-sacrifice, to win his Jewish kindred to the Lord; but if he had declared to them his exact position with regard to it -"to those under the law as under the law, not being myself under the law" (1Co 9:20, R.V.), would it have been, could it have been, a means of winning them?
The meeting that is pictured for us as taking place is at James’ house, and with the elders. The apostles seem by this time to have scattered from Jerusalem, and nothing is mentioned with regard to them. Nor indeed does James himself seem to take any prominent part, such as he took at the council to decide the place of Gentile converts with respect to the law. It is more than possible that those most fanatical as to Moses were the most forward, as they had indeed made their voices to be heard first on the former occasion. Paul himself, in the natural progress of divine revelation, had doubtless made advance, while it would be well if under the influence of their alarm at the steadily growing questions involved by the increasing Gentile element in the assemblies, these had not gone backward. There was a strong feeling abroad as to Paul, and a multitude behind who must needs come together. While it was the nation still in unbelief of which Paul was surely thinking, he is faced with this opposition first to be encountered of the converted and Christian Jews. On their side they must needs recognize also the wondrous work of divine grace which God has been working by him among the nations. They will make no doubt that all the reports that have come to them concerning him are but perversions. They are ready to assume that he is really as good a Jew as ever; what they propose to him then is not a concession: it is a justification of himself from calumny merely. Let the Gentiles, as they have conceded, remain Gentiles; he could not have taught the Jews to apostatize from Moses, and not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the customs. Let him take then these four men who, being believers like himself, could yet bind themselves with the Nazarite vow, and presenting himself with them in the temple purified, take upon him the expenses necessary for their completion of it, and that publicly, that all might recognize clearly his own relation to the law.
Nothing is proposed to him, as many have thought, about taking upon himself the vow in question. He is merely to purify himself ceremonially, for his appearance in the temple, and it was no new thing that they advised, but what is known to have been done by others very near the time at which all this took place. In fact there was nothing in all that was advised that the apostle could not have done with a good conscience as a part of his privilege to give up his own liberty in toleration of the ignorant infirmity of others; but the question returns, and will return: Was it to be understood in this way? Here among "zealots for the law," there was indeed ignorance on every side; could he then adapt himself to this, raising no question, leaving them to grow into the truth, as necessarily they would? not forcing any, as in fact he had never forced, -tolerant where God yet was tolerant? Could he not in such a case, without professing anything where it was at present hopeless to bring round this mass of prejudiced opposition to the higher truth, as he saw and followed it, simply go through the ceremonial as they prescribed it to him, and remove out of his way this hindrance to that upon which his heart was set, the proclamation of Christ to his kindred by one whose very advocacy itself was evidence of the truth that he proclaimed, who with his own eyes had seen Christ Jesus the Lord, and had seen men bow before that sacred Name as he had?
Yes, it was indeed vain to expect to quell in any other way the storm that was beginning to manifest itself, though in its first zephyr breathings. He had seen the whirlwinds of Jewish passion aroused in the very midst of the Gentiles, and able to carry with them the Gentiles themselves, otherwise cynical and indifferent. What would it be with such questions started here where the crowd was one, and Christians too were in zealous opposition to whatever seemed to touch the authority of Moses?
But what then did all this do but echo the words which shortly were to come home to him with terrible confirmation as he faced the wild tumult from the castle-stairs, "They will not receive thy testimony concerning Me"? The apostle of the Gentiles must renounce all hope of being God’s messenger to Israel; and he who sought it, spite of the burning, uncalculating love that had brought him there, was necessarily out of the path to which God had called him. The testimony to Christ indeed was to be permitted him, though it could but demonstrate once more the hardness of heart to which they could only be given up. The Lord would and does own His faithful servant in a testimony, to which He would not nevertheless have sent him. Over it all He was; and the history of that which follows becomes, as has been said, the prophecy of long centuries to come, in which such scenes would be in principle re-enacted upon a larger scale. History is averred to repeat itself, and the reason is obvious: for man repeats himself; and poor fallen man is in every generation but the reflection of his father Adam. And where God’s grace has made a difference, still there remains even here a nature which maintains but too much of the likeness. God’s hand has overruled in this case to forecast the future for our instruction; yet even this could not be so impressive and complete if it were not founded upon a similarity of moral elements which in their inter-working present a more than superficial parallel. It is a parallel of causes as well as effects, -fruits and consequences which we can trace to roots and seeds which are in ourselves also, and present grounds of real and profitable self-judgment.
