What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.
The saying belongs to the account of Paul as a prisoner at Jerusalem, spoken the day after his glad reception by the brethren on his arrival, when he went in to James where all the elders were present. At that meeting Paul and his companions presented the gifts of the Gentile churches for the poor Jewish believers, and after hearing his account of his work the leading men of the Jerusalem church spoke these words to him. The words mean that the people would certainly hear that Paul had arrived and gather together in response, making his presence a public matter that had to be addressed publicly.
The multitude in view was thousands of believing Jews who were zealous for the law and had been informed by Paul's enemies that he taught all the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk after the customs. The leaders raised the expected gathering because those false reports had stirred suspicion and prejudice, and they were seeking a way to quiet the reaction. Although the brethren had received Paul gladly and some hearts were open to receive the glad tidings he brought and loved him for Christ and the truth, he still faced prejudice, envy, and jealousy on every side and remained anxious about the attitude of the Jerusalem church toward himself and his work.
Instead of frankly confessing that God had wrought through Paul and standing in his defense to show the disaffected party their error, the elders held him responsible for the existing prejudice as though he had given cause for it and laid the burden wholly upon him to remove the misapprehension. To remove it they counseled him to take four men who had a vow upon them, purify himself with them, and pay their charges for shaving their heads, so that all might know the reports were nothing and that he himself walked orderly and kept the law. They hoped this act would give a decisive contradiction to the false reports, while assuring him that the decision of the former council concerning Gentile converts still held good, that Gentiles were to observe no such thing except to keep themselves from things offered to idols and from blood and from what was strangled and from fornication. That counsel was not consistent with that decision sanctioned by the Holy Spirit, was not prompted by the Spirit of God, but was the fruit of cowardice to avoid hatred and severe persecution from unbelieving Jews and the Sanhedrin if believers were condemned as breakers of the law.
The saying belongs to the account of Paul as a prisoner at Jerusalem, spoken the day after his glad reception by the brethren on his arrival, when he went in to James where all the elders were present. At that meeting Paul and his companions presented the gifts of the Gentile churches for the poor Jewish believers, and after hearing his account of his work the leading men of the Jerusalem church spoke these words to him. The words mean that the people would certainly hear that Paul had arrived and gather together in response, making his presence a public matter that had to be addressed publicly.
The multitude in view was thousands of believing Jews who were zealous for the law and had been informed by Paul's enemies that he taught all the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk after the customs. The leaders raised the expected gathering because those false reports had stirred suspicion and prejudice, and they were seeking a way to quiet the reaction. Although the brethren had received Paul gladly and some hearts were open to receive the glad tidings he brought and loved him for Christ and the truth, he still faced prejudice, envy, and jealousy on every side and remained anxious about the attitude of the Jerusalem church toward himself and his work.
Instead of frankly confessing that God had wrought through Paul and standing in his defense to show the disaffected party their error, the elders held him responsible for the existing prejudice as though he had given cause for it and laid the burden wholly upon him to remove the misapprehension. To remove it they counseled him to take four men who had a vow upon them, purify himself with them, and pay their charges for shaving their heads, so that all might know the reports were nothing and that he himself walked orderly and kept the law. They hoped this act would give a decisive contradiction to the false reports, while assuring him that the decision of the former council concerning Gentile converts still held good, that Gentiles were to observe no such thing except to keep themselves from things offered to idols and from blood and from what was strangled and from fornication. That counsel was not consistent with that decision sanctioned by the Holy Spirit, was not prompted by the Spirit of God, but was the fruit of cowardice to avoid hatred and severe persecution from unbelieving Jews and the Sanhedrin if believers were condemned as breakers of the law.