August 31, 2023 | Be On Mission
Paul is Given Permission to Speak to Crowd
Scripture: Acts 21:37-40 (NIV)
37 As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, “May I say something to you?”
“Do you speak Greek?” he replied. 38 “Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the wilderness some time ago?”
39 Paul answered, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people.”
40 After receiving the commander’s permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic:
Devotional
Paul was arrested by people who didn’t even know who he was. The commander thought that Paul was an Egyptian who had led a mob of people to attack Jerusalem three years earlier. When Paul spoke Greek instead of Egyptian to the Roman commander, he was startled. Paul told the man that he was a Jew, meaning that he should be allowed to speak to his Jewish accusers. He also told the man that he was from Tarsus, a very significant city in the Roman Empire.
In tomorrow’s reading we will look at the content of Paul’s speech to the crowd. But for now, let’s reflect on how Paul used all of his background and credentials to give him a little leverage in such a difficult position. As a Roman citizen, he spoke Greek to the Roman commander. As a Jewish person, he spoke Aramaic (the common language of the Jews at that time) to the Jewish confronters. His Roman citizenship gave him rights and privilege afforded to everyone who was officially recognized in the Roman Empire. His Hebrew heritage afforded him an audience with the otherwise hostile Jewish crowd.
In earlier times, Paul had been a Pharisee, one of the leading and most respected religious parties of the Jewish people. In more recent times, he had been a world traveler, traversing much of the Greco-Roman world as an evangelist to the Gentiles. He kept most Jewish customs, and usually ministered to in the Jewish synagogues first. But he fought against forced circumcision as an unnecessary step toward receiving salvation by faith in Christ.
Think about your own call to “Be on Mission” where you live, work, learn and play. Each of the spaces where you carry out your life has a different “culture” with a different “language.” What are some of the differences between the various arenas in which you live? What kinds of interaction would most effectively reach people in your neighborhood? What about where you work or go to school? How about in your social spaces where you relax and have fun?
In 1 Corinthians 9:20-22, Paul wrote, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews…. To those not having the law [Gentiles] I became like one not having the law…, so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”
How can you adjust your approach in order to be a witness in the various aspects of where you live your life?
Poem
Do You Understand Me?
Do you understand me?
Am I speaking in your tongue?
Do we know each other’s culture?
Have you judged me, said, “You’re wrong!”?
Do I need to speak more clearly?
Is there near a better place
Where we might discuss this calmly
And thus end this great disgrace
Of the fighting and the killing
Of the meanness and the mad?
I would like to be a listener
I would like to understand
But I’d also like to share now
All the truth God’s shown to me
Can I please just have a moment
Before you just disagree?
