I always have thought of Saul of Tarsus, later Paul the Apostle, as a hero. He has been the MVP for Team Jesus nearly every year for two millennia. I realize that St. Paul’s knowledge, courage, experience, virtue, and influence so far exceeds mine that my admiration means very little. A child praises his dad as the strongest person in the world when he sees him lifting the forty-pound bag he could not budge. The dad is grateful for the high value the child puts on him, but he also knows what it is worth.
I realize that my praise of the great saint means little, for it is the “praise of the praiseworthy that is above all rewards,” and I am not among their number. But if my praise means little, my questioning of the same saint must mean even less, for how could I understand his reasons and motivations? Even so, I do question something St. Paul once did.
I say, “I question something” he once did, not that I criticize it. I entirely lack the right, the wit, and the desire to criticize my hero. But I admit that I don’t understand why he did what he did.
The text is Acts 20-21. Paul is returning to Jerusalem following his third missionary journey, carrying a generous offering from the Gentile churches to help support their Jewish brothers and sisters in Judea. It was the fulfillment of years of planning and working, and Paul must have viewed it as a highlight of his ministry.
However, for some time before he arrived in Jerusalem, he was aware that he would suffer hardships and be thrown into prison if he insisted on going to the holy city. In Acts 20:23, which records part of Paul’s final meeting with the elders of the church in Ephesus, the apostle admits that “…in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.”
In the previous verse (Acts 20:22, NIV), Paul says to the elders: “…compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.” Consider the phrase, “compelled by the Spirit.” If the “Spirit” – the Holy Spirit – was compelling Paul to go to Jerusalem despite the danger, that only reinforces the idea of Paul’s commendable courage. But was it the Holy Spirit who compelled him?
That is how this passage has often been read, especially since the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the next verse. However, it is not clear that it is the Holy Spirit who compels Paul. (Greek does not “capitalize” words, so whether this refers to the Holy Spirit or Paul’s own spirit must be determined from its context.) Additionally, the word the NIV translates as “compelled” is not rendered that way in any of its 43 appearances in the New Testament. When Paul uses the same word in the next chapter (21:33), he clearly means “bound” (its normal meaning) rather than “compelled” or “driven.” Furthermore, even if one chooses to translate the word as “compelled,” Paul never uses it with the Holy Spirit as its subject, nor does any other New Testament text.
In the previous chapter, Paul was determined in his own Spirit, not the Holy Spirit, to travel to Jerusalem via Macedonia and Achaia. And when Paul later relates the story to the Roman prefect Felix, he tells him that he was in Jerusalem to deliver his years-in-the making gift from the Gentiles to “my people” – the gift Paul hoped would help unite believing Jews and Gentiles.
When, in chapter 21: 4, Paul stops in Tyre on his way to Jerusalem, the Christ-followers told him “through the Spirit” not to go to Jerusalem. It is worth noting that the New Testament never records someone speaking a message “through the Spirit” that is wrong or contrary to God’s intent. Did the same Spirit who supposedly “compelled” Paul to go to Jerusalem tell him not to go to Jerusalem a short time later?
While Paul was in Caesarea, on his way to deliver the Gentile’s gift to the church in Jerusalem, a Christian from Judea prophesied that Paul would be bound by the Jews and handed over to the Romans if he went to Jerusalem. Upon hearing this, the church “pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem,” but Paul “would not be dissuaded,” and they finally “gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’”
But was it the Lord’s will … or was it Paul’s? That is the question that runs through my mind. Paul’s courage and his willingness to suffer for the sake of Christ cannot be doubted. But if it was really “through the Spirit” that the church in Tyre told Paul not to go to Jerusalem, if it was by his own spirit that Paul was bound to go and not by God’s Spirit, might he not have been better to have let Timothy, Tychicus, Trophimus, Aristarchus, Secundus and Gaius finish the mission and present the Gentile’s gift to the church?
As I have already written, I am not criticizing the great apostle, but I am questioning whether the NIV is right to translate “compelled by the Spirit,” implying it was God’s will that Paul be beaten, arrested, and imprisoned. You may say, “Look at the great good that came out of it! Paul proclaimed Christ before two prefects, a king, and an emperor because of his arrest.” This is true, but God is capable of bringing good – even great good – out of the decisions his saints make even when they differ from the good he planned for them.
That last sentence, I guess, is as good a lesson to pull from this as any. But it may also be helpful to practice examining our assumptions in light of what the Scriptures actually say and to refuse to be dogmatic when the biblical text is not. It won’t hurt to remind ourselves that we – and possibly even our heroes – are not always right. God alone can claim that.
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