Acts 9:1-31

All right, welcome back to the listeners commentary on the Book of Acts. My name is John Whitaker, and in this session we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 9 verses 1 through 31. And this section is the fourth and final scene in the second major section of the Book of Acts. And we've called that second section, the church begins to move outward. This section began with the ministry of Stephen and Stephen's speech in chapter 7, laid the biblical foundation for the church's outward movement. And then Stephen's execution that ends chapter 7 was used by God as a catalyst for outward expansion. His persecution arose and the city of Jerusalem, and the Christians there in Jerusalem were forced to get out of the city. They took Jesus with them wherever they went, and they proclaimed the good news about him to all the cities they traveled to. Well, Luke focused on one key player in this outward movement, a man by the name of Philip. He was one of the seven, and he took the gospel in chapter 8 to the Samaritans. And not only that, he also shared it with another outsider, and Ethiopian unit, who appears to be a Jew, but a Jew from Ethiopia, and a unit who could not fully engage in temple worship. Well here in chapter 9, Luke now turns the spotlight on a key moment that will lead to even greater outward expansion. The key leader in the persecution in Jerusalem was a man by the name of Saul. Saul is also known as Paul. The Apostle Paul, the one who wrote a huge chunk of the New Testament, but up to this point in the story of Acts, and up to this point in Paul's life story, he's an opponent of the Christians and an opponent of the gospel. But here, in Acts chapter 9, 1 through 31, his story changes. These events of Paul or Saul's conversion are told two other times in the book of Acts, both from Paul's perspective. You can read Paul's telling of it in Acts 22 and Acts 26. The fact that Luke records three at-linked tellings of Saul's conversion reminds us how important this event is to the story of the early church, to the story Luke is telling to the book of Acts about how the church went from Jerusalem and Jewish Christianity all throughout the Greco-Roman world to Rome and Gentile Christianity. So we see here how important this event is in those two other accounts, told by Paul 22 and 26, they include some extra details that Luke doesn't include here, and so if you compare all three of them, you get kind of a more complete picture of how things played out on the road to Damascus. But here, in Acts 9, 1 through 31, is Saul's conversion story as told by Luke. Begins like this. Now, Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way, whether men or women, he might bring them in shackles to Jerusalem. So Luke here turns the camera, if you will, to Saul, Saul, whom he introduced at Stephen's execution, who the executioners took off their outer garments and laid them at the feet of a man named Saul. Saul, who at the beginning of chapter 8, began to inaugurate a key persecution that forced Christians in Jerusalem out into other places that led to Philip, sharing the gospel. Well, now we're going to focus on Saul's story. And notice that he's still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, that phrase, disciples of the Lord, a disciple of someone who's learning how to be like their teacher. And so it's a description of the early Christians. It's what Jesus told them to make and thus to be, go and make disciples of all the nations. So that becomes a key title for the early Christians. And Saul isn't just content breathing threats and murder against the disciples in Jerusalem. Notice he goes to the high priest in Jerusalem and asked for official letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus. He wants the high priest to give him letters that authorize him to investigate the synagogues to see if there are any disciples, any Christians, there in Damascus. Just a couple of notes on that. Damascus is about 130 miles north east of Jerusalem. What does that tell us? Well that tells us two things. One, that Paul is willing to go to extreme lengths to kind of root out to search out Christians and to bring them back and to try to stamp out the gospel. And so he's willing to go a long ways to do this. We're not going just to a neighboring town or village. We're going 130 miles away. Not only that, it also tells us that the church, the gospel, has expanded that far outwards and that somehow Saul knows that there are some followers of Jesus that far away. So Luke hasn't told us all those stories. He's told us how the gospel went north into Samaria. He's told us about the conversion of the Ethiopian Union. But he hasn't told us how the gospel got rooted in Damascus. He told us that Christians traveled out of Jerusalem and went and proclaimed the gospel. And so that must be how it happened, but he never told us the story. But somehow the gospel expanded by this point a long ways away, 130 miles away. And Saul now wants to go and see if he can find some of these Christians and bring them back in shackles to Jerusalem. One other note about Damascus is we're not talking about a tiny little town. Damascus is a major city and important city in the ancient world. Really, it's a city at the crossroads. It was a very cosmopolitan city with influences from lots of different people. And it was a connection point for roads going north and south and east and west. And so it's really an important city and an aproposity, an appropriate city for God to really bring the Apostle to the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul to faith in Jesus. And so Paul is on his way to Damascus and as he's traveling there, here's what happens. Now as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city and it will be told to you what you must do. And the men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. So as Saul is traveling to Damascus, he's traveling with a group of people. We don't know how many, but there's a group of people with them, the men who traveled with him. And so Saul is traveling to