Through The Bible - Acts 21-22 - Part 1

Brett Meador: Paul, just wherever he goes, he's either making disciples or he's finding disciples. I think that's kind of cool. But I love that Paul was the one searching out disciples.
Guest (Male): In Paul's efforts seeking out believers, Pastor Brett Meador says we see his heart for the church. Those who diligently search for Christ, they're going to find him. Those who diligently search for Christ's people, I think that's a very Christ-like attitude. Paul loved the church, and you can tell by his own walk that he cared for the body of Christ wherever he went. Paul's travels in Acts chapter 20 portrayed him as much as a pastor to the elders in Ephesus as a missionary to the unsaved. And that's what we continue to see as his arrival back in Jerusalem in chapter 21, despite threats of imminent danger. Pastor Brett Meador notes once again how Paul was obedient to God's will to continue his ministry to disciples in today's word.
Brett Meador: When I was a youth pastor, one of the things I loved on the big trips we did is we'd go to all the amusement parks. I have to admit, I've always liked rides, roller coasters—the faster, the better. But you know those drop ones where they just drop you? I've always thought it'd be fun to do a trick one where it goes up 300 feet, and then it drops you and then it slows down normally and touches the ground, and everybody gets off. Well, I've got a plan for one. This is what you should do: you leave the bottom part wrapped and shrouded so people can't really see what happens. But basically, it does the same thing, only the difference is there's these doors that quickly open and you just keep falling an additional two or three hundred feet down into the ground in pitch-black darkness. So you'd be falling, and you'd see the ground coming and then you'd just continue. I think that'd be a great ride. Anyway, I digress. Life is like a roller coaster. You do have your ups and your downs and your twists and your turns. If you approach life correctly, it can actually be fun, even the downs. Paul is the perfect example of up and down and twirling around and beat up and messed up. And yet, you almost get the sense that Paul is going through life like he is on a roller coaster, but he says, "I rejoice in tribulations." Because tribulation brings patience and experience and hope. Paul would say, "Why would we ever worry about our own lives as Christians?" We know the Lord is going to guide us and direct us. You get this sense of confidence, like he knows that whatever happens, even if he dies, that's a good thing. Paul didn't count his life dear to himself. We saw that last week. I really think that we're going to see Paul here, and you might be tempted to go, "Oh, poor Paul, he's going to go through a real down here." And even the church is going, "Paul, no, don't go to Jerusalem." We've already seen that a little bit. But you get a sense Paul's like, "Come on, this is the great ride of life that God has put us in, and we should take it in and be a part of it." That's the sense I get from Paul. So these ups and downs, we're going to pick that up here in Acts chapter 21. I want to get you back up to speed. Acts chapter 20, look at the last few verses there. In verse 36, it says, "And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all," that is, the elders of Ephesus. "And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship." To get us up to speed of where we left off, Paul's just leaving the Ephesus elders that he gathered in Miletus. Now, let's just remind you of our journey. This is the ending of Paul's third missionary journey that we end up with here in chapter 20. If you recall, it started way back there in Antioch, and then he went through Asia Minor, Turkey, Ephesus, and made all those journeys visiting the churches previously that he'd ministered to along the way. But then after being there in Corinth in Greece, he made his way back, retracing his steps, ended there at Miletus with the elders at Ephesus. That's where we left off in chapter 20. Now in chapter 21, we're going to see where he is going to leave those guys, and where is he going to go next? Well, that's where we pick it up in verse one here in Acts 21. Let's read: "And it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara. And finding a ship sailing over unto Phoenicia, we went aboard, and set forth." Now, there's an interesting thing here that is said in the King James: "After we were gotten from them." A lot of us wouldn't say that; we'd probably be corrected by our teachers at school if we said that. But the reason it says it that way is because the Greek is interesting. If you have an NIV Bible, it says, "After we had torn ourselves away from them." It's *apospao*, which means to draw or tear away, literally. So here's the elders at Ephesus, they're kissing Paul on the neck, they're hugging him, and they were torn away. That's how much these elders at Ephesus appreciated Paul and his ministry. They literally were torn from one another. English says "were gotten," NIV says "torn," the Greek means to draw or tear away. Also, it's the idea of unsheathing a sword; you could also say tearing your sword out of its sheath is the idea, which is interesting. But as it says here, they're going on these journeys, and it says there in verse three, "Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her burden." Now, the