Micha 4-5
There will come a day when God will no longer tolerate the folly of men and their pursuit of everything but Him. He will reveal Himself in an indisputable way and all men will know their own folly. At that time ALL will know that God is God. But there will still be two camps.
On the one hand, “many nations shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths.’” (Mic 4:2a). And on the other hand, God says, “I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.” (Mic 5:15b). Yes, one day God will separate the wheat from the chaff and will set the wrong right. And I want to find myself, both then and now, in the camp that seeks to walk in the ways of the LORD.
Acts 21:18-40
It looks like Paul practiced here what he had preached to the Romans. Paul did not need to do what he was asked to do. But if subjecting himself to the law could help those weaker in the faith, he was certainly willing to do that. Did it help? We have no idea. What we do know is that some Jews from Asia who were hostile toward him spread lies about him and stirred up the other Jews against him. But maybe his actions helped somebody. The thing is, we have no control over others’ response to God or to us. All we can do is be humbly obedient to God and make an effort to not stand in the way of others who might be seeking Him.
I have to wonder about those believing Jews mentioned by James and the elders, though. Paul was told those Jews were all “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:21b). I wonder if their zeal for the law was greater than their zeal for God.