Acts 21:26-30 (NIV)
The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.
When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place.” (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple area.)
The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut.
Paul was a superstar in the Church and could easily have pushed back against the Jerusalem authority structure and their recommendations. He could have decided to go back out west and become the head of his own branch of Christianity, where he didn’t have to deal with these kinds of issues at all.
But he didn’t do that. Paul recognized that this authority structure had been put into place by God, and that he was a simple worker in the larger kingdom program. (An important worker, yes, but a worker nonetheless.) Therefore, he submitted himself to the authority and instruction of those above him in the hierarchy.
Unfortunately, his submission and the plan that James and the others came up with didn’t quell the opposition to him or his work. And on that day in the temple, while he was merely worshiping in the court of Israel, some Jews from the province of Asia recognized him and sounded the alarm.
Their false charges against Paul weren’t mistakes but were designed to rouse the population in the temple area into action against him. They accused Paul of teaching things not only against the law and the temple, but even against the Jewish people. This accusation resonated in those who had heard about Paul and his “heretical” teachings but who had never seen him. But now here he was, in the very temple that he had supposedly been teaching against.
The Asian Jews went even further. They accused Paul of smuggling gentiles onto the temple grounds, not only breaking Jewish laws, but actually defiling the grounds and threatening to drive God’s presence out. The fact that there were no gentiles to be seen with Paul at the moment made no difference. He had been seen associating with gentiles earlier in the day, and that was enough to give the accusation credibility. Now the charge had been made, the hearts of the people had been aroused, and Paul once more found himself in the midst of a riot.
The word spread quickly, and people grabbed Paul. They pulled him out into the court of the gentiles and shut the gates that led to the sacred areas of the temple complex. People rushed to the area from all around, and a full-fledged mob formed around Paul, with people pummeling him from all sides, trying to kill him for the heinous crime of defiling the temple.
Father, two things really stand out in all this. First is Paul’s submission to authority. He was not a proud or egotistical man, insistent on receiving honor because of his many accomplishments. He knew that he was simply Your servant who had accomplished everything he had done by Your grace and power that worked in him. The second is that his humility and submission did not protect him from false accusations and even physical attack from those opposed to the gospel. Quite the contrary, this was one of many such attacks that he endured. But even in the midst all these attacks, he never stopped witnessing and testifying to Your grace and goodness. Help me, Lord to always be as humble, as submissive, and as resilient as Paul. Amen.
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