2. The counsel of the elders is acted on by the apostle. He does not, for he could not, declare himself under the law. He treats them all, one would say, as those who were not ripe for disclosures of this nature, which must wait for a fit season to be made. Enough that he can undertake this charge and perform this purification in the same way in which he had circumcised Timothy some time since. The shadows for him had passed in that which had fulfilled them: these with their zeal for the law were in the shadow still, and he must wait upon God for their deliverance. But it is evident, nevertheless, that here he is in no position to help them, but that his present action must encourage them in their own. But his heart presses him on to reach a place in which his voice may be heard with acceptance by his people, and he stoops to the present sacrifice required: to what it will lead on he does not know.
In fact, the plan seems to be working well; the days are almost completed, when that comes of which he has been warned. Some Jews from Asia find him in the temple, having seen him previously in the city with an Ephesian Greek -one of his Gentile "nurselings," as they might taunt him, from the name. Outside, they had endured him, as it seems, or at least had refrained from an attack; but now this man with his disreputable tastes had dared invade the sanctuary itself; doubtless the same man inside, as he had been out: he had brought his Greek there, no doubt. Instantly there flashes out the wrath of the impetuous, haughty race. The city is moved, and the people run together, and dragging him out, shut to the temple-gates. Paul is in those well-known hands that spare not; and only by the intervention of God the Romans become his saviors from the violence of the raging mob! The plan which appeared so reasonable has ended only in disaster: Paul need take no more trouble to appease the Christian Jews, and is in the very worst possible position to reach the unbelieving ones!
It is significant that Lysias, the chief captain’s name, means "one who looses, or delivers," and that nothing but the Roman arms in fact accomplished the deliverance Of the believing Jews from the legal system in which they were bound up. It was not to be more than a decade, if so much, until that temple which was its necessary centre and heart should be overthrown, according to our Lord’s prophecy, by the Roman power, and the people scattered over the face of the earth. Their house, long bereft of the divine Presence, but where alone the blood of atonement could be offered for their sins, and with which all their ritual was connected, was taken from them utterly, and the system ended, although unbelief might still grip it with dead hands. In the rejection of the grace which was now going out to the Gentiles, they had rejected that which was their only possible salvation, and judgment in brief time followed; though not before the last word should be uttered by him whom in fact, though not in form, they had delivered to the Gentiles, bidding the true in heart amongst them go forth out of the camp (Heb 13:13). That he should have the last word for them, who had sought them with such earnest desire, was the divine recognition of him whom they had treated with unworthy suspicion, and betrayed, however undesignedly, into the hands of his enemies. "According to the wisdom given to him," says the apostle of the circumcision, "our beloved brother Paul has written to you" (2Pe 3:15). The voice that had been closed by their own folly while among them now spoke in all the majesty of the truth which could no more be silenced.
3. Yet he is permitted also here one last appeal in behalf of his Lord and Saviour. Won by the demeanor of his prisoner, the chief captain gives him leave to address the mob from whom he has rescued him; and Paul uses his liberty to relate to them the story of his conversion and of the revelation made to him. He reasons with them, reminding them of his past, in which he too had shown himself with as much false zeal for God as they were now showing. As men do commonly, he had followed the belief in which he had been trained, as both the high priest and elders could bear witness of him, persecuting to the death believers in Christ, whether they were men or women, and even hunting for them beyond the borders of the land. Nothing had stopped him but that intervention from heaven itself which had revealed to him Jesus the Nazarene in glory! Those with him had seen also the light, but had not heard the words* that were uttered, which were for himself alone. He had heard the Lord declare Himself the One he persecuted. Blinded by the glory of that light, he was led into Damascus, there to await, as he was bidden, further revelations.
