I am ready not to be bound only

The journey continues in this section, taking Paul and those with him from Miletus to Jerusalem. When they arrived in Tyre, they ‘found’, or better, ‘sought out and found’ the believers. This was not a chance encounter but a deliberate seeking out. Surely this is what we should do if we travel anywhere. As a result they were able to enjoy fellowship with one another for the week and when it was time to move on the believers all came out to see them off, v. 5. Note, too, the natural place that prayer has in their experience, cp. 20. 36. It is a wonderful privilege to have fellowship with believers in different places and we miss out on a lot if we do not take advantage of it.

Yet there is not only fellowship here. The believers also bring Paul a warning, 21. 4. In the previous chapter Paul told the Ephesian elders that ‘in every city’ he was being told what he was to expect at Jerusalem, 20. 22, 23. In today’s passage, too, Agabus comes to tell him the same thing, 21. 11. As a result the believers urge him not to go to Jerusalem, vv. 4, 12. Paul’s response is essentially the same as in chapter 20: that is, that he is ready to die for the name of the Lord Jesus, if need be, and that his desire is that he might finish his course with joy and fulfil the ministry that he has received, cp. 20. 24. These, then, are the reasons that he gives for not avoiding Jerusalem, as many of us might have done in similar circumstances. Yet, we may ask whether he was right to do so? Why did the Lord tell him what was going to happen if He did not want him to take evasive action? Would it not have been better had he remained at liberty? However, the Lord may rather have been preparing Paul for what would take place. Had He not done so, it may well have been perplexing and demoralizing for Paul to endure imprisonment. And what would liberty have been worth if it was not the Lord’s will for him? When we consider what has resulted from Paul’s imprisonment we may be thankful that he, like the Lord Jesus, was unmoved by such knowledge! Whilst we do not know what trials lie ahead may we, too, be resolved to do the Lord’s will, and to stand up for the name of the Lord Jesus, whatever the personal cost.