An Introduction to Colossians, Part 4
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Spencer, with first century contexts, draws from Acts 9:1-19; Galatians 1:11-17 as he tells us about Paul’s conversion and preparation for ministry.
“BREATHING OUT THREATS OF MURDER LIKE THE DRAGONS OF Mythology, Saul went to the high priest and secured letters to the synagogues of Damascus, in order that if he found there any adherents of this way (the usual euphemism for Christianity) he might bring them back in chains. The enterprise must have seemed perfectly mad to a fat, lazy Sadducee: to march across the desert as far as Damascus in the broiling heat of summer.
But Saul’s request was humored. The young man was plainly exhausted, or, as a modern physician would have put it, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. No one could endure two months of such mad activity in the scorching streets of Jerusalem without showing the strain. And Saul was too useful a ferret to lose. Perhaps the cool waters of Damascus, the change of scene, would restore him to normal health.
It was the season of the dry, west wind, of the sand-bringing sirocco from the Judaean desert, when Saul and his companions mounted fast camels, passed through the Damascus Gate near the traditional site of Stephen’s stoning, and swung northward along the Roman road to Shechem.
At every stage along the road the little towns were still ringing with talk of Christ’s resurrection and his life on earth. In Shechem Saul might hear how Christ sat weary on the well and promised the woman of Samaria that he would give her water quenching thirst for all eternity. Ah, for water like that in the desert of Saul’s own heart! Rumors drifted in, perhaps, concerning the conversion of the Samaritans by Peter and John and Philip, but Saul had not time for slaughter on the way. There would be plenty of that in Damascus.
From Shechem the caravan road led through the plain of Esdraelon, where Jehu drove furiously and trod the painted face of Jezebel underfoot, to Nazareth, the hated home of the false prophet. Here the company paused, no doubt, to draw water from the Virgin’s Well (so called today), the very source from which Jesus drew when he labored with his father in the carpenter’s shop. Not improbably they spent the night in this mountain town, so full of Messianic memories.
Then the blue waters of Galilee, where Jesus taught and fed the multitudes, where he was said by the villagers to have walked on the waves and calmed the tempest.
Beyond Galilee on the north as they traveled Mt. Hermon raised its three snowy peaks nine thousand feet in air. Here, it was popularly believed, Christ had appeared before his disciples in the gleaming white raiment of a God. Doubtless, reasoned Saul’s attendants, their eyes were dazzled by the snow. Perhaps, thought Saul, they did see a God. . .
Saul yields himself to the steady motion of his camel, or barks out a few orders to his lagging men. He is content now merely to shut out the burning face of the sun reflected on the barren desert through which the road leads, the sun which strangely seems to take on the brightness of a human face, the face of the Son of Man.
Hour after hour of this. The scent of burning camels’ dung as the evening fire is prepared. Quiet night on the fragrant desert. The howling of jackals in ruined temples and deserted towns.
Up to this time the weather has been fiercely hot, but tolerable and free from the blast which brings the savage sandstorm. But at noon on the last day of the week’s journey, when at forced march they near the village of Kaukab (The Star), passing through the fringe of barren hills which look on white Damascus and her rings of orchards and gardens, nurtured by Abana, River of Gold, a change comes over the heavens.
The sky grows like lead. Black clouds rush up and over-rule the sun. Crash—a peal of thunder! A blast from the very furnace of hell smites camels and donkeys and men. Scatter for cover now in confusion. Every man for himself. Curses in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. The groaning of camels. Men bred to the desert dismount and crouch in the shelter of their beasts.
Saul, like a man possessed, keeps straight on. They shout to him. He hears nothing. Suddenly a shaft of lightning splits the air, gleams for an instant above their heads. As if smitten with a spear of light, Saul and some of his companions fall prone on the ground. Others stand dumb in terror.
Then out of the lightning, with seeming brighter than the sun, came a figure as John saw it on Patmos, clad in the radiance of a god. He wore a long robe and a belt of gold round his breast. His head and hair were white as wool, white as snow. His eyes flashed like fire; his feet glowed like unto burnished brass.
