Although Paul tried to become as a Jew to the Jews and as a Gentile to the Gentiles, the Lord did not allow him to compromise. It was a serious thing for him to participate in that vow. It jeopardized God’s New Testament economy to the uttermost. This is the reason that after Paul stayed with the four men in the temple for six days, while waiting for the priests to come on the seventh day as the Nazarite vow was concluding, a riot suddenly broke out. Some Jews from Asia saw Paul in the temple, and they stirred up the crowd to seize him (Acts 21:27-30). Outwardly, it was the rioters who seized Paul. Actually, in God’s eyes, it was a rescue to Paul.
I believe that while Paul was staying in the temple for nearly seven consecutive days, he was both ashamed and disgusted with the whole affair, yet he dared not express himself. He did not know what to do. It is very possible that he prayed desperately: “Lord, save me from this troubling situation. I have told others in the books of Romans and Galatians that Christ is the end of the law and that I have died to the law and have nothing to do with it anymore. I have said this so clearly. Even the ink of my writing may still be wet. How can I now go back to offer a sacrifice and keep the law? It is true that I have determined to become as a Jew among the Jews, but I will not remain in the Jewish land for long. I have to go to the Gentile lands to work. By then the news will have spread to these Gentile lands. The Gentile believers will ask me, ‘Paul, what have you done? What happened to you? Your action did not match your word! We have been reading your Epistles. How are you going to explain to us what you have done? Why did you go back to Jerusalem to keep the ordinances of the law? How are you going to justify yourself?’” It is very possible that Paul prayed, “Lord, rescue me out of this troubling situation!” The Lord used the riot and rescued him in this way.
To the Jews, the reason for the riot was to kill Paul, but God in His sovereignty protected him. The news of the riot reached the commander of the cohort (v. 31). Immediately he brought soldiers to rescue Paul out of the hand of the Jews and keep him in custody. This was a big protection to Paul. It not only saved his life from the persecuting hands of the Jews, but it saved him from the peril of tearing down God’s New Testament economy. In the end, Paul did not complete the Nazarite vow. This spared the church completely from the havoc of Judaism, but at the same time it also terminated the first part of Paul’s ministry.
We have already covered this matter in detail in the Life-study of Acts (see Messages 56 to 59). The events in Jerusalem eventually brought Paul to Caesarea. There he was kept for about two years. No doubt those two years were a very profitable and excellent time for Paul. They afforded him the peace to reconsider everything. In his prison he was separated from all the hindrances, distractions, frustrations, and influences. He surely would have realized that his going up to Jerusalem was a big mistake. Such pondering must have brought him under an open sky.
Actually, after the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15, Paul’s spirit was already quite troubled. He was not at peace concerning the situation in the church in Jerusalem. He must have been clear that the church in Jerusalem was in an ambiguous situation. It was not absolute for God’s New Testament economy, and it contained a strong mixture of Old Testament elements. Jewish and Christian influences were all mixed up together. He could not have been at peace regarding it. Because his burden was so heavy, he was not able to forget about Jerusalem even during the third journey of his ministry. This must be the reason that in 19:21 Paul purposed in his spirit to go to Jerusalem. I believe he had a strong desire to go to fellowship with James and to deal with the matter of the mixture. Little did he realize that not only would he not be able to fellowship much with James, but he would be forced into an embarrassing situation by James and the elders in Jerusalem. In the end he was subdued by James and fell into his trap.
However, God did not allow the situation to continue this way. His hand came in to intervene. First, He rescued Paul out of the mixture of the church in Jerusalem. At the same time, He rescued him out of the hands of the Jews who sought to kill him. In the end, Paul was kept in custody under the hands of the Romans and was isolated from the disturbance and riot. He remained in prison in Caesarea for two years. This afforded him a period of quiet reflection. It prepared him to write the last few Epistles, especially the Epistle to the Ephesians. Two years later, he appealed to Caesar. This brought him to Rome, where he remained in prison for another two years. During that period he wrote the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. The thought in these three books is very deep. Such a thought had not been in him before he was put into prison. Neither had he ever written anything concerning it before this time. In these three books he unveiled God’s economy, which concerns God’s dispensing of Himself in His Divine Trinity into His chosen people in order that they may gain Christ, who is the Triune God Himself, for the producing of the members of Christ, to be constituted as the organic Body of Christ to be the church of the living God to manifest Him.
From the time of Acts 20 Paul was very concerned regarding the condition of the church in Ephesus. This is the reason that he wrote to the church in Ephesus even while he was in prison, revealing to them God’s economy, which is God’s working Himself through His Divine Trinity into man, in order that man would enjoy the riches of Christ to become His members and be constituted into the Body of Christ for the manifestation of the Triune God. This is the central vision of God in the entire Bible. It is the consummating vision in both the Old and New Testaments. Later Paul was released from the Roman prison. He passed through Macedonia and wrote the first Epistle to Timothy, telling Timothy that some in Ephesus had a problem. He told Timothy to remain in Ephesus to charge them not to teach anything different from God’s economy. This is the entire background of the writing of the first Epistle to Timothy.