{*This is in effect the difference between the statement here and that in Act 9:7, in which it is said that those with him heard the voice: this is the genitive case, and speaks a partial hearing, -the sound of it but not the utterance, as the accusative in the present instance -the voice at full length.}
Paul narrates more fully than the previous history has done, the visit of Ananias, -"a pious man," as he remarks, according to the law," -through whom at once his sight is restored to him, and he is declared to be one chosen by the God of their fathers to know His will and see the *Righteous One, and hear, as a special witness for Him, a voice out of His mouth. Then he is bidden to be baptized, and have his sins washed away, as he thus owns the authority of Jesus. It is a clear example of baptismal remission of sins on entering the kingdom: on God’s part he who truly bows to Christ is absolutely forgiven; but on man’s part, as openly admitted by baptism, this can be but a conditional announcement, available, not for introduction into heaven, but into the company of disciples upon earth. As a kingdom of truth (Joh 18:37) the kingdom means discipleship.
{*It is striking that the apostle does not mention the name of the Lord Jesus but once in this entire address, omitting it even where, as in verse 18, it would most naturally be used. This is due, perhaps, to a desire to avoid further inflaming the Jews. -S.R.}
The crowd listens to this yet, spite of the claim made for the Crucified One: but we are soon to find that this is not acceptance. The apostle comes now to what is pressing upon his spirit, as he looks upon those dark, upturned faces, upon which one can imagine, however restrained as yet, that he sees the storm gathering. What can he presage else, as he repeats, emphasized as they are by recent occurrences, words from the lips of truth itself which had long since warned him, "Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me." How he must have watched them as he related his ineffectual pleading at that time! "Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue those that believe in Thee; and when the blood of thy witness* Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consenting, and keeping the garments of those who slew him!" Was Paul not just the witness now to be believed?
{*It is touching to remember that Paul is here making a definite confession, before the people, many of whom had doubtless witnessed his mad zeal, of his own sinful persecution of Stephen. -S.R.}
But He who spoke had broken off appeal: "Go," He said: "for I will send thee to the nations afar off."
4. For what then was he standing there? and what was in his mind as he declared thus to their face their unrepentant stubbornness? Would he break them down by it, even then, that they might show it to be but a thing of the past, and no longer applicable? Or did it announce the hopelessness which had now taken possession of him, the past and present linking themselves together rapidly in his mind, as when facing death they are known often to come up? If so, it was confirmed in a moment as he stood before them plainly avowed, the apostle of the Gentiles.* At once the short quiet is over. All the arrogant pride of an elect people, with which all that should humble man most may in fact inspire him, burst out of that heaving and gesticulating human mass confronting him, crying out madly for his death. The Roman captain, baffled by the foreign tongue that had been made use of, and conceiving by the outcry that there must be some proportionate cause, commands to examine Paul by scourging. It was the custom of the day, and for many a day; but from which the Roman citizen was exempted. Paul, as we know, was that; and his simple question, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?" brings the chief captain to inquire, and ends the matter. That the apostle was well within his legal rights, none can, of course, question; but it has been questioned whether it was according to the height of the truth which he proclaimed to plead such rights; but the governments of the earth have always their place with Paul, and are recognized as a ministry of God for good to His people; why not thankfully use them for that, when it needed only a word of information to secure it, and there was not a thought of resistance?** With the man in Christ, as such, the governments of the earth have nought to do; nor is it to forget such a place to realize that as the creatures of God, still upon the earth, we have other relations than those implied by this. All natural relationships lie outside of it; while the peace and power and object of the man in Christ are to go with us everywhere, through all.
