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The next day after arriving in Jerusalem, Paul meets with James, who appears to be the leader of the Jerusalem church (21:8-19). Paul “reports in detail” what God has been doing, and this report brings joy to the Jewish community, and they praise God.
What is missing here is any mention of the delivery of the collection. Luke ignores the whole thing. Why is this? There is a strong possibility that the Jewish Christians refused the collection, a concern that Paul himself expressed in Romans 15:31-32 from Corinth, just before embarking on the trip to Jerusalem. Why would they do that? It was a gift from Gentiles, collected by an apostate Jew?
Romans 15:31–32 (ESV) …that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, 32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.
The collection may have been received contingent upon Paul’s participation in the vow, which suggests that he was not opposed to Jewish traditions. Since he is arrested and whisked off to Caesarea, it is possible that the collection was not accepted.
If James did not accept the gift, what happened to it? Nothing in the Book of Acts or the epistles helps answer that question. If James refused it outright, then the Gentiles who delivered it may have returned it to the original churches. On the other hand, James may have accepted it quietly, as the church was in such dire need.
There are many Jews in Jerusalem who are believers in the Gospel and continue to follow the laws and traditions of Judaism (21:20). This is not unexpected. Jesus did not come to destroy the Law and does not teach anything that might be taken as a rejection of the Law or Temple worship. While Jesus may have rejected the traditions of the Pharisees, he lived as any Jew might have in the first century.
In Acts 15, the Jerusalem church included both priests and Pharisees. These men would have been particularly interested in cleanliness and ritual purity. James describes the Jerusalem church as very large; the NIV has “thousands,” translating the Greek “myriads.” While this might seem like hyperbole, several thousand people are mentioned in Acts 2 and 3, so it is not unlikely that there have been additional converts in the many years that have passed.
The Jews report that there are extremists among their church who think that Paul has “apostatized”, that he is teaching that Gentiles should turn away from the Law (21:21). Is this true? Paul indeed taught that Gentiles were not under the law; in fact, in Galatians, he is strong in his condemnation of these same zealots who were teaching the Gentiles to keep the law
With respect to Jews, there is nothing that implies Paul told Jews to continue keeping the law and traditions of Israel. It may or may not be the case that Paul considered ceremonial law and traditions matters of indifference. Witherington seems to allow for more possibilities than Paul taught that traditions were not required (Acts, 648). Indeed, the Letter to the Galatians could be read as a repudiation of the Law, although it seems that Paul only has in mind Gentile converts. Ultimately, that may still be the heart of the problem – what Paul has created is something new and distinct. People are converting to a belief in Jesus as savior apart from the Law rather than converting to Judaism or converting to a particular messianic conviction within Judaism.
Based on Paul’s behavior in Acts, it may well be that he would have told the Jews to continue keeping the Law. Paul required Timothy to be circumcised, for example, and he had made a vow while in Corinth. Later, he will claim that he has continued to keep the law, although one wonders to what extent he kept the boundary markers of the Law that these conservative Jews would have expected from him.
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