Acts 21:22

What is it therefore? they will certainly hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say unto thee: We have four men that have a vow on them; these take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges for them, that they may shave their heads: and all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law.

It is true, of course, that Paul himself, as a Jew, kept many of the customs of Jews, in a patriotic sense, even shaving his head (apparently) (Acts 18:18) with regard to some kind of vow; but Paul's writings make it certain that he never regarded any such things as being related in any manner whatsoever to salvation in the name of Christ. Without doubt Paul's observance of such things made his entry into synagogues possible, and thus they had a certain practical utility in his teaching. "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews" (1 Corinthians 9:20). Still, one is aghast at James' proposal! Was it right for him to make such a proposition to Paul? and was it right for Paul to concur in it? This writer simply does not dare to offer a dogmatic answer. It is believed, of course, that both James and Paul did what, under the circumstances, they truly believed to be right; but evidently both of them were caught in a net of circumstances where anything they might have done would have had elements of error in it.

Be at charges for them ... What is indicated here is that James and the Jerusalem elders were proposing that part of the Gentile bounty raised for the "poor saints" would be diverted to the greedy priests in the "den of thieves and robbers," so vehemently condemned by the Christ himself. It appears that the absorption into the Jerusalem church of so many Pharisees (Acts 6:7; 15:5) had created a situation in which a Pharisaical party in the church itself was as busy as beavers grafting as much as possible of the law of Moses onto Christianity; and, although they had not yet gone so far as to insist on Gentiles keeping such things (the apostolic edict still stood against it, as in next verse), nevertheless, it is all too evident that they would soon have gotten around to that, or else have made Gentile Christianity an inferior brand of faith.

As Adam Clarke appropriately said:

However we may consider this subject, it is exceedingly difficult to account for the conduct of James and the elders, and of Paul on this occasion. There seems to be something in this transaction which we do not fully understand.[29]

The exact nature of the Nazarite vow, involved in this business, can be of very little interest to Christians. It is enough to know that certain sacrifices to be offered in the temple had to be provided and paid for; and that Paul consented to be "the fall guy." Some things had to be done by God himself before men could be righteous; and the denial of Peter the night the Lord was betrayed was due not so much to any unusual weakness in Peter, as to the fact that the enabling death of Christ had not then taken place. We view the unhappy situation here as beyond the control, either of James and the elders, or of Paul. The mighty undertow against true spirituality in Christ which was provided by the extravagantly beautiful, impressive, and even glorious temple was simply too much for the Jerusalem church, the entire epistle to the Hebrews giving evidence of the same fact; and, as the hour God had appointed for its destruction was yet future, the status of the church in Jerusalem continued to be far short of the ideal. Paul, without any sacrifice of principle, found his very liberty of thought used against him here in a manner that he found no means of avoiding. Even kings were "sucked in" by the pressures exerted by that temple crowd in Jerusalem.

Conybeare relates that not long before this, "Agrippa I had given the same public expression of his sympathy with the Jews, on his arrival from Rome to take possession of his throne."[30] No doubt James and the elders felt that what the king had done for popularity, Paul might do for the sake of peace and harmony; but in such a misunderstanding (on someone's part) there was a gross misreading of the relationship between the Jewish temple and the spiritual body of the Lord, which alone is the true temple. The entire venture was destined for a disastrous failure.

[29] Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane), Vol. V, p. 860.

[30] W. J. Conybeare, Life and Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publishers, 1964), p. 573.