Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me

Good morning. Paul and crew looked up the disciples and stayed there seven days. They kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem. This is the only place I can find that it seems like God was telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem; the other places seem to be peoples’ personal feelings. But then later Jesus speaks to Paul and seems to say he was supposed to go to Jerusalem. My Bible says that the total now is 36 days since Passover. They continued on in the boat and came to Caesarea. They entered the house of Philip the evangelist. He is the one who spoke to the Ethiopian Eunuch and then vanished. The last we saw of him, he was in Caesarea; so apparently he stayed there all these years. He was one of the seven original deacons, and is now known as an evangelist. He had four daughters who were prophetesses. As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He is the same one who had foretold the coming of a famine. He took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, this is what the Holy Spirit says: in this same way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. As a note: the Holy Spirit did not tell Paul not go to Jerusalem; He just told him that this is what will happen if he does. When we heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. The “we“ indicates that even Luke was urging him not to go. Before, it was just the people in the localities where they had stopped. I assume that it was the fact that it came through Agabus that drove home the reality that this would happen. Next time we will see how Paul responded. Father thank You that You even give us warning at times of what is to come, so that we will not be surprised. Help us to listen for and to heed Your warnings.