Damascus with a group of people and as he's approaching the city, he's on the outskirts of Damascus when all of a sudden a light from heaven flashes around him, Saul falls to the ground and he hears a voice. And the voice says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? This is terribly important because as far as Saul knew, he was going to Damascus to persecute Christians to arrest Christians and bring them back. But with Jesus now speaking from heaven, saying, you're persecuting me, this tells us and told Saul something very important that to persecute Christians is to persecute Jesus, is to persecute Christ himself, the Messiah. Saul learned that here on the Damascus road that there's this intimate connection between Jesus and his people and to harm Jesus' people is to really attack Jesus himself. Well as Saul falls to the ground, this voice speaks to him, Saul doesn't know who it is. He asks who is it Lord? He assumes he's having a heavenly vision of some sort, right? He's a Jew. This would make sense. And so Jesus says, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting and he tells him to go into the city of Damascus and wait because he's going to get instructions on what he must do. Now this moment here on the road to Damascus becomes a key moment in Paul's life and ministry for obvious reasons and for a number of reasons. But when Paul writes to churches later as the Apostle Paul, one of the things he says is that he's an Apostle commissioned specifically by Jesus and that he saw the resurrected Lord as did the others. It's part of what makes him an Apostle and it's part of the way he defends his Apostleship when people question it. So you can read that for example in 1 Corinthians 15, 5 through 8, Paul describes how he saw the risen Lord like one untimely born, like one born after the fact, just as the other Apostles did. Though the way Luke tells the story here in Acts chapter 9, he doesn't mention specifically Saul seeing Jesus. He mentions Saul hearing a voice but he obviously saw Jesus as well and so on this moment. He has the. dialogue with Jesus here on the road to Damascus and notice verse 7 the men who travel with him stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one and that seems to imply this that they heard the sound of the voice but they didn't see anything or anybody out of the ordinary but Saul on the other hand he saw the resurrected Lord and it's the resurrected Lord who's commissioning him to ministry. Well Saul gets up off the ground verse eight and though his eyes were open he could see nothing and so he's now blind and so his friends his traveling companions led him by the hand and they brought him into Damascus. Saul's blindness here is really in a lot of ways symbolic of his spiritual blindness that he had prior to this that he believed he was zealous for God. He was persecuting Christians not out of malice per se but out of zeal for God that's his own testimony later in his letters. For example he says this in Galatians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 he says for you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions or again he says in Philippians chapter 3 verses 4 through 6 he says that if anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh I have more reason what he's talking about is putting confidence in your obedience to the Jewish way of life and he says look I was a better Jew than most Jews and here's how he describes it in verses 5 and 6 he says how circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews as to a law a Pharisee as to zeal a persecutor of the church and as to the righteousness which is found in the law blameless and so Saul says what drove him to this moment of persecuting Christians was his zeal for God and then after he became a Christian and he looks back on this moment he sees how wrong he was he even describes himself as a result of these actions he describes himself as the least of all the saints as the worst of sinners and so as a Jew he thought he was serving God but now that he knows Jesus looking back on it he sees how wrong he was and so his blindness here in this moment is really symbolic of the blindness of his zeal he misunderstood God he misunderstood what God was doing through Jesus he was blind to all of that and he was very much like ultra zealous Israel itself blind to God and God's work and so this blindness here is really symbolic of his spiritual blindness well they lead him into Damascus and verse 9 tells us that for three days he was without sight and neither eight or drank so for three days he's blind and he's completely fasting verse 11 will tell us that he's also praying and I imagine that in these days blind and confused and having seen Jesus on the road and everything that he thought he was doing right now he knows is wrong Jesus really is alive the Christians are right and I imagine during these three days while he's praying he's racking his brain going through all the scriptures he's memorized and he's beginning to put it together if Jesus really is alive then that means the Christians really are right and he's putting all the scriptures together at least that's what I imagine him doing there in Damascus during these three days well at the end of those three days the Lord himself appears to another person in Damascus a man named Ananias to send him to Saul here's what happens beginning in verse 10 now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias and the Lord said to him in a vision Ananias and he said here I am Lord and the Lord said to him get up go to the street called straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man named Saul from Tarsus for he is praying and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight and so the Lord himself Jesus himself appears to Ananias and instructs him to go to find Saul he tells him where to find him go to the street called straight this should not surprise you but in the ancient world a lot of streets came in at weird angles or were short or were curvy but in Damascus the main street through the heart of the city