Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 21:4

"And having found the disciples, we tarried there seven days: and these said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not set foot in Jerusalem." — Acts 21:4 (ASV)

And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days.—The word for “finding” implies a previous search. They inquired, when they landed, among the crowded streets of the still busy port, whether any Christians were to be found there. It will be remembered that St. Paul had passed through that region at least once before (See Note on Acts 15:3). The church had probably been planted by the labors of Philip, as the Evangelist of Caesarea. It is clear that the believers there were prepared to welcome St. Paul and his companions, and showed a warm interest in their welfare.

The “seven days’” stay, as at Troas (see Note on Acts 20:6), and afterwards at Puteoli (Acts 28:14), was obviously for the purpose of attending one, or possibly more than one, meeting of the church for the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day. The utterances through the Spirit implied the exercise of prophetic gifts at such a meeting.

It seems, at first, somewhat startling that St. Paul should reject what is described as an inspired counsel; or, if we believe him also to have been guided by the Spirit, that the two inspirations should thus clash.

We remember, however, that men received the Spirit by measure, and the prophets of the churches at Tyre, as elsewhere (Acts 20:23), though foreseeing the danger to which the Apostle was exposed, might yet be lacking in that higher inspiration which guided the decision of the Apostle, and which he himself defines as the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

This is, it is believed, a much more adequate explanation than that which sees in the Apostle’s conduct a somewhat self-willed adherence to his own human purpose, and finds a chastisement for that self-will in the long delay and imprisonment that followed on the slighted warnings.

He was right, we may boldly say, to go to Jerusalem in spite of consequences. The repeated warnings are, however, an indication of the great bitterness of feeling with which the Judaizers and unbelieving Jews were known to be animated against him.