The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Acts 21:8-11,
“Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, ‘The Holy Spirit says, “In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.”
We find that after leaving Ptolemais, Paul and company stayed at Philip’s home in Caesarea. We earlier met Philip in Acts 6 where he was chosen to help oversee the distribution of food to widows in the church. He later was instrumental in taking the gospel to Samaria in Acts 8. Here we read that he had four unmarried daughters who were prophetesses and presumably lived with him, as they were unmarried, in the same house Paul was staying in.
In this passage we also read of another prophet, Agabus, who came to Caesarea from Judea. It was this prophet who was used by the Holy Spirit to warn Paul of his impending arrest. Paul had previously been warned of this but at this time I note that rather than one of Philip’s daughters prophesying to Paul about it, or the Holy Spirit telling Paul directly, it was this man, Agabus, who prophesied to Paul about the matter. Why did the Holy Spirit send someone from Judea with this message? Why not just use someone already there in the house?
I’m sure there are details that are not provided in Luke’s account but one thing stands out to me: the Holy Spirit doesn’t just use anybody. He hand-selects certain individuals for specific tasks and uses them. I certainly can’t tell from the text why Agabus was used to bring the message to Paul, but I note that others, already there in the house, were available but not used. It brings to my mind that the Holy Spirit not only enables us to carry on his work through his special “gifting”, but he hand-selects specific individuals for specific tasks. And, it certainly doesn’t appear that efficiency or cost-savings are the top priority: the Holy Spirit has his reasons…
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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