ship that Paul was on, the way they did it, they were probably able to get on a cargo ship of that day. The way you'd earn your passage, you'd bum a ride, really, but you'd have to work your way as you were doing the traveling. So Paul was probably there working on the cargo ship, slaving away. They didn't treat you nicely on these ships, but that's probably how Paul got around on these vessels. Most scholars believe that's what he did. But now that Paul is done there with the elders at Ephesus at Miletus, he's now going to travel to those places we just read: to Coos, to Rhodes, and eventually make his way back to Tyre. That's where we end up. Now at Tyre, what happens there? Well, that's where we pick it up in verse four: "And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem." Okay, here's the big question: should Paul go to Jerusalem or should he not go to Jerusalem? Last time, we were talking about Agabus, who tied himself up with Paul's belt and said, "The one who owns this belt will be tied up when he goes to Jerusalem like this." Now here at Tyre, we see these disciples saying through the Spirit that he should not go to Jerusalem. So the question is, should Paul go to Jerusalem or should he not? It would seem like a specific warning right here in verse four not to go up to Jerusalem. But there's a huge debate among commentaries and scholars, and especially the language experts, because there's a little bit of a difficulty with this. Some would say what verse four is, is the human interpretation of what the Holy Spirit was saying: the prophecy of the danger that awaited Paul in Jerusalem. See, if you remember, we were able to get off easy last time when Agabus took the belt and said, "Thus saith the Holy Ghost: the one who owns this belt will be tied up like this." And if you remember, my argument there was, well, that's what the Holy Ghost said. It was the people that were saying, "Don't go, don't go!" But that's coming up here in the rest of this chapter. So we'll get back to that. It's a little confusing. Do we think Paul should have gone to Jerusalem or should he have not? Which was the correct thing? The reason this is problematic is some would say it's difficult to see why Paul would have gone against the Holy Spirit's direction unless he was in direct rebellion against the Holy Spirit, which some commentators will actually say is what happened. Paul was not submitting to the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit was saying you should not go. But there's an argument here for verse four. It says he found disciples who said to Paul through the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. Let me show you the English Standard Version of that same verse; you'll see a little difference there in verse four. It says, "And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit, they were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem." The reason the ESV points this out is because those commentators that say Paul was supposed to go to Jerusalem, it's just that the people didn't want him to go to Jerusalem. And the Spirit was telling them when Paul goes there, he's going to see trouble, so they were then interpreting that as, "Well, you better not go then." But most scholars would say you can't assume that. It might just be the people heard the Spirit say Paul's going to have trouble in Jerusalem. You say, "Well, Brett, I don't know. Should Paul have gone or should he have not?" Well, we'll see more of this as we get into this chapter, and hopefully we'll be able to discern rightly there. But the key phrase here, especially when you look at the original language, is "through the Spirit, they were telling Paul." The question is, were they interpreting it correctly, or was Paul saying, "Yeah, I'm going to have trouble. The Spirit is correct; I'm going to have trouble, but I'm still going"? That's the question. Well, we pick it up there in verse five. It says, "And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city: and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed. And when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship; and they returned home again." Who are these disciples, by the way? This is interesting, there in verse four when it says "and finding disciples." If you're a Bible marker, I've marked that word "finding" because that's an interesting little phrase or word that's there. The idea of "finding," the word there is literally "sought out," "looked for" disciples in that town. And finding disciples, it says there. The Greek word there is *aneurisko*, which means to diligently search for. So there's a difference here between the elders at Ephesus and the men of Tyre. The elders at Ephesus, Paul sent for them, and they all came to him because he'd had a relationship with them. In Tyre, he goes and looks for disciples, any disciple he can find. He doesn't know them, he doesn't have a deep relationship with them, but notice there's a similar thing here: they all brought him there, and they kneeled down on the shore and prayed. This is a little bit similar to the elders at Ephesus in chapter 20, but I love that Paul was the one searching out disciples. I wonder if maybe one of the attributes of a good Christian follower of Christ or someone who wants to be a minister of the gospel is someone who's willing to find disciples. Paul says, "I'm going to go to Tyre, and I'm not going to quit until