Paul Goes To Jerusalem For The Last Time

To Jerusalem Paul set out to go,
After his third missionary campaign;
Luke, Timothy, and the rest said no---
From killing Paul, Jews could not refrain!
They well knew the church Paul was erecting
On God’s free grace would doom their yoke of law---
For Judaism to survive Paul’s wrecking,
Gentiles must be under Pharisees’ paw!
For that to take place, Psul must be shut up;
Jews were skilled at that---look how Jesus died!
Paul at the temple---riot would erupt---
In Roman hands, he would have to be tried!
Paul had more right in the temple to be
Than a Sanhedrin Jewish Pharisee!

The year was about 55 A. D., 23 years after the crucifiction, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul was ending his third missionary journey, having collected funds from the Gentile churches in Syria, Macedonia, and Greece for the poor Jewish church brothers in Jerusalem; he had established dozens of Gentile churches, and they were multiplying across Europe, Africa, and Asia; it was already too late to save Judaism from being superceded by Christianity, but the Jews didn’t know that.

Paul’s Jewish enemies came both from Judaism and even some Christian Jews, which were dominant in the Jerusalem church, but in no other. Both groups wanted to require Gentiles to follow the rules and traditions of Mosaic law practiced for 1400 years by Judaic Jews plus believing in Jesus Christ in order to become Christians. Paul was the problem for them. He insisted that their God, Yahweh, had intended His grace to be free to every person in the world from the beginning; that the rules under the law had never saved anyone and were not intended to; Israel had never understood Yahweh; and that Gentiles or Jews did not have to keep the law, but simply accept Jesus as Messiah and be saved by the grace of God. The Holy Spirit had warned Paul that Jews in every city wanted to kill him; at the same time the Spirit was urging Paul to go to Jerusalem once more, and for what reason he did not know. God knew; He wanted Paul to preach in Rome; that mission would begin in Jerusalem.

Now it was becoming clear why Christ had called Saul/Paul in the first place; the original eleven apostles were not able to break away from their Jewish roots and evangelize Gentiles wholeheartedly, but Saul/Paul was so knowledgeable in Hebrew Scripture and with the 3-year training period in Arabia, he had understood God’s intention of worldwide Christianity; thus, hls task was to clarify Yahweh’s offering of free grace to man for his simple but sincere acceptance of His Son Jesus as Christ, the Lord and King of the universe. To accept grace nullified the necessity of keeping the law---Paul was doing what had to be done---separate Christianity completely from Judaism---but on the other hand, the Jews knew or sensed what was happening, and wanted to stop Paul at any cost from doing what he had already accomplished.