{*Both conclusions could be drawn, and both may have been in the apostle’s mind. Certainly it seems clear that the Spirit of God intended us to draw these conclusions. But it looks, too, as if Paul were just entering upon an extended account of his work among the Gentiles, in order to lead up to a defense of his course, and more particularly in explanation of that for which he had been arrested. In his address before Felix he seems to resume the defense just where it was broken off here (Act 24:11-19). -S.R.
**And yet it is for his own protection that Paul speaks. He had not done so at Philippi, having submitted to the cruel indignity of being beaten by Roman magistrates (Act 16:22). He seems only to have spoken of his citizenship on the next day for the purpose of removing any stigma that might attach to the Christian name. The magistrates are compelled tacitly to remove the stigma.
But here Paul claims Roman citizenship, even emphasizing his free birth, as he had already declared he was a citizen of no mean city. In the next chapter he declares himself a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. While this last is far worse than the others, we cannot fail linking them together. The fact remains that the beloved and honored servant of Christ was in a false position all through, and these various acts savor a little of that spirit of compromise to which he had committed himself -S.R.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv8–9
Acts
DRAWING NEARER TO THE STORM
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PHILIP THE EVANGELIST
Act 21:8.
The life of this Philip, as recorded, is a very remarkable one. It is divided into two unequal halves: one full of conspicuous service, one passed in absolute obscurity. Like the moon in its second quarter, part of the disc is shining silver and the rest is invisible. Let us put together the notices of him.
He bears a name which makes it probable that he was not a Palestinian Jew, but one of the many who, of Jewish descent, had lived in Gentile lands and contracted Gentile habits and associations. We first hear of him as one of the Seven who were chosen by the Church, at the suggestion of the Apostles, in order to meet the grumbling of that section of the Church, who were called ‘Hellenists,’ about their people being neglected in the distribution of alms. He stands in that list next to Stephen, who was obviously the leader. Then after Stephen’s persecution, he flies from Jerusalem, like the rest of the Church, and comes down to Samaria and preaches there. He did that because circumstances drove him; he had become one of the Seven because his brethren appointed him, but his next step was in obedience to a specific command of Christ. He went and preached the Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, and then he was borne away from the new convert, and after the Spirit had put him down at Ashdod he had to tramp all the way up the Palestinian coast, left to the guidance of his own wits, until he came to Caesarea. There he remained for twenty years; and we do not hear a word about him in all that time. But at last Paul and his companions, hurrying to keep the Feast at Jerusalem, found that they had a little time to spare when they reached Caesarea, and so they came to ‘the house of Philip the evangelist,’ whom we last heard of twenty years before, and spent ‘many days’ with him. That is the final glimpse that we have of Philip.
Now let us try to gather two or three plain lessons, especially those which depend on that remarkable contrast between the first and the second periods of this man’s life. There is, first, a brief space of brilliant service, and then there are long years of obscure toil.
I. The brief space of brilliant service.
The Church was in a state of agitation, and there was murmuring going on because, as I have already said, a section of it thought that their poor were unfairly dealt with by the native-born Jews in the Church. And so the Apostles said: ‘What is the use of your squabbling thus? Pick out any seven that you like, of the class that considers itself aggrieved, and we will put the distribution of these eleemosynary grants into their hands. That will surely stop your mouths. Do you choose whom you please, and we will confirm your choice.’ So the Church selected seven brethren, all apparently belonging to the ‘Grecians’ or Greek-speaking Jews, as the Apostles had directed that they should be, and one of them, not a Jew by birth, but a ‘proselyte of Antioch.’ These men’s partialities would all be in favour of the class to which they belonged, and to secure fair play for which they were elected by it.
