Lord called Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles. But Paul carried his burden for the Jews also and accordingly, he kept the feasts and vows and visited Jerusalem to convince them by following their practices.
Before his final trip to Jerusalem, he said that “he was bound in his spirit”. When our decisions are guided by the Holy Spirit, we enjoy freedom in the spirit to do the things of the Lord with much power and joy. We may notice two reasons for Paul being “bound in the spirit”. The first was his excellent desire, but a fleshly affinity towards his kinsmen that they may also be saved. The second reason was his weakness in the flesh, to mix the freedom which was brought in the Lord’s completed work on the cross, with the bondage of keeping some of the Old Testament’s feasts and vows to please Jews. This struggle between what the Lord had called him for and his desire to save his own people went on, from Acts chapters 18 to 20, over a period of few years.
Paul was like a scribe described by our Lord in Matthew 13:52, “which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old”. As the oracles and promises belong to them, it may be easy for the Jews to apply these promises. They may apprehend how some of them are fulfilled in Lord Jesus and the remaining would be fulfilled in the time of His second coming. This would be easy if the Spirit enlightens them to search for these things in the scriptures and how they are completed in Jesus.
Paul visited them repeatedly, probably carrying this burden as a scribe to bring this revelation to their hearts so that they, together with him, may enjoy the law of liberty rather than remaining in the law of bondage. But the time was not ripe then because the times of Gentiles are yet to be completed as per the prophecies (Luke 21:24) before the Jewish nation turns to the Lord.
During Paul’s visit, the believers in Achaia and Macedonia contributed to the needs of poor believers in Jerusalem. He gives the reason for his going to Jerusalem “was to minister unto the saints” (Romans 15:25).
Paul wrote the epistle of Romans during his visit to Macedonia and Achaia recorded in Acts 20: 1-3. He did not visit Rome till that time though he had a desire to do so, but he first wanted to visit Jerusalem to hand over the gift from the Gentiles to the Jews. While writing to Romans, he sensed in his spirit that the unbelieving Jews would cause trouble for him because the time was not ripe for the Jewish nation to believe in the Lord. He coveted the prayers of the believers in Rome to pray for his deliverance (Rom 15:31).
During his vast ministry, Paul faced much persecution and trouble in many places. However, he did not express any concern during that time nor seek deliverance because that was all done according to the plan of God, and nothing of his own. He could have gone to Rome instead after delegating the work of taking the gifts, for poor Jewish believers in Jerusalem, to the deacons.
0 Comments