was straight and thus the street was named straight in fact the first century gate entering into or onto this street is still there today and so Ananias is sent to straight street to find a man there by the name of Judas as houses on straight street and apparently that's where Saul is staying and we also get noted here that Saul is from Tarsus that'll play out later here at the end of this story we also learn here that Saul while he's fasting and praying and trying to figure everything out the Lord appeared to him in a vision or gave him a vision of a man named Ananias coming into him and helping him regain his sight and giving him the instructions he needs well Ananias receives these instructions from the Lord but his response is a little bit of hesitation look at verse 13 but Ananias said Lord I've heard from many people about this man how much harm he did to your saints in Jerusalem the word saints means holy ones those set apart for you it's a way to refer to God's people in the New Testament so we tend to think of saints is really holy dead people who had a statue made out of them or something like that right but that's not the way the New Testament uses the word it's actually related to the word holy and it means those set apart for God it's God's people so I know how much harm he did to your people there in Jerusalem and verse 14 and he's here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your name and so word has preceded Saul to Damascus that he's coming to do this somehow they've gotten word of that Ananias has heard that and so he's a little hesitant like Lord he's sure you have the right man here's Jesus' response to Ananias verse 15 but the Lord said to him go for he's a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel for I will show him how much he must suffer in behalf of my name and so the Lord responds to Ananias with no I've got the right man go now and do what I've asked you to do and notice what he says about Saul to Ananias he says he's a chosen instrument of mine I have chosen him to be a tool of mine to work for me and to fulfill my purposes he's a chosen instrument of mine specifically to bear my name notice before the Gentiles he's going to be the apostle to the Gentiles and before kings rulers and authorities right and and Saul Paul is going to do that and the sons of Israel he's also going to preach to Jews as well and then notice verse 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer in behalf of my name that part of Saul's job description right from the get-go is going to be suffering on behalf of Jesus and when you read the rest of the book of Acts when you read what Paul writes in his letters particularly in the Corinthian correspondence where he describes his suffering you hear that indeed he suffered immensely for the name of Jesus and so Ananias hesitates because he's heard that Saul has caused suffering and the Lord says hold on I've got the right man he's actually going to represent me before the Gentiles kings the sons of Israel and he himself is going to suffer for my name's sake and so don't be afraid go do what I've asked you to do for Saul so Ananias departed and entered the house and after laying his hands on him said brother Saul the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit and immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight and he got up and was baptized and he took food and was strengthened notice two things that happened here in this moment one something like scales fall from Saul's eyes so whatever the blindness was about the Lord dramatically demonstrated that it's recovered healed and his eyes now are opened and something like scales fell from his eyes and he went out and was baptized they took Saul somewhere in the city of Damascus maybe a Jewish Micah who knows but they took him somewhere where there was plenty of water and they immersed Saul into Christ and what I find so important about that is this is a public moment Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians and apparently his reputation proceeded and and word of why he's coming proceeded and we saw that in Ananias' inner interchange with Jesus And yet Saul did not just do this silently. He didn't keep behind the scenes publicly. He immediately displays his allegiance to Jesus in baptism, and then he takes food and he's strengthened. And from this moment on, Saul's life is never the same again. This precipitated what I think of as a total reorientation of life for Paul. He had seen the resurrected Lord on the road to Damascus. He has prayed and fasted and sought the scriptures in his own mind during these three days. Here, Jesus had sent a specific individual to him, which by itself is fascinating, right? Sends this individual to him to share the gospel with him and Saul is baptized. And his life is forever changed from this moment forward. There in Philippians 3 that we read at the beginning of this, where Saul describes himself as so zealous for his Jewish background, he says, "But after this moment, whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as lost for the sake of Christ, and his life was completely changed." One of the things he learned in this moment was how he thought he was doing God's will as a Jew, and yet he was totally out of step with God and his Messiah. He learned that Jesus really was the Messiah and that he was alive from the dead. The Christians were right and he had been wrong. He learned that to persecute Christians is to persecute Jesus the Messiah. And he learned that God had a specific plan for his life, a specific mission for him to do all in this moment and Paul with the same commitment, the same dedication and the same zeal with which he threw himself in to try to stamp out the church. Now he throws himself into promoting Jesus. And so look what happens midway through verse 19. Now for several days he was with the disciples who were in Damascus and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue saying, "He is the Son of God." And so right away Paul takes everything he knows about the Scriptures, everything he now knows about Jesus, he puts those two together and he begins to proclaim Jesus as Messiah in the synagogues. In fact that phrase, "He is the Son of God." That phrase, "Son of God" only shows up here in the book of Acts. And in chapter 13 where Paul's preaching is summarized there as well. And so both here and there we're describing Paul's preaching. It's the only two places this phrase, the Son of God shows up in Acts. And it's apropos when we read Paul's letters, particularly for example the first four or five verses of the book of Romans, we see that this is a way Paul describes Jesus as Messiah. He's the Son of God by declared that with power by virtue of his resurrection. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, "This is a way Paul describes Jesus as the Messiah." And so Paul is immediately declaring Jesus as the Messiah in the synagogues there in Damascus. And all those verse 21 who were hearing him continued to be amazed and were saying, "Isn't this the one who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name?" And hadn't he come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priest there, there are amazes at the dramatic change that someone who had been the chief persecutor is now there in their city publicly declaring and proclaiming Jesus himself. And Saul's ability to preach Jesus and declare the gospel kept improving, verse 22, but Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Messiah. And so as Paul continued to minister and preach and proclaim Jesus in Damascus, he would frustrate and confound the Jews because he had such an ability with the Scriptures and he had such a knowledge of the Scriptures and now that he plugged Jesus into it, it all started to make sense at unlocked the Scriptures form and he kept showing from the Scriptures how Jesus indeed was the Messiah. Now in summarizing Saul's preaching and teaching in ministry there in Damascus, Luke kind of fast forwards in verse 23 by saying when many days had elapsed the Jews plotted together to do away with him but their plot became known to Saul. And the reason I say Luke is fast forward a bit because he's just summarizing but when we read Paul's own account of this in Galatians chapter 1, we learned that Saul stays in at least the Damascus area for not just a few weeks or even a few months, he's there for a few years and he doesn't just preach in Damascus, he preaches in the town's east of Damascus what he calls Arabia there in Galatians chapter 1. That region of Arabia almost bordered the eastern gates of Damascus at this point in time. It was not far to the east of the city of Damascus and so Paul didn't have to go a long distance to get to Arabia, travel outside of the eastern gates of Damascus and into some of the cities to the east and Paul's in the region of Arabia. And so that Arabian visit and ministry there in Arabia is part of what's going on here during these many days that had elapsed in verse 23. And the reason we know that that happened this way is because in the city of Damascus the king of Arabia actually had a representative that had offices in the city of Damascus and somehow Paul's ministry in Arabia had stirred up enough trouble that now the ruler of Arabia actually wants to get rid of Paul as well. So here in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul has this passing note about this moment in the book of Acts and about this moment in his life, it says this. 2 Corinthians 11 32 in Damascus the ethnarch under a retus the king, a retus is the king of the Arabians and so he has a representative at ethnarch in Damascus. So in Damascus the ethnarch under a retus the king was guarding the city of the Damascus in order to seize me and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and so escaped his hands and so Paul's preaching in Damascus also included going east into Arabia and it created a enough trouble both in Damascus and in Arabia that now there's a plot against Paul that involves the people of Damascus and the representative of the Arabians and this plot verse 24 begins by saying became known to Saul. So here's what happens they were closely watching the city gates day and night so that they might put him to death they're hoping to grab Paul anytime he comes and goes in Damascus but his disciples took him at night and let him down through a large opening in the wall lowering him in a basket just as it says there in 2 Corinthians 11 and this is how Paul Saul escaped the city of Damascus and now at this point he's going to head back to Jerusalem but remember it's been a good amount of time he says three years in Galatians chapter 1 now we don't know exactly how long that is because in ancient reckoning any part of a year would be counted as a year and so if you had three months then a whole year of 12 months and then another three months right so you're in 18 months but that would be three years because you had part of a year a whole year and another part of a year so three different years so we don't know exactly how long but it's been a while 18 months 24 months 30 something months right it's been a good chunk of time since Paul left Jerusalem and came to Damascus he was on his way there to persecute Christians was actually apprehended by Jesus became a Christian and now has been preaching Jesus in Damascus and in Arabia and demonstrating that Jesus the Messiah he escapes a plot on his life in Damascus and now he heads to Jerusalem and verse 26 says when he came to Jerusalem he tried repeatedly to associate with the disciples and yet they were all afraid of him as they didn't believe he was a disciple so he arrives in Jerusalem and even though it's been a good amount of time they remember they remember what he did in Jerusalem they remember the trouble he caused they remember the persecution he led and how so many people fled the city because of what Saul had done and they're suspicious and they don't trust him but verse 27 Barnabas remember Barnabas we met him in Acts chapter 4 how he sold some land right and well this Barnabas took hold of Saul he believed him he had confidence in him and he brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had talked to him and how he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus and so Barnabas intervenes on Saul's behalf brings him to the apostles not all the apostles we learn again from Galatians chapter 1 only really a few of them Peter and John James, right? He brings him to just some representatives of the Apostles and Barnabas tells him. He saw the Lord, the Lord spoke with him and Paul talked with him, and he preached for Jesus in Damascus. And so they welcomed him, that helped him establish a connection there in Jerusalem. And for the next couple of weeks, two weeks, he was in Jerusalem, and verse 28 says, and he was with them moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. And so he spent a couple of weeks there preaching Jesus. We learned that detail again from Galatians 1, and he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews. Those are Jews from, speak Greek and more from a Greek background, but they were attempting to put him to death. And so here's another plot on Saul's life. And so we're early on in Saul's life of ministry and post-conversion life, and he's already experiencing how much he's going to suffer for the name of Jesus. Two death plots on his life already. When the brothers learned of it, verse 30, they brought him down to Caesarea. Caesarea is about 60 miles to the northwest of Jerusalem. Right on the coast, it's the port city for this region of the Mediterranean world. And they bring him to Caesarea and send him away to Tarsus. And they probably did that by boat. That's why they brought him to Caesarea where he could get on a boat. He could sail north to Tarsus. Tarsus is a good distance away to the north. Several hundred miles away. And Tarsus is Saul's hometown. So they send him back to his hometown where he has family, where he has some connections, and where he grew up there. Now if you want more info on Paul, I have an introduction to Paul's life and a little bit of chronology of his life as it plays out in the book of Acts where his letters fit in and all that, that document is available under the intro to Paul at listenerscommentary.com inside the study hub. And then Luke wraps up this section, the second major section with another summary statement that describes about the church growing in Judea and Samaria. And so the first chunk, chapters one, one through six, seven, and then we get that summary statement. Here we finished the second major section of Acts, right? Like a six act play, I said, the curtain now falls and the narrator says, so the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace as it was being built up. And it continued in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it kept on increasing. So this is Luke's way of indicating the forward movement of the gospel and the, really the structure of the book of Acts revolves around this. And notice we have Judea, Galilee and Samaria. And Jesus's commission to the apostles was to be witnesses in Jerusalem in Judea and Samaria. And even to the ends of the earth. And so by the time we get to the end of the second section, we have Jerusalem. The gospel has really been founded and grounded there. We now have it growing in Judea and Samaria as well as Galilee, which is north of Samaria. We're clear up into Damascus and we've converted the one who's going to be the apostle to the Gentiles. It's going to take it to the ends of the earth. And so the church kept on growing and kept on increasing. And as we noted at the outset, this scene in this section is just so important. It's so fundamental. Luke's going to use up more space later in the book to tell it a couple more times because Saul is so central to the forward movement of the gospel to the movement of the church from Jerusalem and Jewish Christianity to Rome and Gentiles being included in the story of God's people into the outward expansion of the church. One of the ways I like to think about this particular scene here is that God gets his man, right? The man for the Gentiles. The man to say, let's include the Gentiles into my people. Well, Saul is going to be the key in that whole bit of the story. And so God gets his man. And this really emphasizes God's initiative in the Gentile mission. This one's going to be his chosen instrument to carry his name before the Gentiles. And Saul was uniquely prepared for this. His deep zeal for God, his deep knowledge of the scriptures, right? He was training with the greatest rabbi of the day. And so in that sense, he's deeply connected to the Jews and the Jewish leadership and the scriptures and the Jewish story. And yet, he grew up in Tarsus, where this story ends in Tarsus was an important city, was a university town. And so Paul grew up and he'll even quote some pagan prophets and poets because he grew up around all of that. And he's familiar with Greek cities and Gentile cities and Greek culture. And yet he also has Roman heritage in his blood somehow. He's a Roman citizen. And so somewhere along the lines of him in the past is devoutly Jewish family gained Roman citizenship. And Paul is able to operate in all these different worlds. So he's uniquely prepared for this moment. And he gladly and willingly and eagerly surrenders all of that to the Lordship of Jesus and immediately begins to use his life for his purposes for Jesus' sake. And it reminds us how important it is not to run from our past. Whatever it is, good, bad. Like Saul had a good past as a Jew, right? He had a remarkably brilliant past as a Jew. It just was misguided because he didn't understand Jesus' Messiah. But the moment he met him, he submitted all of that to him. And whatever things were gained to him, he surrendered those to Jesus. And so it reminds us whatever is in our past, the good, the bad, the ugly, the hard, the difficult. Let's not pretend like it's not there. Let's be open with that and surrender that to Jesus and let Jesus into those places and shift those places and then use all of that for his good purposes in declaring and displaying the magnificence of Jesus.