Then the whole city was provoked…
Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NASB20
CROWD REACTIONS with violence, retribution and vengeance, WAR between two opposing forces where some claim PEACE while others besiege it with competing claims of war and tolerance…
Nothing is new under the sun, most especially in Israel !
Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
~ In the year of our Lord 30
So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Gospel of Matthew 23:37-38 NIV {in context of vs. 31-39}
JESUS had testified against these same leading trouble-makers.
Now the Apostle Paul has returned to the same Jerusalem where many years before this up and coming Saul of Tarsus had stood with the leaders of the Temple who then stoned Stephen to death.
* ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.
*approximately A.D. 54-55
Paul has also encountered these zealous Jews in many cities throughout the ten years of his three missionary journeys; including in Ephesus of Asia Minor from where the Apostle has just returned. And Jewish opponents of the Gospel have also traveled to Jerusalem for the festival.
Acts of the Apostles 21:
~ A.D. 57
Photo of door in gate of Jerusalem's wall from ~A.D. 1900
And all the city was disturbed; and the people ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut.
Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NKJV
Little doubt that the Apostle Paul, who had seen the Lord Jesus Himself along a road to persecuted Christians in Damascus twenty years ago (in ~A.D. 37) knew the similar intent of these same anti-Christs who had stoned Stephen.
Yet due to the prophesy of Agabus (Acts 21:20-21) Paul knew of a different outcome the Lord had in store for the Apostle.
Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.
Oh, did I mention that JERUSALEM is still UNDER the control and administration of ROME and NOT its appointed Jewish leaders (who incite the mobs to their own political advantage)?
Just like when Pilate governed JERUSALEM is controlled from beyond its oft-breached walls.
He immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them.
And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done.
Acts of the Apostles 21:33 ESV – The arrest of Paul in Jerusalem
SOUND FAMILIAR?
Will an arrest in JERUSALEM to appease shouting crowds restore a pax Romana?
21st Century of the Common Era
MAY, 2021 of the Common Era
Observant readers of Talk of JESUS .com will have noted that the COVER PHOTO of today’s post is contemporary rather than from the time of the Apostle Paul.
Palestinians protest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 21, 2021. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
7 October 2023 C.E.
Most of us recall an initial incursion by militant Islamists into a pax UN of Israel tenuously instituted in 1949 after an A.D. 20th century holocaust of the Jews.
Their own atrocities of war and proven provocation of Jerusalem has led to great evil perpetrated by both sides.
Although I take no side in this divisive war I would ask you to consider current outcomes in light of entrenched positions which have led up to these current events.
23 May 2021
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
2024 C.E.
"Meanwhile, Israel celebrated the nation’s 76th anniversary on Tuesday." - IMAGE of Gaza (date uncertain)
By The Bharat Express News
May 14, 2024
‘What does all this have to do with Paul and ACTS of the Apostles?‘
While you consider and compare A.D. FIRST CENTURY JERUSALEM with a 2024 of the Common Era Jerusalem, Israel let's LOOK BACK at what 1st c. A.D. JEWISH leaders already knew about their City.
Before Christ
* ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.
Now Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice..
“However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”
1 Kings 11:9,13 LSB
- 930 B.C. Solomon dies. The Kingdom (which did not include Philistia & Gaza) had grown since David’s reign to influence all of the world from the Nile to the Euphrates. It now becomes divided between his sons.
- 721 B.C. Fall of Israel [Samaria] to Assyria
- 661 B.C. on Yom Kippur (the day of atonement)
Now the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you trespass against the commandments of Yahweh and do not succeed? Because you have forsaken Yahweh, He has also forsaken you.’”
So they conspired against him and at the command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of Yahweh [the Temple].
2 Chronicles 24:20-21 LSB
- AFTER refusing to listen to Prophets sent to them by the LORD Judah also falls.
- 587 B.C. Jerusalem falls
And Judah was taken away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.
1 Chronicles 9:1b LSB
- 559 B.C.
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia,
‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Ezra 1:2 LSB
331 B.C.
After having defeated Tyre, Alexander the Great seizes Jerusalem, Gaza and much of Egypt.
We'll skip past the Seleucid Empire to the east and Egyptian Empire to the west of Jerusalem, BOTH threats to Judea and ROME, as well as a familiar Jewish political/religious tiff between the Maccabees and Hasmonaeans.
63 B.C.
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus or Pompey the Great captures Jerusalem and creates an alliance with the part-Edomite King of Jerusalem, Herod the Great. – Source
48 B.C.
Roman Rule (Before & in the years of Christ)
- Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic – source BBC
- A civil war broke out, and Caesar’s soldiers were victorious against Pompey.
- Pompey escaped to Egypt in search of refuge upon losing the battle. Instead, he was assassinated in the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy XIII’s bid to win over Caesar. – source
August 9, 48 BC – Battle of PHARSALUS (in Greece)
- (Gaius Julius) Caesar went on to become the ruler of Rome, proclaiming himself to be the sole consul and dictator.
Paul: more than just a Jew
Returning once more to Jerusalem in A.D. 57 ...
(where those present do NOT know that ROME will completely destroy Jerusalem and its Temple just 13 years from now...)
Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another.
And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.
And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd,
for the mob of the people followed, crying out,
“Away with him!”
Acts of the Apostles 21:36 ESV (vs. 34-36 above)
Sound familiar?
NEXT, God-willing, we will continue with Paul’s troubles in Jerusalem
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