Disclaimer: this probably is not coherent thought and could be with revision but It’s more fun to try to discern my confusion and irrelevancy isn’t it?
In class Foster brought up the role of the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts and we talked briefly about Acts 21 where it appears that Paul blatantly ignores the words of the Spirit through the disciples he was staying with. I tried to speak up in class but as of most times my thoughts do not translate to English so well so I thought I would blog about some of my thoughts. First of all I have to acknowledge that I have no clue, it is a mystery and anything I say past this point is only hypothetical.
The Spirit seems to be sending conflicting messages, first to Paul in chapter twenty when Paul exclaims, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.” Paul is compelled by the Spirit and then in 21:4 it says, “Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” I do not understand. Possibly Paul had some crossed wires and misunderstood the Spirit to begin with people have attributed things to God before when they most certainly are not but this is Paul the apostle and it is scripture so that is hard to swallow. The disciples could have only been warning Paul because they knew what was going to happen. The noun Spirit is used as an instrument of urging. They could have been urging Paul by the means of love that they have from the Spirit. The deep compassion given them with the revelation that Paul was going to suffer all came from the Spirit and therefore they warned Paul. They may not have been actually giving him a command from the Spirit. Its all very confusing. Maybe God was giving Paul an option, Paul to can do this or you cannot and that’s why I’m giving you warnings to not go. Paul is not thwarted; he sticks to what the Spirit originally told him. I mean if it is a command not to go from the Spirit then did God change his mind? Paul did exclaim in 20:22 that he didn’t know what was going to happen to him and then he is told by the Prophet later in chapter 21. It seems that Paul’s fate is being revealed to him.
Back to the disciples who urged Paul not to go. They could have received the revelation that Paul was going to be bound but rather than leaving it at a revelation they went to Paul and urged him not to go and it was their urging not the Spirit’s. The text doesn’t support any of my ideas I’m pretty sure but I can hypothesize can’t I. I chalk it up to another mystery of God but some interesting Ideas can be conjectured.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I see where you are coming from here in your ideas thought of how the spirit might have been involved with the apostles and Paul. I as well can not discern exactly what the word spirit is being said here i seem to lean that it is the holy spirit but i also feel that God was wanting Paul to go so where my ideas and thoughts land is in confussion as well.
WHAT IF, and I don't mean to imply that this is what I believe because I am as clueless as everyone else, but WHAT IF Paul wanted to go to Rome out of his own desires and it was actually the will of God for him not to at that time. After all, while Paul is proably the best example to model your life after besides Jesus, he wasn't perfect. Just a thought.
Post a Comment