Proclaiming Jesus
Paul proclaiming Jesus in the Synagogue
Speaking Jesus: The Power of Our Words
1. Speak Truth Lovingly
2. Season Speech Gracefully
3. Words Reveal Significance
4. Proclaim Boldly Christ
5. Declare Good News
3. Saul’s conversion evidenced in Damascus (9:19b–25)
It may seem strange, at first glance, for Luke to include in his account of Saul’s conversion a sketchy report of his preaching Christ in Damascus and the unceremonious exit from the city it brought about. The material is so undeveloped that it raises more historical problems than it answers. Therefore, many source critics have viewed it as extraneous to the substance of vv. 1–19a, and many commentators have treated it apart from the story of Saul’s conversion. On closer inspection, however, we can discern a distinctly Lukan rationale for the inclusion of this material—viz., to emphasize the unprecedented nature of Saul’s about face and the genuineness of his conversion. In clarifying his purpose, Luke (1) presents Saul as proclaiming Jesus as both “Son of God” and “Messiah,” (2) depicts his hearers as being so astonished that they had to ask themselves if this was indeed the same man who had been persecuting Christians, and (3) highlights the fact that the persecution he once headed was now directed against him.
19b–22 Luke’s references to Saul after his conversion—viz., his being “several days with the disciples in Damascus” (meta tōn en Damaskō mathētōn hēmeras tinas) and his beginning “at once” (eutheōs) to preach in the synagogues of the city—are, when compared with Paul’s own account of his conversion and the immediately subsequent events, so general and ambiguous as to set up all sorts of historical problems for commentators today. No one familiar with Paul’s precise delineation of chronology and personal relationships in Galatians 1:15–24 could have written the narrative here with such disregard for the emphases laid out there. Certainly no later admirer of Paul would have written it, disregarding, as it does, the most important autobiographical statement about Paul’s conversion and commission and giving a portrayal that can be taken as ambiguous and contradictory. But if we are correct in holding to Luke’s authorship of Acts and in understanding the “we” sections of the work as reflecting his times of personal association with Paul (see Introduction: The Question of Sources; also, Authorship), and, further, if we postulate an early date for the composition of the Letter to the Galatians (as we do) at a time before Luke himself became a Christian and joined Paul’s missionary team, then it may very well have been the case that Luke was unfamiliar with the specific contents of Paul’s earlier Galatian letter. If he knew of its existence, perhaps he believed that its essence appears in more finished form in Romans and therefore felt no need to interact with it.
Of more importance, however, is the fact that the purposes of Paul in Galatians 1:15–24 and Luke here are different, with these purposes affecting to a considerable extent the selection and shaping of each writer’s presentation. Thus with his desire to assert the revelational nature of his Gentile ministry, Paul emphasized in Galatians that he was not dependent upon “any man” (cf. sarki kai haimati, lit., “flesh and blood,” Gal 1:16) for his distinctive gospel, and particularly not upon the Jerusalem apostles. Luke, however, while also interested in depicting the heaven-ordained nature of Paul’s conversion and commission, is concerned in 9:19b–25 to stress the genuineness of Saul’s conversion and call. This he does by speaking of the new convert’s distinctly Christian proclamation in the synagogues of Damascus and his being persecuted by the Jews of the city because of his preaching. Neither this preaching nor the persecution is necessarily ruled out by Galatians 1:15–24, though the intermeshing of historical details between the two accounts may be lacking. But such a failure of historical synchronization is fairly common between two narratives of the same set of circumstances where neither author seems to have read the other and where both have their own distinctive purposes.
It is not going beyond a reasonable historical reconstruction to suggest that the actual order of events was probably as follows: (1) Saul’s conversion and commission (9:1–19a); (2) his preaching in the synagogues of Damascus for a time immediately following his conversion (9:19b–22); (3) his prolonged residence in Arabia (Gal 1:17); (4) his return to Damascus (9:23–25); and, as we must consider later, (5) his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian some three years after his conversion, with his subsequent travel to Caesarea, Syria, and Cilicia (9:26–30; Gal 1:18–24).
The content of Saul’s preaching in the Damascus synagogues focused on Jesus: “Jesus is the Son of God” (v. 20) and “Jesus is the Christ” (v. 22), i.e., the “Messiah.” That Saul could preach such a message immediately after his conversion is not impossible because the certainty of Jesus’ messiahship was deeply implanted in his soul by his experience on the Damascus road. And while he had much to understand and appreciate about the implications of commitment to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, he was certainly in a position to proclaim with conviction and enthusiasm the “thatness” of Jesus’ messianic status.
