Vow

Today, Paul’s second missionary journey is going to come to an end. If you would like to catch up, there are links in the "archive" section to previous stories and there is a link in the “sites” section that will allow you to interactively track his journey.


Acts 18
18 Paul stayed in Corinth for some time after that, then said good-bye to the brothers and sisters and went to nearby Cenchrea. There he shaved his head according to Jewish custom, marking the end of a vow. Then he set sail for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. 19 They stopped first at the port of Ephesus, where Paul left the others behind. While he was there, he went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews. 20 They asked him to stay longer, but he declined. 21 As he left, however, he said, “I will come back later, God willing.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. 22 The next stop was at the port of Caesarea. From there he went up and visited the church at Jerusalem and then went back to Antioch.


Vow. I was really intrigued by the idea that Paul took a vow. So, I did some reading (check out Numbers 6:1-21 and Leviticus 27). The idea of a vow was to dedicate yourself to God for a period of time to either ask him for something or thank him for something. This particular vow (called a Nazarite vow) included three elements of dedication (not cutting your hair, not drinking alcohol and not coming into any sort of contact with a corpse). Somewhere in time, we have lost sight of opportunities like this to spiritually express our dedication to God. Personally, I am going to make a vow to revisit them.