Acts 21:20,21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

When they heard it, they glorified the Lord The Lord Christ, for this wonderful demonstration of his presence and grace, with his servant; and said, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe Many of these, doubtless, had come from different parts of the country, and some, probably, from remote provinces to Jerusalem, on occasion of this feast. Well might our Lord compare his religion to a grain of mustard-seed, seeing it had spread so extensively in so short a time. Its beginning was small, the instruments employed in propagating it apparently mean, the prejudices and obstinacy of the Jews very great, and yet, in about twenty-eight or thirty years after the ascension, the number of those who had embraced it, and were at one time in the same city, is stated at many thousands, or rather myriads, (μυριαδες,) or ten thousands. And they are all zealous for the law For the whole Mosaic dispensation, as supposing it to be of perpetual obligation on all the Jewish nation, without excepting those that had embraced Christianity. And they are informed of thee Through the prejudice and falsehood of thine enemies; that thou teachest all the Jews to forsake Moses, &c. This, it appears, was a false charge brought against Paul. We have no proof that he taught the Jews to forbear circumcising their children, or to forsake the law of Moses. On the contrary, it seems, knowing that law to be the civil or political law of Judea, he always enjoined them to comply with its institutions, as the means of preserving their political rites and privileges, till Jerusalem should be destroyed, (which he foresaw it would be,) and their commonwealth dissolved; even as he enjoined the converted Gentiles to obey the good laws of the countries where they resided. What he really taught concerning the law of Moses was, that neither Jew nor Gentile could be saved by its institutions, which was the doctrine likewise of James, and of the elders, and of all the more intelligent members of the church at Jerusalem; as is implied in what James says, Acts 21:25; as touching the Gentiles which believe, we have concluded that they observe no such thing. For if the Gentiles did not need to observe the law of Moses, obedience thereto could not be necessary to the salvation of any person whatever.