Nor is it surprising that Saul also spoke of Jesus as “the Son of God,” though this is the only occurrence in Acts of this christological title. In a number of NT passages the titles “Messiah” and “Son of God” are brought together (cf. Matt 16:16; 26:63; Luke 4:41; John 11:27; 20:31), for the Anointed One par excellence expressed uniquely that loving obedience inherent in the Hebraic understanding of sonship. That is how the concepts of Messiah and Son are used in 4QFlorilegium on 2 Samuel 7:14 and in 2 Esdras 7:28–29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9, and how Paul used the titles “Son” and “Son of God” some fifteen times later in his own letters (cf. Rom 1:3–4, 9; 5:10; 8:3, 29, 32; 1 Cor 1:9; 15:28; 2 Cor 1:19, Gal 1:16; 2:20; 4:4, 6; 1 Thess 1:10).
Those who heard Saul preach, Luke says, were “astonished” and “baffled.” But with his interest in advance and growth (cf. Luke 2:52), Luke also says that “Saul grew more and more powerful,” suggesting by that a growth in his understanding of the meaning of commitment to Jesus as Messiah and Son of God and also an increasing ability to demonstrate the validity of his proclamation.
23–25 Luke’s expression “after many days had gone by” must be taken with Paul’s statement in Galatians 1:18 that his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian was three years after his conversion. Also, the description here of the plot against him and his escape from Damascus must be compared with Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 11:32–33: “In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.” A number of details in the accounts, whether taken singly or conflated, are unclear to us. What is clear, however, is that Saul’s preaching stirred such opposition that plans were laid to kill him; but rather ingeniously, though also somewhat ignominiously, he was able to elude his opponents’ designs. What is also clear is that Luke recounts this episode in order to emphasize the genuineness of Saul’s conversion, for now he too has become the object of persecution directed against believers in Jesus.
Luke credits the Jews of Damascus as being the perpetrators of the plot to kill Saul, whereas in 2 Corinthians 11:32 that honor is given to “the governor [ho ethnarchēs, lit., ‘the ethnarch’] under King Aretas.” The situation presupposed in the narrative is unclear chiefly because the status of the governor (or ethnarch) is uncertain. Did he have jurisdiction over the city of Damascus itself as the viceroy of the Nabatean king Aretas? This has often been argued on the ground that Damascus was at this time ruled by Aretas IV (9 B.C.–A.D. 40) and considered part of Nabatean Arabia (cf. HJP, 2.1:98). Or did the governor have jurisdiction to some extent over the Damascus suburbs where many Nabateans would have lived, serving as Aretas’s representative to Arabs living under Roman rule (cf. BC, 5:193)? In either case, the city gates would have been strategic locations for an ambush of the Christian preacher and would have been closely watched. Also certain Jews and an Arab governor might have seen fit to join in common cause against Saul—particularly if Saul had also preached in Nabatean Arabia during this three-year period and stirred up opposition there as well, as some commentators have proposed. Luke just does not tell us enough of the situation to enable us to piece the story together historically. But then his purpose was not to enlighten us about the political and historical circumstances of the day but to support his portrayal of the genuineness of Saul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road.
Acts uses “disciple” (mathētēs) almost exclusively to denote the members of the Christian community (e.g., 6:1–2, 7; 9:19; 11:26, 29; 13:52; 15:10). The one exception to the normal usage in Acts is here in v. 25, where it is used of followers of Saul and suggests that his proclamation of Jesus had a favorable response among at least some. One of these converts, it seems, had a home situated on the city wall (or, perhaps, was able to arrange for the use of such a home for a night), from whose window Saul was let down in a basket outside the wall and was thus able to elude his opponents. From there, evidently, he made his way directly to Jerusalem.
Notes
20 On the christological title “Son of God,” see my Christology, pp. 93–99.
25 Luke employs the rather nondescript word σπυρίς (spyris, “basket,” “hamper”) for the means of conveyance in lowering Saul to the ground, whereas 2 Cor 11:33 uses the more specific term σαργάνη (sarganē), which connotes a braided rope basket or netting.
