Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 20:23

"save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me." — Acts 20:23 (ASV)

The second section of Paul’s address concerns his plans to go to Jerusalem. Many have claimed a discrepancy between his being “compelled by the Spirit” to go to Jerusalem (vv.22–24) and his later being warned by the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem in 21:4, 10–14. But Luke opened Panel 6 of Acts with the statement that Paul’s decision to go to Jerusalem was “by the Spirit” (cf. comment on 19:21), and nothing here is incompatible with that programmatic statement. Both compulsion and warning were evidently involved in the Spirit’s direction, with both being impressed upon Paul by the Spirit at various times as he journeyed—probably through Christian prophets he met along the way. Nothing would keep him from completing his ministry of testifying to the grace of God throughout the eastern part of the empire by taking to the Jerusalem believers the money sent by Gentile believers in Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia .