Take a moment to read Acts 21:1-36 before reading the devotional below.
You know how everything makes more sense with hindsight? Now imagine that your foresight were as good as your hindsight. You would have knowledge in advance that could guide your decision making. That is the role of prophecy for followers of Jesus. In today’s passage, we see that Paul receives a prophetic word that confirms what he had already received from God himself: he is about to suffer and be put in jail.
The description of Paul’s decision making based on the prophetic words in this passage reminds me of the way that Jesus himself intentionally walked towards the cross. He knew his death was imminent and this knowledge actually caused him to walk into the situation confident that this was the time to complete his mission. In this story, the other believers want to act on the prophetic knowledge in the opposite direction — they beg Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
Paul and the other believers all shared the same faith — they believed in the accuracy of the prophetic word from God about Paul’s upcoming suffering. The group of believers that urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem in light of that prophecy were reacting to supernatural knowledge in fear. Paul responded with boldness and determination. Paul had a choice about how far he was willing to follow Jesus. He could have agreed with the other believers and stayed put. But his conviction to act as Jesus had and walk towards suffering and possible death led him to press on even in the face of danger. God was not forcing that on Paul — it was his choice to follow Jesus way past the lines of safety into the unknown.