I find a bunch of the disciples. Who's saved here in this town?" and he went and literally sought them out. I know a lot of Christians who literally try to avoid Christian interaction. They avoid church, and they avoid Christian people. Why? Well, that becomes a deeper question. Why do people avoid Christians? They might say, "Well, I don't like the hypocrisy." I've always loved the excuses of why people don't want to hang out with God's people, the church of Jesus Christ. Now, some might say, "Well, Christians are a bunch of weirdos." Well, that can be true. I think that there are weird Christians. But you've got to be careful because even though they're weird, they're still the beloved of God. That's something we have to remember, and we always have to temper the things we say about our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But I think next level's not just saying, "Well, I'll tolerate them, those weird Christians," but what about Paul? Paul says, "I'm going to seek out the disciples in Tyre. I'm going to look for the Christians." Maybe there's some test to see if you're the person who loves Christian people. When you go to Hawaii on vacation, what do you do on Sunday? Do you say, "Well, great, I got a free Sunday off," or are you the one that says, "I wonder where the nearest Bible-teaching church is here in Hawaii on my vacation"? "Oh Brett, but we were going to go snorkeling on Sunday. Snorkeling Sunday!" What about faithfully going to church on Sunday? But are you the kind of person like Paul that says, "I'm going to go find where are the disciples? Where are the Christians?" or are you on, "Time to avoid people and church people"? I think that might be a little bit of a test of what's your heart for the church of Jesus Christ, Christian people. Paul just, wherever he goes, he's either making disciples or he's finding disciples. I think that's kind of cool. By the way, the word *aneurisko*, which I mentioned for finding, the only other place in the Bible that's used is when the shepherds heard the announcement of the angels that Jesus' birth came, and they went and searched for him. Luke 2:16, it says, "And they came with haste, and found Mary, Joseph, and the babe." *Aneurisko* is found. It means to diligently search for. I think that's kind of cool. Those who diligently search for Christ, they're going to find him. Those who diligently search for Christ's people, I think that's a very Christ-like attitude. Paul loved the church, and you can tell by his own walk that he cared for the body of Christ wherever he went, which is kind of cool. Well, that happens there at Tyre. But then verse seven: "And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day. And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him. And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy." Okay, he was now at Caesarea. So he went from Tyre and then went south, which is now he's in the land of Israel. But at Caesarea, he meets up with Philip. Now, we've met Philip before. He was one of seven what? He was one of the seven deacons, which was also one along with Stephen. Now, this is just me thinking; it's not really the Bible pointing this out. But do you remember who was there at the stoning of Stephen? Whose name was Saul. And he was holding the coats and garments of the people stoning Stephen, one of the seven. Now Paul's at Philip's house. What an amazing transition this has been over the past 25 years. Paul now is friends with Philip. He's staying at Philip's house—one of the very guys that consented to the stoning death of one of the other seven deacons chosen of the early church there. You've got to love that. Paul was consenting and voting for the death of Stephen, holding their jackets, and Philip opens up his house. The more I learn about Philip, the more impressed I am by this guy. He didn't seem to have a chip on his shoulder. "Okay Paul, come in my house, you murderer. Like, you killed my friend. Hello? You better sleep with one eye open, buddy, at my house because you killed..." None of that. Philip doesn't get much ink in the Bible, but the ink that he gets is outstanding. What do you mean, "ink"? Well, first of all, we know Philip's called an evangelist in the Bible. He's giving out sermons, and his home is impressive. He keeps a home there in Caesarea, which is in the middle of the Roman world. He keeps a very Christian home. He's hospitable even to someone who should have been his enemy. Are you impressed by Philip so far? This is an amazing thing, this guy Philip. Not only that, he's got these daughters, and the Bible takes time to explain a couple things about the daughters, which most writings of this era would care less about daughters—wouldn't write about the daughters. But why these girls, the daughters of Philip? Well, what does it say here? It says, "The same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy." Can I just remind our younger people, even though our world has totally forgotten this—and what I'm about to say people are like, "You're so antiquated, Brett, you Neanderthal man, to even say what you're about to say"—sex outside of marriage, the Bible actually gives us a huge value of being a virgin. The value of virginity is lost and forgotten. Nobody cares about this anymore. Meanwhile, our marriages are messed up, there's all kinds of problems, people are dysfunctional sexually, there's all kinds of issues here and