Now these seven are never called ‘deacons’ in the New Testament, though it is supposed that they were the first holders of that office. It is instructive to note how their office came into existence. It was created by the Apostles, simply as the handiest way of getting over a difficulty. Is that the notion of Church organisation that prevails among some of our brethren who believe that organisation is everything, and that unless a Church has the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, it is not worth calling a Church at all? The plain fact is that the Church at the beginning had no organisation. What organisation it had grew up as circumstances required. The only two laws which governed organisation were, first, ‘One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren’; and second, ‘When the Spirit of the Lord is come upon thee, thou shalt do as occasion shall serve thee.’ Thus these seven were appointed to deal with a temporary difficulty and to distribute alms when necessary; and their office dropped when it was no longer required, as was probably the case when, very soon after, the Jerusalem Church was scattered. Then, by degrees, came elders and deacons. People fancy that there is but one rigid, unalterable type of Church organisation, when the reality is that it is fluent and flexible, and that the primitive Church never was meant to be the pattern according to which, in detail, and specifically, other Churches in different circumstances should be constituted. There are great principles which no organisation must break, but if these be kept, the form is a matter of convenience.
That is the first lesson that I take out of this story. Although it has not much to do with Philip himself, still it is worth saying in these days when a particular organisation of the Church is supposed to be essential to Christian fellowship, and we Nonconformists, who have not the ‘orders’ that some of our brethren seem to think indispensable, are by a considerable school unchurched, because we are without them. But the primitive Church also was without them.
Still further and more important for us, in these brief years of brilliant service I note the spontaneous impulse which sets a Christian man to do Christian work. It was his brethren that picked out Philip, and said, ‘Now go and distribute alms,’ but his brethren had nothing to do with his next step. He was driven by circumstances out of Jerusalem, and he found himself in Samaria, and perhaps he remembered how Jesus Christ had said, on the day when He went up into Heaven, ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.’ But whether he remembered that or not, he was here in Samaria, amongst the ancestral enemies of his nation. Nobody told him to preach when he went to Samaria. He had no commission from the Apostles to do so. He did not hold any office in the Church, except that which, according to the Apostles’ intention in establishing it, ought to have stopped his mouth from preaching. For they said, when they appointed these seven, ‘Let them serve tables, and we will give ourselves to the ministry of the word.’ But Jesus Christ has a way of upsetting men’s restrictions as to the functions of His servants. And so Philip, without a commission, and with many prejudices to stop his mouth, was the first to break through the limitations which confined the message of salvation to the Jews. Because he found himself in Samaria, and they needed Christ there, he did not wait for Peter and James and John to lay their hands upon his head, and say, ‘Now you are entitled to speak about Him’; he did not wait for any appointment, but yielded to his own heart, a heart that was full of Jesus Christ, and must speak about Him; find he proclaimed the Gospel in that city.
So he has the noble distinction of being the very first Christian man who put a bold foot across the boundary of Judaism, and showed a light to men that were in darkness beyond. Remember he did it as a simple private Christian; uncalled, uncommissioned, unordained by anybody; and he did it because he could not help it, and he never thought to himself, ‘I am doing a daring, new thing.’ It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should preach in Samaria. So it would be to us, if we were Christians with the depth of faith and of personal experience which this man had.
There is another lesson that I take from these first busy years of Philip’s service. Christ provides wider spheres for men who have been faithful in narrower ones. It was because he had ‘won his spurs,’ if I may so say, in Samaria, and proved the stuff he was made of, that the angel of the Lord came and said to Philip, ‘Go down on the road to Gaza, which is desert. Do not ask now what you are to do when you get there. Go!’ So with his sealed orders be went. No doubt he thought to himself, ‘Strange that I should be taken from this prosperous work in Samaria, and sent to a desert road, where there is not a single human being!’ But he went; and when he struck the point of junction of the road from Samaria with that from Jerusalem, looked about to discover what he had been sent there for. The only thing in sight was one chariot, and he said to himself, ‘Ah, that is it,’ and he drew near to the chariot, and heard the occupant reading aloud Isaiah’s great prophecy. The Ethiopian chamberlain was probably not very familiar with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which he seems to have been using and, as poor readers often do, helped his comprehension by speaking the words he sees on the page. Philip knew at once that here was the object of his mission, and so ‘joined himself to the chariot,’ and set himself to his work.
