Paul had been warned by his Christian brethren not to go to Jerusalem. He understood well what dangerous territory Jerusalem was for him. In his early ministry after ministering in Damascus, he went to Jerusalem to preach the Good News he had discovered on the road to Damascus, but his presence in Jerusalem caused such a commotion that the church fathers moved him on to his hometown. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. (Acts 9:29-30) Jerusalem was a hostile environment for all Christians. After Stephen was stoned to death, the church of the Living God came under great persecution. Many Christians in Jerusalem fled to other cities at that time, but the ones who stayed were ostracized and mistreated. To be a Christian in Jerusalem usually meant you lost everything of value in this world: your family, status, inheritance, and reputation; therefore, making it difficult to support yourself or family. The Christian church in Jerusalem was poor and in need of support. Since Jesus was sensitive to the outcasts in the Jewish community; sinners, poor, the needy, disabled, and the sick, the early church carried this assignment to direct their ministry and service to such people. The Pharisees had designated these people as the scum of the earth, criticizing Jesus for associating with such people. Therefore, Paul was given the assignment by the pillars of the church to remember the poor in the Greek cities where he ministered. In addition to remembering the outcasts in these cities, he also collected money for the poor in Jerusalem. But Paul’s primary mission to the Greek world was to tell the Gentiles that God has sent Jesus of Nazareth to the world to atone for the sins of all people, that people can be right with the Creator, and inherit eternal life in God’s presence. God’s purpose from the very beginning of time was to unite all his creation under the authority of the Righteous One, Jesus Christ. All people in the world, Jews and Gentiles, are to be united as one people, known as God’s children through the atoning work of the cross. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:8-10) In Christ and through Christ, people of every nation will come under the authority and guidance of the Good Shepherd. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (John 10:14-16) This ministry of unity under the name of Christ was an anathema to most of the Jews. They were strongly against the idea of being right with God based only on the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. This would be a demotion of their coveted position of being the only people to know God, for they were the possessors of the law. Since Paul was the point man in what they considered an apostate belief, they wanted him dead.
Paul was very sensitive to the Jewish way of living; he knew Judaism backwards and forwards. He understood the significance of the Sabbath and was quite obedient to the ways of the religious Jews. But his ministry was very strong in bringing the Gentiles to the knowledge of The Way. For him, Christ was the only way to be right with God. Judaism had its place and it was good, for the law and its regulations revealed the complete righteousness of God. Every jot and tittle of the law must be fulfilled completely if a person intends to see God in peace. But any variance of the law, as James writes, preferring another person above others in seating him or her in a congregation is sin. Why? because the culmination of the law is to love others as you love yourself. Jesus carries this idea of love beyond just loving people who look like us or act as we do, to others we might despise, sinners and enemies. Jesus tells us to be perfect as God is perfect; any variance from God’s perfection will separate us from a holy God and eternal separation from the Creator of all things. Paul understood well God’s mysterious plan of bringing all his creation under Jesus Christ. The grace of God through Jesus Christ exceeds any attempt in the flesh to be right with God. Nothing but the grace of God would ever make a person right with God. Jesus completed the task of fulfilling the law's demands. He alone is perfect without sin. Consequently, for any of us to abide in holiness before a righteous God, we must accept the perfection of Jesus Christ as our perfection. Paul tells the Galatians the essential truth of being right with God. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6) Christians abide in Christ through faith in Jesus’ work on the cross. The atonement price has been paid; the blood of Jesus has been spilt for the sins of all mankind. This idea of Christ alone riled up the Jews. Their whole existence depended on works to please God. They could not stand Paul’s apostate position of Christ alone is the way to God, so when they discovered Paul in Jerusalem, even in the Temple, their malevolence towards him burst out in a riot. Rome held the commanders of the local garrisons to keep the people they governed under control. A riot is exactly what a commander of an area would not like or tolerate. So we see the Roman commander rushing to this scene. The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. To quell the rioters, the commander quickly arrested Paul, thinking he might be the cause or instigator of such commotion. He knew for certain that most of the people there wanted Paul killed, so he had his soldiers escort Paul back to the barracks. However, this did not appease the crowd, for they wanted Paul’s life right there and now. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Get rid of him!” Finally the soldiers had to lift Paul to their shoulders to prevent the mob from killing him.
In this scene we see the devil manifesting himself in the words and actions of the rioters. The devil had harassed Paul all the way through his journey on earth. He had Paul stoned, beaten, jailed, threatened, and deprived of the necessities of life. He never left Paul alone, for he knew the majesty of Paul’s ministry to people who were living in the captivity of sin. He did not want to release these people to the mysterious plan of God. Paul had learned of this mysterious plan of God of uniting all people under Jesus’ authority probably in Arabia where he first went after his salvation experience. He would be sent primarily to the Gentiles, the mission of God to open all people to the Good News of being right with him through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. (Galatians 2: 7-8) HIs mission to open the Good News to all people brought grave consequences to his life. He never was left without the feeling that his life was in danger of being terminated, every day he faced death. Even in the congregations of believers in these various Greek churches and in Jerusalem, there were those who hated him for they were false believers who desired Judaism to be imprinted on the new converts. Some of these false believers could have been in the midst of the rioters. But Jesus also experienced this kind of hatred; this constant threat of death. The devil had promised him that he would always be ready to harass Jesus. After the devil tempted Jesus directly in the wilderness, the scriptures say, When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:13) A more opportune time was always on the docket while Jesus walked this earth. In following Paul’s life we see the opportune time come often. But God’s mysterious plan was always on the docket of Paul’s life. He lived for Christ and he would die for Christ. He was integral in bringing all people under the authority of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He could not rest; he was constantly on the move, reaching new communities and areas with the gospel of the Good News. Friends around this breakfast table this morning, what is on your dockets today? What moves you most in life; what do you hold dear to your hearts? Is it your family, possessions, jobs, lifestyle or do you count those things lost compared with knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior. Can we say this about you, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion,“Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52: 7) How much Good News is in you or is it in the back pages of your lives? Of course, Jesus should be in the headline of every page of your lives. Let the actions of God and his light be seen in every part of your lives. Surely, breakfast companions this is your desire. The Gospel, The Way, will be written in your lives today for all to see the face of God in this world.
