A Year in Luke/Actsનમૂનો

Emotional farewells like those in Ephesus in the last chapter continue in chapter 21, where Paul’s journey to Jerusalem is described by Luke, who was clearly a companion on the voyage because of the first-person language. Luke highlights how many disciples warned Paul not to go to Jerusalem because of what will happen to him there. A first-time reader who has also read the gospel of Luke might expect that Paul is about to begin a long journey to Jerusalem where he will be killed like Jesus, but Luke is a better writer than that. It would be too obvious, and perhaps unhelpful to the thrust of Luke’s narrative, to link Paul and Jesus too closely.

It is also worth noting at this point that the ambiguity of Paul’s fate in Jerusalem and the fact that prophets come to warn him of what awaits highlights a key difference between Jesus’ journey. On the long journey of Jesus to Jerusalem in Luke 9-19, he warns of his coming death and resurrection. He knew exactly what was going to happen. From Paul and others in the early church, although the Spirit is clearly moving people around and speaking prophetically, there is not the same clarity. It is another reminder that Jesus is positioned as God incarnate with authority over his own death, unlike his followers who, although filled with the Spirit as new temples, are still human.

Although much of the last half of Acts is indeed about Paul, the main emphasis of Acts has been the work of the Spirit. So although Paul will travel to Jerusalem, he arrives in this chapter and will eventually make a further journey to where the book is heading: Rome.