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An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Acts 21:28 → Ezekiel 44:6-9

Allusion

Later text

Acts 21:28BSB

crying out, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches everywhere against our people and against our law and against this place. Furthermore, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.”

Earlier text

Ezekiel 44:6-9BSB

Tell the rebellious house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I have had enough of all your abominations, O house of Israel. In addition to all your other abominations, you brought in foreigners uncircumcised in both heart and flesh to occupy My sanctuary; you defiled My temple when you offered My food—the fat and the blood; you broke My covenant. And you have not kept charge of My holy things, but have appointed others to keep charge of My sanctuary for you.’ This is what the Lord GOD says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh may enter My sanctuary—not even a foreigner who lives among the Israelites.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square14:07

Significance

The Jerusalem mob accuses Paul of defiling the temple: "he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place" (Acts 21:28). The charge rests on the Law's guarding of the sanctuary from the unclean — Ezekiel's vision forbids admitting any "foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh" into God's sanctuary (Ezekiel 44:9), the principle behind the temple's dividing wall. Yet the accusation is false in fact and, more deeply, overtaken in Christ: the gospel Paul preaches has broken down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14), making Jew and Gentile one new temple indwelt by the Spirit. The exclusion Ezekiel guarded protected the holiness of God's presence until the coming of the One whose blood cleanses the once-excluded, so that Gentiles are no longer strangers but fellow citizens, "a holy temple in the Lord" (Ephesians 2:19-21).

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Contrast

Linked Mentions 1

Trajectory Tables 1

Circumcision (Circumcision of the Heart) Trajectory Table