there and everywhere. And we wonder what's going on, meanwhile we're just totally ignoring what the Bible says. The Bible teaches that virginity is God's plan, that sexuality is an invention of God and it's something that is to be valued, preserved for the person you marry. Anything that's sexual outside of marriage is called fornication in the Bible. It's not rocket science, folks. What does the Bible say? First Corinthians 7: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and wife have her own husband." Our culture is just so messed up on this one, and it shouldn't be a shock to us. Back way back in the Bill Clinton era: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Well, you know, that depends on what the definition of "is" is. So should we be confused? Well, if the president was confused... I think Americans are really confused. What is real sexuality, and what is sinful and wrong? Bible spells it out pretty clearly. Anything that's sexual in nature outside of marriage is called fornication, which is sexual immorality or sin. And the reason I say that is not because, "Brett, you're just a religious prude, you're trying to ruin all the fun." No, it's the opposite. God invented sexuality to be something that's valued and beautiful in the confines of the marriage relationship. We all ruin it with our sexual immorality. Our culture makes it this thing that makes everybody feel bad, dirty, diseased, and problematic. The person who's got all the future in front of them with no problems and no trouble is the person who abstains outside of marriage and keeps themselves pure, like these four virgins that are mentioned in the Bible. These girls go down in history as the four virgins. And what did God do through them? He was using them to give words of prophecy to the church. What a cool thing! Remember what a word of prophecy is? It's not, "Thus saith the Lord: He will return in 45 years when the sun turns red or whatever." No, that's Old Testament prophet-type stuff. This is a word of edification, exhortation, and comfort. The daughters of Philip were giving First Corinthians 14 version of words of prophecy to the church, and these girls go down in history as amazing women, which is kind of cool. Man, I wish there was some way I could encourage our young people to just bail on what the world has taught them and just say, "We're going to go with what the Bible says." The couples that do that—I've done a lot of weddings. I've seen couples that have slept around before they got married and done the pre-marital counseling and the post-marital counseling and the years later marriage counseling. There's all kinds of skeletons in the closet, baggage, and trouble. But you show me a couple that says, "We're going to abstain before we get married." I'm going to show you a couple that's going to have a beautiful marriage because that's the way God created it to work the best. Everything else is sort of a counterfeit, really, of what God really intended for sexuality to be. So I know that's just a quick mention of this, but I can't go by Philip's daughters without saying, look what the Bible takes a whole little section here to say: the daughters were virgins, and makes note of that. That's impressive, especially in that culture too. It was bad in those days; it's even worse in our days. So with that, you've got to love these people. How did Philip be such a squared-away guy to have such a squared-away house and squared-away daughters? What was going on here? I think that Philip gets the credit to some degree just leading well. Philip's one of those guys that just led his home well: hospitable, loving Paul, receiving them in, the daughters doing these amazing things. I think Philip might be the guy we go, "Wow, there's the guy to follow and emulate, model." By the way, do you think there's much of a difference if a dad is on fire for Christ and following Jesus versus just the mom? What are the statistics on that? Well, they've done studies on this. This might be a shock to some of you, but when dad comes to faith first or is the leader in his family coming to Christ, if he's the one leading the way on that, 93 percent of the family will follow him in his faith. 93 percent! If you're the dad in the home and you're the one not watching Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday, you're actually going to church, and you're actually loving Christ and you're not messing around. There's too many spiritually deadbeat dads just sitting around, "Oh honey, you're the spiritual one, lead the kids and tell them how to be Christian. You go off to church, but I'll be here watching my football game." Loser! You don't want to do that, dudes. If you're a dad, don't do that. Be the Philip, be the guy that's going to take and say, "I'm going to lead." Be the Joshua: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Guess what? 93 percent of the households will follow when dad is leading. When it's just the mom by herself, 17 percent of the kids will follow. And 3.5 percent are kids that just find Christ alone without parental influence, which is pretty sad because that's largely what we're up against today. The father's influence on salvation is giant. Philip, I think, models that for us. And I think Philip was a guy like Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these other things they'll be added unto you." And I think that's what we see Philip modeling here.