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THE STRATEGY OF THE ELDERS TO WEAKEN PAUL

Act 21:23 Therefore do what we tell you: We have four men who have taken a vow.

Do therefore this (imperative mood) that we say to thee: we have four men which have a vow
on them:

These men have switched from the defensive to the offensive. They are now commanding Paul
to become legalistic in order to preach grace. They are saying to Paul, “Be like us. We have
four leaders from our church who have taken a seven-day vow and shave their heads. Join with
them Paul, shave your head and show the people you are one of us and there is no division.
Show them brotherly love.”

Act 21:24 Take them and be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave
their heads, and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning
you are nothing, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law.

James is minimizing grace while magnifying unity around the law, legalism. This is
blasphemous. These men have not unified around grace. Why should they now want Paul to
unify around religion? Why must Paul stand with them? Paul should now be telling these men
to stand with him around the truth all of God’s Word. Paul has never considered grace to be
nothing. He does believe in walking orderly, but by the Holy Spirit and grace, not by keep the
law.

This argument, that Paul does not believe in walking orderly, is a tactic used by weak people.
Because you do not believe the way they do, they accuse you of not believing in holiness, the
move of the Spirit, grace, etc.. Anything can be taken to an extreme by the excessive Christian
and used against the balanced believer.

Act 21:25 But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they
should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to
idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality."

They are appealing to Paul’s Jewish heritage. They are making the gospel different by race. “It
is all right for your converts not to keep the law, Paul, because they are Gentiles. But you are a
Jew. You above everyone should know how important keeping the law is to a Jew. This is
cultural, part of our heritage. You are different than the Gentiles you preach to.”

At this point, Paul should have seen the spiritual and religious arrogance coming from the
church leaders and should have left Jerusalem and told his team he had been wrong to come in
the first place. He should have asked God to forgive him and headed for Rome.