Monday, January 13, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Acts 21-22
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 6
Key Verse
Acts 21:36 — “For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him.”
Devotional Thought
Paul is a man on the move, and Acts 21-22 traces his steps with the precision of a travel diary—Coos, Rhodes, Patara, Tyre, Ptolemais, Caesarea, and at last Jerusalem. Along the way, he lodges with Philip the evangelist, whose four daughters prophesy, and he receives a sober warning from Agabus, who binds his own hands and feet with Paul’s girdle and declares what awaits him in Jerusalem. His companions weep and beg him not to go. Paul answers, “What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” They cease their pleading and say, “The will of the Lord be done.”
That scene belongs to the middle of January, when the resolutions of a new year are still fresh and the road ahead is long. We all have a Jerusalem—a place of obedience that may cost us something. The hard part is rarely knowing what God wants; it is walking toward it when the people we love are pulling us back. Paul does not despise their tears. He calls them heart-breaking. Yet he goes, because the will of the Lord is worth more than his own safety.
In Jerusalem, Paul does exactly what the elders ask of him, purifying himself in the temple to show that he walks orderly and keeps the law. It is a gesture of peace, and it fails. The Jews of Asia seize him, cry that he has polluted the holy place, and the city rises. He is dragged from the temple, beaten, and bound with two chains. On the stairs of the castle, he asks to speak—and in the Hebrew tongue, he tells his own story: born in Tarsus, taught at the feet of Gamaliel, a persecutor who held the raiment of those who slew Stephen, until a light from heaven shone at noon and the voice of Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”
Notice how Paul handles all of this. He does not curse his accusers or demand his rights first. He tells the truth about his past—”I persecuted this way unto the death”—and he tells the truth about God’s mercy. When the crowd turns ugly at the mention of the Gentiles, he is bound again, this time with thongs, and only then does he quietly mention that he is a Roman, free born. He is not a hero of self-defense; he is a witness. And Psalm 6 gives voice to the night that such a witness endures: “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim.” Yet the psalm does not end in despair. It ends in confidence: “The LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.” Paul, beaten on the stairs, could have prayed those words. So can you, this January, on whatever road you are walking.
Reflection
- Agabus warned Paul plainly, and Paul’s friends pleaded with him not to go to Jerusalem. How do you discern the difference between a friend’s loving caution and the Spirit’s clear leading—and when has obedience cost you something you could not explain to others?
- Paul’s defense before the crowd was simply his own testimony: what he had been, and what God had done. If you were asked to give your defense for the hope in you this week, what would you say?
Prayer
Lord, thou hast heard the voice of my weeping, and thou dost receive my prayer. Give us the courage of Paul, who counted not his life dear unto himself, but was ready to be bound and even to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. When our friends weep and our hearts break, teach us to say with them, “The will of the Lord be done.” Make us faithful witnesses, ready to tell what thou hast done for us—how thou didst shine upon us in our darkness and call us by thy mercy. Keep us from fear of man, and let our enemies be ashamed, for thou art our deliverer. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 6:1 — “O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”