Acts 21:1-26: Paul’s Ritual Cleansing

The Rev. Levi Willms, associate pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Sauk Rapids, MN, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Acts 21:1-26. Paul is determined to go to Jerusalem, despite the danger. In Caesarea, a prophet named Agabus foretells that Paul will be bound and delivered to the Gentiles in Jerusalem. Paul’s companions and the local Christians urge him not to go, but Paul is ready to face imprisonment and death for the sake of Christ. Paul then visits James and the elders of the Jerusalem church, who rejoice at his report of God’s work among the Gentiles, but they are concerned about rumors that he is teaching Jews to abandon the law of Moses. The Book of Acts takes us back to the earliest days of Christianity, unveiling the incredible acts of the apostles and the growth of the early church. Acts offers a firsthand account how the Apostles and Jesus’ disciples respond to his death and resurrection. It makes us witnesses to the beginning of fulfilling Jesus’s command to spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We encounter miracles and wonders, we see the church struggling to organize itself in the absence of Jesus, and we learn of the trials and tribulations the early Christians faced in a world that rejected them.