Back On Hamster Wheel Of Sacrifice? S5e135 Acts21:24

4 guys are in the middle of a vow to the Lord that is lengthy, expensive, complicated, and confusing.  They are wrestling with the big question of "What will you do about your SIN?" Less so, what is our relationship with the charges of the Old Testament, especially if we are of the Jewish people? 
New school: It is all about Jesus. Once. For All. For all time. 
Old school: substitutionary animal sacrifice.  This was to point everybody to the fact that it was temporary, inadequate and frustrating.  Never enough. As soon as you are done you need to start over. Not sufficient.  All of it is just a reminder that WE NEED A SAVIOR.  

So why does Paul seem to compromise, or at least endorse their efforts? Some possibilities:
1. It is his plea that we should go back on the hamster wheel of animal sacrifice and wholly reject the finished work of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.  If so, we should all be taking Nazarite vows every day for forever. NO. This isn't it. Galatians, 1 &2 Corinthians, and 1&2 Thessalonians and ROMANS has already been written, by Paul, clarifying his theology.
2. Paul is just in error.  He wouldn't be the first person, or congregation, or teacher, or disciple, or Apostle to be wrong just in the book of Acts. I don't think this is it either.
3. Paul is bending to the Jewish Christians a bit, to win them.  Or at least to keep winning them. Here is what he says in 1 Cor 9:20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  bewithme.us Google, Spotify, Deezer, apple podcasts.

Transcript

Michael Smith: 0:00

Good morning, my brothers and sisters, welcome to episode 135 of be with me. Today we're going to talk about something that's actually pretty darn confusing. And it's at Paul is landing his plane, if you will back in Jerusalem. This is the very, very end of the third missionary journey and it's before the fourth missionary journey where it goes off to Rome. So this is that in between time. This is from Acts chapter 21 Verse 17, first sentences happy and then it gets confusing after that. Here's the first sentence. Verse 1721 17, when we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. Alright, so far, so good. Verse 18. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, that guy's the brother of Jesus. And he's an apostle and the pillar of the church. And then this other class of people that's mentioned now, and all the elders were present. And after greeting them, he related Paul related button by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry, and when they heard it, they glorify God. And they said to him, you see, Brother, how many 1000s there are among the Jews, of those who have believed. So we're talking about the mixture, if you will, of Jewish believers, and Gentile believers, and we're talking about the complexity of joining those two people groups, which have been separated spiritually forever, joining them into the new body of Christ. So then the elders tell us just a little bit about the Jewish half of that group. And they say, verse 20, they are all zealous for the law, which is not a bad thing. But your course you want to be zealous for the Lord of the law. More so verse 21. And they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. So they're describing the Jewish elders are describing a partially true, but also a misperception of Paul's position on Old Testament rites and rituals. Remember, he is the one that had Timothy circumcised, and chapter 16, as they were going to enter Jewish areas. So then they come up with a solution, what then is to be done, they will certainly hear that you have come do therefore what we tell you. This is the elders telling Paul, we have four men who are under a vow, take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. That wraps up the vowel. I'll talk about that in a second. That's all we'll know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself, also live in observance of the law. Which I think Paul does not do least by what they define this as. So the vow they're talking about comes from Numbers chapter six. It's a whole chapter about what what being a Nazirite vow person is all about. Now, my first thought was, I thought Nazareth, men from Nazareth. It's not it's a it's a process that people go through civilians, not the not the, the priest. It's a process that civilians go through. That is complicated, confusing, public, time consuming, involving diet, haircuts, a lots of money, sacrifice, location, appearance, basically what it is, it's man's attempt. It's God's process. So God invented this, this isn't a man thing. God invented this Old Testament, why wise, to make men holy, so that they could come before the Lord. So it separates people unto the Lord. And in involved at the end of it, after a good bit of time, 30 days often gifts which included a lamb, and a ewe, lamb, and a ram, and bread loaves and bread wafers, and then finally, actually like a sacrifice of your own hair. So the idea is there's a burnt offering, there's a sin offering, because people are sinful. There's Peace with God which is necessary. It only comes through death and sacrifice. And so that's why all these lambs and rams are involved. And it is, if you read it, it's actually I was frustrated by the sacrificial process. It just emphasizes the inadequacy, the shadow of the sacrificial process, when now, at the time of this writing, there is the real thing, what's the real thing? It's the Lord, it's Jesus. And if all this stuff still works, sacrificing sacrificing lambs, then Jesus dies for nothing. It's actually like a repudiation, a rejection of all that Jesus has done if we have to go back to this. And we basically are saying, hey, Jesus just can't do it. If we have to put all these resources and attention, attention for this temporary, inadequate, frustrating thing. It really says that, that either Jesus didn't do it, but in my mind, what it does is it points us to a Savior, the one who by faith, and by his works, and his perfect sacrifice. So it is asking this huge question is what will you do about your sin? Are we going to get back on the hamster wheel of continual inadequate temporary sacrifices? Or are we going to get on the the freight train of Jesus where our sins are crushed? Now? The answer here is like, Why would my big question is, why would Paul allow this, either Paul was theologically has made a wrong decision and was wrong to join these people and pay their considerable expenses to kind of finish this vow up. Or he was recommending a doctrine that was going to go on forever, and we don't follow it today. So I don't think that's even a possibility. None of us are taking azurite vows today, or this was a one time alignment, sort of a situational thing where he is allowing himself to be associated with the Jewish group to sort of make a harmonious juncture of the Jewish believers in the Gentile believers, kind of like you did with Tim Timothy's circumcision. I do not think that Paul ended up living in observance of the law, quote, unquote, because Paul is under a new law. And the point is, is what what law are we going to be zealous for? Are we going to zealous for the Old Testament law? Are we going to be zealous for the Lord of the Old Testament law? And I think, what is our relationship as New Testament believers with the Old Testament law? I think that is what Paul is addressing by allowing himself in association. I'll see you tomorrow.