So Christ chooses His agents for further work from those who, out of their own spontaneous love of Him, have done what lay at their hands. ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ If you are ambitious of a wider sphere, be sure that you fill your narrow one. It will widen quite fast enough for your capacities.
II. Now let me say a word about the long years of obscurity.
Philip went down to Caesarea, and, as I said, he drops out of the story for twenty years. I wonder why it was that when Jesus Christ desired that Cornelius, who lived in Caesarea, should hear the gospel, He did not direct him to Philip, who also was in Caesarea, but bid him send all the way to Joppa to bring Peter thence? I wonder why it was that when Barnabas at Antioch turned his face northwards to seek for young Saul at Tarsus, he never dreamed of turning southwards to call out Philip from Caesarea? I wonder how it came to pass that this man, who at one time looked as if he was going to be the leader in the extension of the Church to the Gentiles, and who, as a matter of fact, was the first, not only in Samaria but on the desert road, to press beyond the narrow bounds of Judaism, was passed over in the further stages by Jesus, and why his brethren passed him over, and left him there all these years in Caesarea, whilst there was so much going on that was the continuation and development of the very movement that he had begun. We do not know why, and it is useless to try to speculate, but we may learn lessons from the fact.
Here is a beautiful instance of the contented acceptance of a lot very much less conspicuous, very much less brilliant, than the early beginnings had seemed to promise. I suppose that there are very few of us but have had, back in the far-away past, moments when we seemed to have opening out before us great prospects of service which have never been realised; and the remembrance of the brief moments of dawning splendour is very apt to make the rest of the life look grey and dull, and common things flat, and to make us sour. We look back and we think, ‘Ah, the gates were opened for me then, but how they have slammed to since! It is hard for me to go on in this lowly condition, and this eclipsed state into which I have been brought, without feeling how different it might have been if those early days had only continued.’ Well, for Philip it was enough that Jesus Christ sent him to the eunuch and did not send him to Cornelius. He took the position that his Master put him in and worked away therein.
And there is a further lesson for us, who, for the most part, have to lead obscure lives. For there was in Philip not only a contented acceptance of an obscure life, but there was a diligent doing of obscure work. Did you notice that one significant little word in the clause that I have taken for my text: ‘We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven’? Luke does not forget Philip’s former office, but he dwells rather on what his other office was, twenty years afterwards. He was ‘an evangelist’ now, although the evangelistic work was being done in a very quiet corner, and nobody was paying much attention to it. Time was when he had a great statesman to listen to his words. Time was when a whole city was moved by his teaching. Time was when it looked as if he was going to do the work that Paul did. But all these visions were shattered, and he was left to toil for twenty long years in that obscure corner, and not a soul knew anything about his work except the people to whom it was directed and the four unmarried girls at home whom his example had helped to bring to Jesus Christ, and who were ‘prophetesses.’ At the end of the twenty years he is ‘Philip the evangelist.’
There is patient perseverance at unrecompensed, unrecorded, and unnoticed work. ‘Great’ and ‘small’ have nothing to do with the work of Christian people. It does not matter who knows our work or who does not know it, the thing is that He knows it. Now the most of us have to do absolutely unnoticed Christian service. Those of us who are in positions like mine have a little more notoriety-and it is no blessing-and a year or two after a man’s voice ceases to sound from a pulpit he is forgotten. What does it matter? ‘Surely I will never forget any of their works.’ And in these advertising days, when publicity seems to be the great good that people in so many cases seek after, and no one is contented to do his little bit of work unless he gets reported in the columns of the newspapers, we may all take example from the behaviour of Philip, and remember the man who began so brilliantly, and for twenty years was hidden, and was ‘the evangelist’ all the time.
