Anti-Semitism? Or Anti-Gentilism?

Acts 21:37-22:22

 

    As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, "May I say something to you?"

    "Do you speak Greek?" he replied. "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"

 

    Paul answered, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people."

 

    Having received the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic: "Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense."

 

    When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.

    Then Paul said: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

 

    "About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, `Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'

 

    " `Who are you, Lord?' I asked.

    " `I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

 

    " `What shall I do, Lord?' I asked.

    " `Get up,' the Lord said, `and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.' My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

 

    "A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, `Brother Saul, receive your sight!' And at that very moment I was able to see him.

 

    "Then he said: `The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.'

 

    "When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. `Quick!' he said to me. `Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.'

 

    " `Lord,' I replied, `these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.'

 

    "Then the Lord said to me, `Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.' "

 

    The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!"

 

I hate it when Christians are accused of anti-Semitism. We believe in a Jew, for goodness sake!

 

Of course, there have been believers with misguided hearts who have been anti-Semitic. But it was not this way from the beginning. Look at Paul!

 

Paul was in Jerusalem, trying to show the Jews how much he loved them. In the midst of this, they drag him from the temple and beat him, intending to kill him. This Jewish believer was rescued from the hands of the Jews only because a Gentile army commander intervened.

 

But as the Roman forces pulled Paul to safety, he still wanted to reconcile with the Jews. Paul loved the Jews enough to seek peace, even in those moments right after they had tried to beat him to death!

 

Everything Paul said to the Jews that day affirmed that he cared for them. “I am a Jew” (22:3), “brought up in this city” (22:3), “I persecuted the followers of this Way” (22:4), “Who are you, Lord?” (22:8), “What shall I do, Lord?” (22:9), “‘Get up,’ the Lord said” (22:9), “he was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there” (22:12), “The God of our fathers” (22:14), “wash your sins away, calling on his name” (22:16), “I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple” (22:17), and “‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these men know…’ (Acts 22:19-20). Paul identified with the Jews, and even appealed to God to stay among them.

 

It was God who sent Paul to the Gentiles. Paul didn’t go to them on his own initiative. And God wasn’t anti-Semitic.

 

I find it enlightening that the Jews were willing to listen to Paul as he told them that Jesus was their Christ. They were willing to listen as he told them that their God directed Paul away from Jerusalem because they, the Jews, would not accept Paul’s testimony. They stopped listening when Paul said that their God sent him to the Gentiles.

 

From the beginning of Christianity, it was not the Christians who rejected the Jews; it was the Jews who rejected the Christians. They rejected the Christians largely because Christ opened heaven’s doors to Gentiles (though they had been rejecting their Jewish Christ already). Even today, our thoughts and prayers for the Jews should be inclusive. We should pray that they will follow their own God and join us in His kingdom, and that hatred of the Gentiles will no longer keep them out.

 

Father, please bring the Jews to Your Son Jesus Christ! And please help Christians not to be angry with them for rejecting us so often. Help us to keep hoping for them and loving them. Help us to be thankful for them as a people through whom You have come to us. May there truly be “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). May that peace extend to as many as possible, Gentile and Jew.