21:7 Ptolemais (Acco of the Old Testament and modern Acre located on the north side of the bay of Haifa) lay 20 miles south of Tyre. It was the southernmost Phoenician port. There Paul also met with the local Christians as stevedores unloaded and loaded his ship.
"The man who is within the family of the Church is better equipped with friends that [sic] any other man in all the world."838
21:8-9 Caesarea was 32 miles farther south, and Paul's party could have reached it by sea or by land. It was the capital of the province of Judea and the major port of Jerusalem. Philip may have settled in Caesarea after evangelizing the coastal plain of Palestine 20 years earlier (8:40; cf. 6:5).839His four daughters had the prophetic gift. According to early Church tradition, Philip and his daughters later moved to Hierapolis in Asia Minor. There these women imparted information about the early history of the Jerusalem church to Papias, a church father.840It seems unusual that Luke would refer to these daughters as prophetesses without mentioning anything they prophesied. Perhaps they gave him information as they did Papias.841
21:10-11 Agabus previously had come from Jerusalem to Antioch to foretell the famine of 46 A.D. (11:26-27). Now he came down to Caesarea and prophesied Paul's arrest in Jerusalem (cf. Mark 9:31; 10:33; John 21:18). He illustrated his prediction graphically as several Old Testament prophets had done (cf. 1 Kings 11:29-31; Isa. 20:2-4; Jer. 13:1-7; Ezek. 4). "This is what the Holy Spirit says,"is the Christian equivalent of the Old Testament, "Thus saith the Lord."His revelation came as no surprise to Paul, of course (v. 4; 9:16). Perhaps another reason Luke emphasized these prophecies was to prove to his readers that Paul's arrest and its consequences were part of God's foreordained will for the church's expansion (1:1-2; cf. Mark 10:33).
21:12 It seemed clearer all the time to Paul's companions and to the local Christians that Paul was going to be in great danger in Jerusalem. Consequently they tried to discourage him from proceeding.
21:13 From Paul's response to their entreaty, he seems not to have known whether his arrest would result in his death or not.
Why did Paul avoid the possibility of death in Corinth (20:3) but not here? Paul's purpose to deliver the collection and so strengthen the unity of the Gentile and Jewish believers would have failed if he had died on board a ship between Corinth and Jerusalem. However arrest in Jerusalem would not frustrate that purpose. For Paul, and eventually for his friends (v. 14), the Lord's will was more important than physical well-being (cf. Luke 22:42). He believed the Spirit wanted him to go to Jerusalem (19:21; 20:22) so he "set his face"to go there (cf. Luke 9:51).
"Paul, aware of the suffering and danger ahead, must make the same decision in Caesarea that Jesus made in the prayer scene before his crucifixion. In the prayer scene Jesus expressed the two options himself in internal debate: Take this cup from me; nevertheless, let not my will but yours be done' (Luke 22:42). In Paul's case his companions and friends express the option of escape and appeal to Paul to choose it. Paul chooses the other option. The conflict finally ends when Paul's friends recognize that they cannot persuade him and say, Let the will of the Lord be done' (21:14)."842
21:14 Unable to dissuade him, Paul's friends stopped urging him and committed the situation to the Lord.
"Perhaps he regarded Caesarea as his temptation and Gethsemane. If so, the congregation, catching the thought, echoed the garden prayer of Christ: The will of the Lord be done. . ."843
"Paul is recognized and welcomed in Tyre and Caesarea as he was at earlier stops on his trip, and the disciples in these places show great concern for Paul's safety. Widespread respect for Paul is also indicated by the attention that he receives from figures associated with the mission in its early days: Philip the evangelist (21:8), Agabus the prophet (21:10; cf. 11:28), and Mnason, an early disciple' (21:16)."844
Christians have developed a respect for Paul that is second only to Jesus Christ over more than 19 centuries of church history. However when Luke wrote Acts, Paul was a very controversial figure in the church. Luke seems to have gone out of his way to put Paul in the best possible light so his original readers would accept and appreciate his ministry.
