Articles
Be of Good Cheer, Paul
Paul’s worst fears had been realized. He had asked the Christians in Rome to pray for his successful return to Jerusalem with the benevolent offerings of the Gentile believers for their Jewish brethren (Rom 15:30-32). Under threat of assassination (Ac 20:3), carrying a large sum of money in tandem with representatives chosen by the churches (Ac 20:4; cf. 2 Cor 8:19-21), unsure whether the Jewish disciples in Jerusalem would accept the largesse of the Gentiles and being warned by brethren in Tyre and Caesarea that trouble lay ahead (Ac 21:4, 10-14), Paul forged ahead to Jerusalem with the contribution.
To his relief the alms were accepted, and at first his presence in Jerusalem was uneventful. But then everything exploded into chaos, and Paul was nearly beaten to death by a Jewish mob who assumed he defiled the temple by bringing a Gentile, the Ephesian Trophimus, into it (Ac 21:27-32). (Mobs, both in Bible history and modern times, are the result of irrationality, emotional fervor, blind bias, violence and vengeance. We would do well to avoid them both in the context of political uprising and congregational discord.)
As Paul is rescued by the Roman Commander Claudius Lysias, he asks to address the vicious rabble that just tried to kill him. To Paul’s credit, his zeal for his misguided brethren overcomes any resentment over his treatment, and he vainly tries to make sense to the unhinged crowd (Ac 21:39-22:24). It didn’t go well, for when Paul mentioned his commission to take the gospel to the Gentiles the crowd went berserk. Taken inside the fortress for further interrogation, Paul narrowly escapes a potentially fatal scourging by invoking his Roman citizenship (22:25-29). The warnings of the Holy Spirit via Agabus and others are coming to pass.
The following day Lysias convenes a hearing with Paul and the Jewish Sanhedrin to investigate the cause of the uprising (Ac 22:30-23:10). This, too, falls apart almost immediately when Paul affirms that his contradictory actions – first as a persecutor of Christianity, then as a proponent – were done “in all good conscience” (23:1). The high priest’s directive to strike Paul made it clear that no justice would come out of this conference, and Paul apparently short-circuits the proceedings by declaring, “Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!” (23:6). It seems likely that Paul, intimately familiar with the mindset of the various Jewish factions, knew that this would disrupt the gathering. And so it did: “And when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them, and bring him into the barracks” (23:10).
In the midst of such a maelstrom, “The following night the Lord stood by him and said, ‘Be of good cheer, Paul; for as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome’” (Ac 23:11). Several things are noteworthy about this exhortation of Jesus:
Ø The Lord’s direct revelations to Paul were infrequent. We may assume that God’s direct interaction with the greats of the OT (Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc.) and Jesus’ direct revelations to Paul, Peter and John (as we know more detail about them than the others) were more frequent than they actually were. In Paul’s case, other direct messages include the warning to flee Jerusalem (Ac 22:17-21); the Holy Spirit’s routing during the second tour (Ac 16:6-7); the vision of the Macedonian (16:9); the assurance of safety while in Corinth (18:9-10); the Lord’s refusal to remove his thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:9); and, of course, the Lord’s initial appearance to Paul at his conversion (Ac 9:3-6).
In the present case it seems that Paul needs encouragement after what has transpired (and he’s not out of the woods yet as a Jewish hit squad vowed to “neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” – 23:12). So Jesus gives Paul what he needs when he needs it and without elaboration.
Ø Five years of prison, malfeasance of justice, shipwreck and trial before Nero lie ahead. These things are detailed in Acts 24-28. The Lord has a plan that reaches a crescendo with Paul, the great apostle and envoy of Jesus, standing before Nero, the supreme ruler of his generation. This is a microcosm of a bigger battle, one that originates in an unseen world and which pits the forces of darkness and evil, Satan and his demons, against Christ and His saints. Truth and lie, doctrine and error, purity and defilement, love and hatred, peace and violence clash mightily on Earth, temporal manifestations of ethereal powers at war. And Paul plays a pivotal role in this clash of titans as the apostle to the Gentiles, “a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel … to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Ac 9:15; 26:18).
Ø The Lord tells Paul to “be of good cheer.” What?! Shouldn’t He have said, “Gird up your loins, Paul, this is going to be brutal!” Or, “Get your affairs in order, for you are going to be incarcerated for the next few years.” Or, “You’re going to need some serious PTSD counseling when this whole thing is over.” No, none of that; simply “be of good cheer.”
In other references this Greek word (tharseo) applies to those desperate for healing; to the apostles when frightened as Jesus walks to them on the Sea of Galilee; to the apostles as they are filled with trepidation because of what Jesus says to them concerning His departure. God is fully aware that not only does life randomly put us in situations of great anxiety and/or suffering, but sometimes He Himself places us there. Paul is the Lord’ servant, and the work He calls on Paul to do is not a proverbial bed of roses. More precisely, it is a tract of thorns and thistles – of jail cells; of arduous treks; crooked judicial hearings; the slanderous invective of profane mobs; physical beatings; shipwrecks and more (cf. 2 Cor 11:24-33).
But how is one to be “of good cheer” or happily courageous amid such abuse? Because God knows what He calls us to; because He will not allow us to be overcome by evil (Rom 8:33-36); because others of faith like Paul, Peter, John, etc. endured such before us and showed that it can be done; because we will win in the end (Rom 8:37-39). Make no mistake: God sets the bar very high for His faithful ones, and He will sustain us. It is up to us to be willing servants of good cheer.
