Topic(s): Bible Authority, Evangelism

Bob Prichard

Luke, the Gentile Christian writer, records an unusual incident in the life of Paul, after he completed his eighteen-month ministry at Corinth. “And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow” (Acts 18:18). Although the original language of the verse could possibly make the taking of the vow apply to Aquila, the more natural sense is to take it as applying to Paul. But why would Paul, knowing the Christian freedom from the law, take a vow?

Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:1-4). He says the man who is bound to keeping part of the law becomes debtor to keep the whole law, making the sacrifice of Christ of no effect.

Paul, as well as other leaders of the early church, made it clear that Gentiles (non-Jews) were not bound to keep the Law of Moses. The council at Jerusalem decreed just four things that Gentile Christians must do to avoid offending their Jewish brethren and God: “That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication” (Acts 15:29). Paul refused to have Titus, a Gentile Christian circumcised (Galatians 5:3), knowing that the Jewish law did not bind Titus. Paul taught that Gentiles did not have to become Jews and they did not have to obey the Jewish laws after becoming Christians. At the same time, however, Paul was born as a Jew, and continued to be a man of Jewish heritage. He steadfastly refused to bind the keeping of the Jewish law on his Christian brethren, but apparently continued to keep some parts of Judaism, for his own personal spiritual benefit, as we find in Acts 18:18.

The vow described here appears to be a temporary Nazarite vow, undertaken either as a consecration to serve God, or more likely here as thanksgiving for the Lord’s help and care. The Nazarite vow, introduced in Numbers 6:1-21, meant a person chose to separate himself from normal life to assume a high priestly type life. The person under the vow had to avoid ceremonial defilement from a dead body, to avoid wine or strong drink, and stop cutting the hair. Normally the hair was cut and offered in sacrifice in the temple at the end of the vow. Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist are the only Bible characters who were Nazarites for life.

Paul’s utmost desire was to reach the world with the gospel. For that reason he agreed later to pay the sacrifice expenses for four men who had taken a vow (Acts 21:23). He wrote, “Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law” (1 Corinthians 9:20.) He also led the way as the apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 15:16).