Acts 21:5-11 - He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied

21:5,6

Paul and his party continued on their way to Jerusalem. The believers in Tyre saw him out of the city, and they all knelt down to pray. This included the women and children. They were all in it together. Eventually they boarded the ship and the journey continued.

21:7-9

They then landed at Ptolemais, were greeted by the believers there and spent a day with them.  The next stop was Caesarea, where they stayed with Philip the evangelist, this is the same Philip mentioned in Acts 8, and who was one of the seven (Acts 6:5). He had four unmarried daughters and they were prophets. Prophecy was never limited to men.

21:10,11

Paul now received another prophetic word. In churches where “prophetic words” are an accepted part of church life they tend to be “nice” words. This one isn’t! Now was the first word that Paul received. In Acts 9:16 we read that Ananias was told to tell Paul how much he must suffer for the sake of the Lord. Now this does not mean that all true prophetic words are “nasty”. We must not go from one extreme to the other. 

There isn’t the same problem with the word from Agabus as some might think we have with the word from the disciples at Tyre (21:4). Agabus simply tells Paul that he will be bound and handed over to the Romans. This was true, except that it wasn’t really the Jews who handed him over, as we shall see. Why did Paul keep getting these messages? At the end of chapter 20 we know Paul had the personal inner witness of the Spirit that his trip was necessary and would involve suffering. Then we had the disciples at Tyre, now we have Agabus. Was it to assure Paul that when things got difficult it was all part of God’s plan?