Paul a Prisoner
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his defense, endeavoring to show the disaffected ones where they
were wrong, but sought to effect a compromise by counseling him
to pursue a course which in their opinion would remove all cause for
misapprehension.
“Thou seest, brother,” they said, in response to his testimony, “how
many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all
zealous of the law: and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all
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the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that
they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the
customs. What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together:
for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say
to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take,
and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they
may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof
they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself
also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. As touching the Gentiles
which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no
such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to
idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.”
The brethren hoped that Paul, by following the course suggested,
might give a decisive contradiction to the false reports concerning him.
They assured him that the decision of the former council concerning
the Gentile converts and the ceremonial law, still held good. But the
advice now given was not consistent with that decision. The Spirit of
God did not prompt this instruction; it was the fruit of cowardice. The
leaders of the church in Jerusalem knew that by non-conformity to the
ceremonial law, Christians would bring upon themselves the hatred of
the Jews and expose themselves to persecution. The Sanhedrin was
doing its utmost to hinder the progress of the gospel. Men were chosen
by this body to follow up the apostles, especially Paul, and in every
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possible way to oppose their work. Should the believers in Christ be
condemned before the Sanhedrin as breakers of the law, they would
suffer swift and severe punishment as apostates from the Jewish faith.
Many of the Jews who had accepted the gospel still cherished a
regard for the ceremonial law and were only too willing to make unwise
concessions, hoping thus to gain the confidence of their countrymen, to
remove their prejudice, and to win them to faith in Christ as the world’s
Redeemer. Paul realized that so long as many of the leading members