III. Now, there is one last lesson that I would draw, and that is the ultimate recognition of the work and the joyful meeting of the workers.
I think it is very beautiful to see that when Paul entered Philip’s house he came into a congenial atmosphere; and although he had been hurrying, out of breath as it were, all the way from Corinth to get to Jerusalem in time for the Feast, he slowed off at once; partly, no doubt, because he found that he was in time, and partly, no doubt, that he felt the congeniality of the society that he met.
So there was no envy in Philip’s heart of the younger brother that had so outrun him. He was quite content to share the fate of pioneers, and rejoiced in the junior who had entered into his labour. ‘One soweth and another reapeth’; he was prepared for that, and rejoiced to hear about what the Lord had done by his brother, though once he had thought it might have been done by him. How they would talk! How much there would be to tell! How glad the old man would be at the younger man’s success!
And there was one sitting by who did not say very much, but had his ears wide open, and his name was Luke. In Philip’s long, confidential conversations he no doubt got some of the materials, which have been preserved for us in this book, for his account of the early days of the Church in Jerusalem.
So Philip, after all, was not working in so obscure a corner as he thought. The whole world knows about him. He had been working behind a curtain all the while, and he never knew that ‘the beloved physician,’ who was listening so eagerly to all he had to tell about the early days, was going to twitch down the curtain and let the whole world see the work that he thought he was doing, all unknown and soon to be forgotten.
And that is what will happen to us all. The curtain will be twitched down, and when it is, it will be good for us if we have the same record to show that this man had-namely, toil for the Master, indifferent to whether men see or do not see; patient labour for Him, coming out of a heart purged of all envy and jealousy of those who have been called to larger and more conspicuous service.
May we not take these many days of quiet converse in Philip’s house, when the pioneer and the perfecter of the work talked together, as being a kind of prophetic symbol of the time when all who had a share in the one great and then completed work will have a share in its joy? No matter whether they have dug the foundations or laid the early courses or set the top stone and the shining battlements that crown the structure, they have all their share in the building and their portion in the gladness of the completed edifice, ‘that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv8–15 8, 9. The single day spent with the brethren…
8, 9. The single day spent with the brethren in Ptolemais was sufficient for the solemn admonitions which Paul was leaving with all the Churches, and for another painful farewell. (8) " And the next day we departed, and went to Cæsarea. And entering into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we abode with him. (9) Now he had four daughters, who were virgins, and who prophesied. " When we parted from Philip, after the immersion of the eunuch, he had prosecuted an evangelizing tour through Azotus and the intermediate cities, to Cæsarea. It was probably while he was engaged in this tour that Peter had come to Cæsarea, and immersed the family and friends of Cornelius. When Philip arrived, he found the nucleus of a Church, and here we still find him, after a lapse of more than twenty years. He seems never to have returned to Jerusalem, to resume his position as a deacon of that Church, but accepted the providential arrangement by which he was thrown out into a wider field of usefulness, and thenceforward was known as Philip the evangelist. That he had four maiden daughters, who had the gift of prophesy, indicates the strict religious training which he had given to his family.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v10 The prophecy of Agabus:
The prophecy of Agabus:
v. 10. And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
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v. 11. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.
v. 12. And when we heard these things, both we and they of that place besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.
v. 13. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
v. 14. And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, the will of the Lord be done.
v. 15. And after those days we took up our carriages and want up to Jerusalem.
v. 16. There went with us also certain of the disciples of Caesarea, and brought with them one Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge.
