Saturday: Was Paul Wrong?
WEEK 35
SATURDAY
WAS PAUL WRONG?
Isaiah 42:16
We come to consider the puzzling case of Paul’s guidance about going to Jerusalem. The account says:
Compelled by the Spirit, they kept telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. . . .
[Agabus] came to us, took Paul’s belt, tied his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In Jerusalem the Jews will bind the man who owns this belt, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles.’ When we heard this, we and the local believers urged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. . . .
Since we couldn’t talk him out of it, the only thing we could say was, “The Lord’s will be done.” (Acts 21:4, 11-12, 14)
Just what was the will of the Lord there? Were the disciples at Tyre and Agabus wrong when they told Paul through the Spirit not to go? It seems to me they were right. But Paul had a fear of safety, and they were asking him to play safe. He tells the Ephesian elder how he felt:
Now, compelled by the Spirit, I’m going to Jerusalem. I don’t know what will happen to me there. What I do know is that the Holy Spirit testifies to me from city to city that prisons and troubles await me. But nothing, not even my life, is more important than my completing my mission. This is nothing other than the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus: to testify about the good news of God’s grace. (20:22-24)
Nothing more noble and beautiful in literature, the revelation of a completely dedicated soul. Yet I wonder if the disciples at Tyre and Agabus weren’t right; they were warning him by the Spirit not to go. But his strong point—his willingness to be a martyr—made him plunge ahead through the red lights. He disobeyed but disobeyed honestly. And God turned this honest disobedience into victory. The glorious account of Paul’s trials before the tribunals, the amazing mastery of the man amid the storm and the shipwreck, and his work at Rome; it all turned out gloriously. But we don’t know what more glorious things might have happened had he not gone. God turned second best for Paul into victory.
O Lord, I know you have a first will and a second will for us. If we miss your first, you offer a second. Help me to take your first, always. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am walking with the lights today, everything under God’s guidance.