The episode recorded by Luke in Acts 21.17-26 is one of his most fascinating vignettes. It certainly is a “bump” in any patternistic hermeneutic. The thought of Paul (James and the Jerusalem church does not usually bother anyone but perhaps would if we actually understood it) actually taking a vow, offering a sacrifice in the temple {with instruments} and undergoing purification causes no little stress! That the text is meddlesome is evident by the way Stone-Campbell restorationists have wrestled with the text. I think our reactions to this passage in Acts also sheds light on our attitude toward the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in general and the Jewish context of the first century church in particular.
I have not found a discussion of Acts 21 in Alexander Campbell’s writings. If someone has a reference please let me know. In his Acts of the Apostles Campbell offers only the briefest of notes and mostly of a translation nature. His most extensive comment is whether or not Paul was arrested during or after the period of the vow (Acts, p.144).
Robert Milligan and J. W. McGarvey seem to have provided the grist for most restoration thought on Acts 21 in the late 19th and going into the 20th centuries. I will summarize Milligan first. Milligan published his Analysis of the New Testament in 1874. Volume one covers only the Gospels and Acts (I do not know if volume 2 was ever published).
For Milligan there are three possible explanations of Paul’s behavior in Jerusalem in Acts 21. First we can simply affirm that Paul acted ignorantly. In spite of having written Galatians he still was not aware that the Law of Moses was no longer binding. The second possible interpretive move for Milligan is that Paul’s action falls in the same category as Peter’s in Galatians 2. He acted out of fear of his Jewish brethren and thus not wholeheartedly. The third possible interpretation is that Paul was simply bowing to Jewish weakness and prejudice. (See Milligan, Analysis, p. 392). Milligan shows no interest in the fact that the Jerusalem church under the leadership of James, and Luke the writer, have no apparent qualms with this course of action.
Milligan’s interpretation is picked up by B. W. Johnson in his People’s Notes on the New Testament, Vol 1. In Johnson’s Notes God gradually lead the church into understanding that the Old Testament had been done away with, “God taught the church lesson by lesson, but up to this time that at Jerusalem had not yet learned that they were freed from the obligation to keep the law of Moses” (Vol 1, p. 511). Johnson suggests, in line with Milligan, that Paul took James advice for the sake of “peace and unity” (p. 512). But in Johnson’s own view “we cannot be certain that the advice was just, or that Paul did just right to comply” (ibid). Johnson follows this up by quoting “Pres. Milligan” (without giving the source but it is his Analysis quoted above) and opts for his third suggestion as the “best.” This was Jewish prejudice and “even Paul evidently at this time thought of the sacrifices as, like circumcision, a matter of indifference.” It was the next generation, Johnson states, that grasped the real truth of the matter.
J. W. McGarvey has the most extensive discussion on the episode and does so twice in his Original Commentary on Acts (pp. 258-261) and in his New Commentary (vol 2: 204-209). McGarvey confesses that Acts 21 “to be the most difficult passage in Acts to fully understand, and to reconcile with the teaching of Paul on the subject of the Mosaic law” (Acts, 258).
McGarvey argues that Paul had repudiated the obligation of the law but not the innocence of observing it as cultural ideal. Colossians 2.14, along with Ephesians and Hebrews (which Paul wrote according to McGarvey) clearly indicate that the repudiation of the “authority of the law” as obligatory on Christians.
Holy days and food was one thing, for McGarvy, but sacrifices were another. It is clear that James and the Jerusalem church thought continued sacrifice was “innocent” and approved the course of the four men and Paul himself (p. 259). Similarly to Milligan, McGarvey postulates that perhaps Paul simply made a mistake like Peter in Antioch. But “Peter finally discovered that he was wrong in that matter, and Paul at length discovered that he was wrong in his connection with the offerings of these Nazarites” (p. 260). Other than supposing that Paul went on to write Hebrews no proof is offered for Paul’s recognition of his error in Jerusalem. In the final analysis, McGarvey, says that the actions by Paul in Acts 21 “was inconsistent with the truth as finally developed by the apostles, but not with so much of it as was then understood by Paul” (ibid).
McGarvey does not alter his conclusions much in his New Commentary. He concludes his discussion in his New Commentary saying,
“That which renders this proceeding a more striking exhibition of Paul’s present attitude toward the law is the fact that in it he participated in the offerings of sacrifices, which seems to be inconsistent with his repeated declaration of the all-sufficiency of the blood of Christ as an atonement of sin. I think it must be admitted that subsequent to the writing of the epistle to the Ephesians and more especially to the Hebrews, he could not have consistently have done this …” (Vol 2., p. 208).
F. L. Rowe and John A. Klingman take up McGarvey’s views in work entitled The Bible in Questions and Answers (1924). I was not even aware of this book until I discovered it in a used bookstore in Milwaukee of all places. Rowe and Klingman reproduce a whole paragraph from McGarvey (without a citation btw).
So far most of the interpreters have concluded that Paul was simply ignorant, fearful or suffered from vestiges of Jewish prejudice and likely a combination of all three. E. G. Sewell was asked about Paul’s strange behavior too. For Sewell Acts 21 was simply “a case of human weakness, like Peter.” It was absolutely “certain [Paul] was not acting under inspiration” at the time he had this lapse in judgment. Sewell tells his solicitor that “it was almost impossible to convince the first Jewish Christians that they were to entirely lay aside the customs of the law.” As such “the action of Paul was not an act of the Spirit of God in contradiction to itself, but simply a specimen of Jewish prejudice and weakness.” (Sewell’s article is easily available in Questions Answered by Lipscomb and Sewell, edited by M. C. Kurfees, pp. 389-390).
One thing that never occurred to Milligan, McGarvey, Rowe or Sewell is that they may have misunderstood Luke and Paul rather than the other way around. Another question that never seems to have been raised is why Luke, the inspired writer, would not have indicated that Paul and the Jerusalem church were in error. But when Acts is actually read in its entirety Paul’s actions and those of the Jerusalem church seem quite consistent with the narrative - this is not the first vow Paul makes, cf. 18.18. Another question that seems not to have been raised is when is an “apostolic” example actually approved? Clearly James approved of it. Clearly Paul also approved of it. And it would seem that Luke approved of it … three inspired men have approved it. Just when is the early church a source for "pattern?" Is it only pattern when it behaves in a way you already believe? This seems to have been normal procedure for James and the Jerusalem church.
Yet we have routinely called Paul and Jerusalem church mistaken? They were simply prejudiced or ignorant! Another question that seems to have escaped notice is “What if the prejudice is not Jewish but Gentile in this case?” The only mistake seems, in my opinion, is the application of a false presupposition and judging the Lord’s brother and an apostle on the basis of a restoration hermeneutic. What happens when our theory of hermeneutics conflicts with the actual biblical text??
At any rate this is most interesting to me how this particular episode in Acts is excised from our theology.
Blessings,
Bobby Valentine
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