A voice as of many waters beat on Saul’s ears, saying in the Hebrew tongue, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” His companions heard Saul ask, “Who are you, sir?” And the reply, which they did not hear: “I am Jesus, the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Aye verily, thought Saul, the goads that have been driving me on this very journey. Then again they heard Saul answer and ask, “What shall I do, Lord?” The voice replied to Saul alone: “Rise and go into Damascus. There it shall be told you what you must do.”
Thinking their leader had surely lost his senses (a conclusion some of them had reached before this) or that he was hearing the voice of God, seeing a true vision, the guard for the time stood dumb with amazement.
The storm passed as suddenly as it had come. Saul rose to his feet, staggered blindly, opened his eyes, but could not see. Some of his men, wise in the desert’s ways and knowing that he had been dazzled by the sun or stung by flying sand, took him by the hand and guided him toward Damascus.
On the way Saul’s companions reviewed the strange event in a babel of tongues. Certain ones were sure now that they had heard a voice out of the whirlwind. Others insisted that there had been nothing but the voice of Saul, their leader. All agreed, no doubt, that they had never in their lives been so terrified.
As the afternoon began to turn they reached the city, some ten miles distant from the place of vision, and entered it near the Gate of Heaven, where modern pilgrims start their journey for Mecca. Elbowing a way through the press of wine and water sellers, the vendors of roses, vegetables, and old clothes, through shrilling groups of blind beggars and dancing priests, the guard came in sight of the gardens by the waters of Abana, cold in the midst of the burning white town.
The cavalcade wheeled into a monumental gateway, which formed the western entrance to the mile-long street called Straight. Between Corinthian pillars on either side they led the blind man until they arrived at the Jewish quarter south of the thoroughfare. There they left Saul at the house of Judas.
For three days Saul was sightless. He neither ate nor drank, but remained in prayer and meditation.
To a man of his temperament and generation there could be no doubting the reality of the vision, no uncertainty as to what it meant. A nervous collapse? He would not have understood the meaning of such words. No, God had thrown him to the dust in the midst of a triumphant campaign. Jesus the Nazarene was the voice of God, confirming Saul’s inner doubts, if not actually a God Himself.
Saul would not stop to wonder what natural causes had led to the vision. He did not know the meaning of the word hallucination. Like a true man of the first century, he took the vision to be a sun shining in the midnight of ignorance, a new light by which he was to walk throughout the rest of his life. He could hardly realize at the time how deep the roots of his conversion lay in the pagan soil of his past growth, his training also in the center of Jewish orthodoxy.
The apostle’s overwrought nerves became untensed. He relaxed in the pleasant consciousness that he now carried within his heart the reality of the word agape (love), which before had been only an unrealized desire.
The Jews, with whom Saul was inseparably one, believed that God spoke not only by the Scriptures and prophets, but by angels, by visions and dreams in the night, by mysteriously articulate and intelligible sounds proceeding from the inner shrine of the Temple or from the open sky (as when God pronounced Christ to be His well-beloved son). By such means marriages were predestined, wars foretold, and news of the coming Messiah given to a waiting nation.
It was only natural, then, that Saul as a Jew and a citizen of the first century should follow the leading of his vision which had halted him in mid-career of persecution and thrown him blind to the dust.
Still wrapped in the mist of blindness, Saul persevered in his devotions. While he thus prayed the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias!” And this devout but cautious Jew replied, “Here am I, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight and look in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold he is praying at this very moment.”
Ananias hesitated somewhat. “Lord,” said he, “I have heard about this man from many sources. I have heard how much mischief he did to the saints of Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the high priest to bind all who call on your Name.”
