What's Happening in Jerusalem

 Third Tuesday after Pentecost

William, Archbishop of York (12th c.)--Color: White

Lectionary Texts:

2 Corinthians 4:16-25

Mark 4:21-25

Thanks to Glenn for his comment. I'll give him half a point on the quiz for correctly identifying The Kingston Trio as the group who sang the song, though he did not know the title. The title is "Raspberries, Strawberries." I will deal with Glenn's question about those very difficult verses, Mark 4:11-12, later this week.

For Acts Bible Study today, please read Acts 21:17-27.

These verses are really loaded. They will take a couple of blogs for me to unpack. First, let me mention the overall political situation in Jerusalem, when Paul arrived there in 57 AD. Felix was Procurator, a position Pontius Pilate had held two decades earlier. He was as bad as Pilate. Appointed in 52 by Emperor Claudius, Felix saw his job as to suppress any and all threats to Roman rule. Threats there were aplenty. Numerous Jewish leaders and groups were making life more and more uncomfortable for the Roman occupying army. Felix put down one threat by an Egyptian Jewish leader by massacring hundreds of his followers shortly before Paul arrived. 

James, the brother of Jesus, had been the leader of the Jerusalem Church from the beginning. He and the elders of the church welcome Paul and the others with him. The "us" in verse 18 is the is the last "we" passage until chapter 27. Whether Luke left Jerusalem at that time or simply withdrew himself from the narrative cannot be determined.

Luke here, as at some other points puts a single speech into the mouths of several people, in the case the Jerusalem elders. I don't think they were really speaking in unison. They had heard negative things about Paul that they wanted him to clear up, namely that Jews who wanted to be Christians did not need to follow the Mosaic law anymore. That's not exactly what Paul had been preaching. He had been preaching that gentiles who became Christians did not have to follow the Mosaic law. He assumed that Jews would. Interpretation of various points of the Law would be another sticking point. Paul will spend the rest of his time in Jerusalem trying unsuccessfully to clear this up. 

The Jerusalem Christians were all Jewish. The only gentiles who lived in the city were the Roman soldiers and their support networks. The Jerusalem Christians had achieved considerable success at converting other Jerusalem Jews, thousands they say, into faith in Christ. The Mosaic Law was not a problem for them. They all had been following it lifelong. They don't seem fully to realize the problem it was for gentiles who were converting to Christianity. The problem seemed to have been settled back in Acts 15 at the apostolic conference. The elders remember the agreement at the conference and quote from James's letter at the end of the conference that gentiles need not follow the Law, only abstain from four specific things (v. 25). But that solution is for gentiles. It does not, at least in the understanding of Jerusalem Christians, apply to Jews

What the problem comes town to is Paul himself. Has Paul forsaken his Judaism in pursuit of gentile converts? The elders want to help Paul prove that he has not. They devise a plan for him to do that. We'll talk about the plan and how well it works in our next study.

God of all Christians and all Jews,

We are grateful for all the progress that has been made in the relations between Jews and Christians since the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. We are aware of the many vestiges of anti-Semitism that abound in our nation and in the world. Help us to work against this insidious hatred as we work for religious harmony. In the name of Jesus the Jew. Amen.

Faithfully,

Christian