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TITLE: A Promise Kept | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lakella Davenport
12/07/23
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A Promise Kept

To plead means to beg or petition. According to the Oxford languages dictionary online to plead means to “make an emotional appeal.” Crying out is an emotional appeal. It is a form of pleading. There are many examples of pleading in the Bible beginning in the book of Genesis. Abraham pleaded with God to save Sodom. His final plea was: if “ten righteous people could be found there,” that God would not destroy the city of Sodom for the sake of the ten (Genesis 18:32). God agreed to Abraham’s plea. Hezekiah cries out to God in prayer pleading for his life, after the prophet Isaiah told him he will die from his sickness. God hears Hezekiah’s plea and grants him fifteen more years of life here on earth (2 Kings 20: 1-6).

An amazing story that involves the use of pleading to gain favor occurs in Acts chapters twenty-one through 28. In Acts chapter 21, Paul and those with him sailed to Caesarea. “Caesarea is a Roman-era city on the mediterranean coast of Israel, south of Haifa, with a history of trade, culture, and religion,” (Encyclopedia Britannica online). Once in Caesarea the Apostle Paul is warned by the Spirit of the Lord to not go up to Jerusalem (to spread the good news) (Acts 21:4). He was warned a second time by the prophet Agabus “who came down from Judea, not to go up to Jerusalem,” (Acts 21: 10-12). “Now when we had heard this, both we and the local residents began pleading with Paul trying to persuade him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul replied, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart like this? For I am ready not only to be bound and imprisoned, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus,” (Acts 21: 12-13 Amplified Bible). “And since he would not be dissuaded, we stopped pleading and fell silent, saying, “The Lord’s will be done:” (Acts 21:14 Amplified Bible).

Paul decides to go to Jerusalem anyway to spread the good news (Acts 21:15). Along with Paul, were other disciples, and “certain disciples of Caesarea,” also followed Paul to Jerusalem (Acts 21:16). At first things were going well for the Apostle Paul and the disciples and others who were with him (Acts 21:17). The elders of the church of Jerusalem, instructed Paul to purify himself along with “4 other men who had taken a vow,” to prove that he was a keeper of the law given by Moses (Act 21:24). The elders let Paul know that others were saying that he was teaching “all the Jews which are among the Gentiles,” things against what Moses taught in the law, “saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither walk after the customs,” (Acts 21:21). Paul purified himself and the others like the elders instructed him. However, on the seventh day, “the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, “crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place,” (Acts 21: 26-28). The people ran together and took Paul and threw him out of the temple. They planned to kill the Apostle Paul (Acts 21:30-31). The people beat Paul. When word got out to the chief captain about Paul causing an uproar within the “whole of Jerusalem,” the chief captain came to Paul. When those beating Paul “saw the chief captain and the soldiers they left beating Paul,” (Acts 21: 31-32). Then the chief captain took Paul away from them. He “bound Paul with two chains; and demanded who he was and what he had done,” (Acts 21:33).

In summary the Apostle Paul pleads for his life starting in the latter part of Acts chapter 21 all the way through to the last chapter of Acts 28, by giving his testimony on how Jesus saved him. God promised that he would get to witness not only in Jerusalem but in Rome as well because of Paul’s faithfulness to Christ in the face of death (Acts 23:11). “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house […] Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him,” (Acts 28:31).

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