"Many days," a few days more, they, Paul and his companions, remained in Caesarea. Paul had been singularly fortunate in having a speedy voyage, a fact which now gave him some extra time, at least a few days, a matter of ten or twelve days. But during this time, spent with the hospitable Philip and his family, Paul received the last and, incidentally, the most exact and explicit prophetic warning on this whole journey. For a disciple by the name of Agabus, who had the gift of prophecy, came down to Caesarea from some city in Judea, probably from Jerusalem, chap. 11:28. When this man entered the house of Philip, he proceeded to act in a manner altogether in conformity with that of the prophets of the Old Testament, in a symbolical act emphasizing the words he spoke. He took off the girdle which held the upper garments of Paul in place, bound his own feet and hands, and then explained that the Jews of Jerusalem would bind the owner of that girdle in the same way as he was now bound, and would deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. This he did not venture as his own private opinion, but expressly stated that the Holy Ghost was making the prophecy, a fact which made all contradiction and doubt impossible. The announcement naturally created the greatest consternation, not only in the circle of Paul’s companions and in the household of Philip, but in the entire congregation at Caesarea, the inhabitants of the city. And they all, including Luke himself, joined in begging Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. But Paul remained firm, not in false seeking of the martyr’s crown, for he had upon other occasions yielded to the entreaties of his friends, but for a reason which he would not divulge. He, in turn, however, earnestly begged them all to desist. He asked them what they meant by weeping, why they insisted upon thus breaking his heart. Their tender care for his welfare deeply moved him, but it could not make him waver in his determination. He declared that he was ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the sake of the Lord Jesus. The name of his Savior he could and would not deny. He was convinced that his call was taking him to Jerusalem, and that it was not a matter of free choice. The Jewish Christians that were looking upon his missionary labors with suspicion had to be persuaded of their foolishness, and the unity of the Church between Jews and Gentiles had to be definitely established. This was also the purpose of the collection which his companions were bringing to the brethren at Jerusalem. Though Paul did not explain all this at length, the brethren at Caesarea discontinued their efforts to keep him away from the Jewish capital, placing the matter and its outcome entirely in the hands of the Lord, whose will should be done. So after the days had elapsed which Paul had allowed, he and his companions collected all their baggage necessary for the journey and made the trip up to the highlands where Jerusalem was situated, a distance of a little over sixty miles. Their company was enlarged by the addition of some of the disciples of Caesarea, who aided them on their arrival at Jerusalem by conducting them to the house of one Mnason of Cyprus, in whose house they were to lodge for the time of their stay. This man was an old disciple, that is, an original disciple, one of those that had been converted on the great day of Pentecost. Mark that the Christian virtue of hospitality was freely exercised in the early days of the Church, in every city where Paul and his party had time to stop.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv10, 12, 15 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
This tells about a prophecy made about Paul in Caesarea by the prophet Agabus.
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General Information:
Here the words "we" and "us" refers to Luke, Paul, and those with them, but not to the reader. (See: Exclusive and Inclusive "We")
a certain prophet named Agabus
This introduces a new person in the story. (See: Introduction of New and Old Participants)
named Agabus
Agabus was a man from Judea. (See: How to Translate Names)
took Paul's belt
"removed Paul's belt from Paul's waist"
Thus says the Holy Spirit, 'So shall the Jews in Jerusalem tie up ... of the Gentiles.'
This is a quotation within a quotation. The inner quotation can be stated as an indirect quotation. AT: "'The Holy Spirit says that this will be how the Jews in Jerusalem will tie up ... of the Gentiles.' (See: Quotes Within Quotes and Direct and Indirect Quotations)
the Jews
This does not mean all the Jews, but that these were the people who would do that. AT: "the Jewish leaders" or "some of the Jews" (See: Synecdoche)
hand him over
"deliver him"
into the hands of the Gentiles
The word "hands" here represents control. AT: "into the legal custody of the Gentiles" or "to the Gentiles" (See: Metonymy)
the Gentiles
This stands for the authorities among the Gentiles. AT: "the Gentile authorities" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
day
Judea
prophet
Paul
Holy Spirit
Jew
Jerusalem
hand
Gentile
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8–11 21:8 Philip had the title of Evangelist due to…
21:8 Philip had the title of Evangelist due to his evangelistic activity (8:4-40; cp. Eph 4:11; 2 Tim 4:5).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.