SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/4/2018
10:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Compromise”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
21:23-26
Message of the verses: “23 "Therefore
do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24 take them
and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may
shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which
they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping
the Law. 25 “But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having
decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood
and from what is strangled and from fornication." 26 Then Paul took the
men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple
giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the
sacrifice was offered for each one of them.”
I have to
say that I have read this section of Scripture many times and there has always
seemed like something was wrong as to what Paul was doing, and now that I look
at the title that John MacArthur gives to this section I think that my suspicions
were right.
John
MacArthur writes the following: “The elders
feared a confrontation between the apostle to the Gentiles and the misinformed
zealots for the law. To head that off,
they suggested a compromise—not a sacrifice of truth for expediency but an act
of self-sacrificial humility to promote unity and understanding.” We see the compromise in verse 23-24 “23 "Therefore
do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24 take them
and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may
shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which
they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping
the Law.” The vow that these four had
taken was the Nazirite vow, something that is explained in the OT book of
numbers “’The Nazirite shall then shave his dedicated head of hair at
the doorway of the tent of meeting, and take the dedicated hair of his head and
put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace offerings (Num.
6:18).” This verse explains what is
going on in our section in Acts. John
the Baptist lived his whole life under the Nazirite vow as Samson was suppose
to, but failed miserably. There was more
to the vow than not allowing your hair to be cut as can be seen in some of the
previous verses of Numbers 6.
We see in
verse 24 that Paul was to “take them and purify yourself along with them,” and
this is unclear what Paul was suppose to do for he was not taking the vow
himself. John MacArthur writes on what
this could possibly mean: “Paul, having
returned to Israel from Gentile lands, was considered ceremonially
unclean. As their sponsor, Paul would
participate in the ceremony marking the culmination of the four men’s
vows. But before he could do that, he
would have to undergo ritual purification himself. His willingness to do that would show that he
had no disdain for Jewish customs and tradition.”
We then
read of another way that Paul could show his continuing devotion to his Jewish
heritage and that was to pay for the four men’s expenses so that they could
have their heads shaved as seen also in verse 23. 14 ’He shall present his offering to the
LORD: one male lamb a year old without defect for a burnt offering and one
ewe-lamb a year old without defect for a sin offering and one ram without
defect for a peace offering, 15 and a basket of unleavened cakes of fine flour
mixed with oil and unleavened wafers spread with oil, along with their grain
offering and their drink offering. 16 ’Then the priest shall present them
before the LORD and shall offer his sin offering and his burnt offering. 17 ’He
shall also offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD,
together with the basket of unleavened cakes; the priest shall likewise offer
its grain offering and its drink offering (Num. 6:14-17).” These verses in Numbers show the expensive of
coming off a Nazirite vow that Paul would have to pay for.
As we look
at the last part of verse 24 we read “that there is nothing to the things which
they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping
the Law,” and this is said to show that there is nothing that the Judaizers or
the Zealots would have to say about Paul doing things not according to the law.
We will
continue to look at this portion of Scripture in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “See God” (Matthew 5:8).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who said ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth’?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/4/2018 10:45 AM
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