But the Lord persisted: “Proceed, for he is the vessel I have chosen to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings as well as the sons of Israel. I will show him what he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
Thus does Luke represent the conflict which stirred the soul of Ananias. The news of Saul’s curious entry into Damascus and a rumor that he was about to embrace the new religion had doubtless been flashed immediately to all Christians. They were anxious that a representative call on their prospective brother and Ananias seemed best fitted to do so, but for a moment he shrank from obeying his inward promptings and the urging of his friends. So might a more sceptical historian relate the episode.
Well assured at length that the Lord could protect his own name, Ananias emerged from his house and entered the blinding white street that runs straight through the center of the city from east to west. He made his way thoughtfully to the house of Judas. He placed his hands on the expectant Saul, who was awaiting the visit (since a vision, an intuition, or a personal message had put him on the watch for something of the kind), and said: “Saul, my brother, the Lord Jesus whom you saw on the road has sent me to let you regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
At the touch of Ananias’ hands scales seemed to fall from the blind man’s eyes. “The God of our fathers,” Ananias continued, as if making the illumination more clear, “has elected you to know His will, to see the Just One, to hear him speak with his own lips, and to give witness for him before all men as to what you have seen and heard. Why are you waiting? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”
Saul rose to his feet, as he was commanded to do. He submitted to baptism, took food once more, and gradually, with rest and the application of healing herbs, he recovered his strength. When he was able to travel he went off to the desert of Arabia without consulting a soul.”
Jesus’ call on Paul’s life is about as dramatic as they come. It is so dramatic that we have the tendency to write it off as not applying to us. We do not expect Jesus to reach into our own lives in a dramatic way. In fact, sometimes we wonder if he is active at all. Yet, he is actively calling all of us in each of the places we are in life.
Some of us, like Paul here, do not know Jesus. We are on the desert road, doing what we think is the right thing, and going full steam ahead in our own way, not listening for the call of Jesus.
My challenge to you is to hear his call and respond. He might be knocking you to the ground through hardship to get your attention. Respond by believing in Jesus’ death for your sins, and believing in his resurrection from the dead that has freed you from the power of sin and death. Listen and respond in faith through obedience to the call of Jesus.
Some of us have received the call of Jesus and have responded in faith by believing in Jesus’ death for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead, setting us free from sin and death.
We have started to walk with him by faith, but have lost sight of that call, and have subtly crept into a vicious cycle of works that our own consciences, misunderstanding of Scripture, and others have placed upon us. We believe that these things will please Jesus, yet we do not feel like he is pleased because we all too often fail to live out these expectations of works that have crept in. We find ourselves stuck in this relentless cycle and are tired, discouraged, and perhaps distraught. We know Jesus but have become distracted with doing rather than being with Jesus.
If this is you, there is hope. Jesus is calling you once more. In Matthew 11:28–29 he says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
His yoke is a two-person yoke that you join with him in your walk through life. He is calling all of us to step into his easy yoke with him; to do life with him.
The Apprentice Prayer, prayed with sincerity, is a good way to step into the yoke of Jesus. Please pray it with me.
Jesus, I love you! Father, I adore you. Holy Spirit, I rely on you.
Lord Jesus, I seek to live as your apprentice in all that I do today. My life is your school for teaching me. I relinquish my agenda for this day and I submit myself to you and your kingdom purposes. In all things today (in all situations I abandon outcomes to You and) I pray, “Your will, your way, your time.”
Dear Father, I ask you to ordain the events of this day and use them to make me more like Jesus. I trust you, Sovereign Lord, that you won’t let anything happen to my family or me today, except that it passes through your loving hands. So no matter what problems, hardships, or injustices I face today help me not to worry or get frustrated, but instead to relax in the yoke of your providence. Yes, today I will rejoice because I am in your eternal kingdom, you love me and you are teaching me!
My Lord, I devote my whole self to you. I want to be all and only for you, Jesus! Today, I seek to love you with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, all my strength, and all my relationships.
Today, I depend on you, Holy Spirit, not my own resources. Help me to keep in step with you.
Today, I look to love others as you love me, dear God, blessing everyone I meet, even those who mistreat me.
Today, I’m ready to lead people to follow you, Jesus. Amen.