SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/8/2018
9:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Arrest by the Romans
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
21:31-36
Message of the verses: “31 While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to
the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. 32
At once he took along some soldiers and centurions and ran down to them;
and when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33
Then the commander came up and took hold of him, and ordered him to be bound
with two chains; and he began asking who he was and what he had done. 34
But among the crowd some were shouting one thing and some another, and
when he could not find out the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to
be brought into the barracks. 35 When he got to the stairs, he was carried by
the soldiers because of the violence of the mob; 36 for the multitude of the
people kept following them, shouting, "Away with him!"”
I have to
say first of all that it was in the plan of God to have the soldiers come and
rescue Paul before the mob did too much harm to him. As it is the headquarters of the Roman forces
was at a place called Fort Antonia, and it was located on a precipice that was
overlooking the temple grounds. Now from
the towers the sentries had a clear view of the temple area, and this is where
most of the civil unrest took place so it was located in a good place. Now since this was one of the feast days
there would be many extra people in Jerusalem and so the Romans would be
watching more closely and probably had more soldiers on lookout. We can see that while this mob was trying to
kill Paul that a report came from the sentries “to the commander of the Roman
cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion.”
John MacArthur writes “The commander (chiliarchos, from the Greek word for ‘one thousand), or tribune,
commanded the entire Roman cohort of the thousand men stationed at Fort Antonia.” Now since the governor was in Caesarea at
this time this commander was the ranking person to keep order in Jerusalem.
After he
received the report of trouble in Jerusalem’s temple area stating that all
Jerusalem was in an uproar the commander took some soldiers to check out what
was going on. Once they arrived the mob
stopped beating Paul.
The
soldiers thought that Paul was the one who was causing the trouble and so they
arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. They were not taking any chances. The commander began to question Paul as to
who he was and to find out what he had done to cause all of this trouble. The problem was that the crowd was making so
much noise that it caused so much confusion that it was hard to get things
straight. The commander did the best
thing as he was taking him to the barracks so that he could get to the bottom
of what was going on. The mob was
causing so much trouble that they had to carry Paul so that he would not be
further injured. The mob wanted blood,
and the soldiers were going to protect Paul.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is harder at times to write about the
events that are going on in the book of Acts, for most of it is not doctrinal
like one of Paul’s letters. However as
we look at this section we can see that what God told Annanias when he was
about to go to Paul to give him his sight back, and that is that he would
suffer much for the cause of Christ, and that he was a special vessel to be
used of the Lord to even speak to kings.
God was fulfilling this and it is my belief that God does the same for
those who are His as He cares for them all too.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to lead me and to care for me so that
my life will count for the cause of Christ.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “13 years after.”
Today’s Bible question:
“How much did Joseph’s brothers get when they sold him?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/8/2018 10:00 AM
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