Acts 24:17

Acts 24:17. Now after many years I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings. The Greek word πλειο ́ νων, translated ‘many,' rather signifies ‘several.' Some four years had elapsed since the apostle's last visit to the Holy City (chap, Acts 18:22). The ‘alms' here alluded to were those sums of money Paul and his companions (notably Titus the Gentile) had been collecting for a long time past with vast pains in the churches of Macedonia and Achaia for the relief of the impoverished church of Jerusalem. Here, and here only in this casual way, do we find a mention of this generous work of which we hear so much in the epistles of St. Paul written in this period of his life. Paley (Horæ Paulina) calls attention to this as to one of the more striking of those ‘undesigned coincidences' which exist between the ‘Epistles' and the ‘Acts,' and which furnish us with an independent but at the same time most powerful proof of the credibility of the New Testament writers. The ‘offerings' (προσφορα ́ ς) which he also came to bring were for the temple and its services: they included the usual sacrifices customary at the feast of Pentecost, and also those special contributions which were part of the Nazarite's vow (chap. Acts 21:23-26). Paul is here replying to the third charge alleged by the advocate Tertullus, viz. that he attempted to profane the temple; so he mentions what brought him at that Pentecost feast to Jerusalem a strange purpose indeed for one intending to do dishonour to the holy house on Mount Zion! He came to show his love to his people, the suffering Jewish Christians of the Holy City, bringing them alms painfully and wearily gathered from many a poor and struggling foreign Gentile congregation, and at the same time to worship in the ancient temple of his God, while he laid his offerings before its altars at the season of the time-honoured Pentecost festival.