4. Saul’s reception at Jerusalem (9:26–30)
As in his narrative concerning the evangelization of Samaria (8:4–25), as well as in his later accounts of the conversion of Cornelius (10:1–11:18) and the founding of the church at Antioch of Syria (11:19–30)—in which he not only stresses features of advance and development but also shows continuity with the mother church at Jerusalem—Luke ends his account of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus by telling of his reception by the Christians at Jerusalem. As in Luke’s depiction of Saul’s preaching in Damascus (vv. 19b–25), here the material, when compared with Paul’s own account in Galatians 1:18–24 of his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian, entails a number of problems relating to historical correlations—probably for much the same reasons as in vv. 19b–25, though heightened here by Paul’s purpose in Galatians to stress his lack of dependence upon the Jerusalem church whereas Luke’s purpose is to trace out lines of continuity.
26–28 Saul’s arrival at Jerusalem as a Christian, according to his own reckoning in Galatians 1:18, was three years after his conversion. Being persona non grata among his former associates and suspected by Christians, he probably stayed at his sister’s home in the city (cf. 23:16). We can understand why his reception by his former colleagues might have been less than welcome. But that the apostles and other Christians in Jerusalem were leery of him does raise questions. Certainly they must have heard of his conversion and his preaching in Damascus. Yet, it seems, they never knew him personally, either as a persecutor or as a Christian; and stories about his motives and activities during a three-year period might well have become distorted. Many might, in fact, have asked why, if Saul had really become a Christian, he remained aloof from the Twelve and the Jerusalem congregation for such a long time. We may wish, and might even have expected, that there had been more openness toward Saul the convert on the part of the Jerusalem Christians. History, however, has shown that minority movements under persecution frequently become defensive and suspicious of news that sounds too good.
It was Barnabas, Luke says, who was willing to risk accepting Saul as a genuine believer and who built a bridge of trust between him and the Jerusalem apostles. Just why Barnabas alone showed such magnanimity, we are not told, though this is in character with what is said about him elsewhere in Acts (cf. 4:36–37; 11:22–30; 13:1–14:28; 15:2–4, 12, 22). In presenting Saul to the apostles, Barnabas told of what Saul had seen and heard on the Damascus Road and of his preaching “in the name of Jesus” in Damascus itself—thus summarizing Luke’s account of Saul’s conversion and explicitly using his activity in Damascus to support the genuineness of his conversion. So with Barnabas’s help, Saul and the Jerusalem apostles were brought into fellowship.
In light of Paul’s own insistence in Galatians 1:18–20 that he saw only Peter and James on this first Jerusalem visit, Luke’s use of the term “apostles” must be considered a generalizing plural to be taken more broadly than “the Twelve.” Likewise, in view of Paul’s statement in Galatians 1:18 that he stayed with Peter for fifteen days, Luke’s claim that he “stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem” must be seen as somewhat overstated. Probably we are not far wrong in reconstructing the situation as follows: Saul resided with his sister’s family on his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian; through the aid of Barnabas he came to visit with Peter for fifteen days and to meet James as well; and, broadly speaking, his reception by the Christians he met was cordial, though there undoubtedly still existed some fears about him within the Christian congregation (which after the Hellenists’ expulsion was made up entirely of native-born and more Hebraic types) and though his own activity within the city was largely within the Hellenistic Jewish synagogues.
29–30 At Jerusalem Saul took up a ministry to Jews in the Hellenistic synagogues there. It was a ministry that had been neglected, it appears, since Stephen’s death and the expulsion of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians. But it was one Saul may have felt himself particularly suited to, coming as he did from Tarsus in Cilicia and having probably carried on such a ministry at Damascus (and, perhaps, in Nabatean Arabia). In so doing, however, he soon faced the same opposition Stephen had faced, and he seems to have gotten into the same difficulty Stephen did. The Jerusalem church apparently did not care to again go through the same kind of thing that followed Stephen’s preaching. So when they realized what was taking place in Saul’s newly begun ministry in Jerusalem, “they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.” Saul might have taken such a departure as a personal rebuff. But he took it as by divine approval, for in his defense in Acts 22 he speaks of having received a vision in the Jerusalem temple that not only confirmed his apostleship to the Gentiles but also warned him to flee Jerusalem (22:17–21).
Saul is not mentioned in the period between these experiences in Jerusalem and his ministry at Antioch (11:25–30), though from his words in Galatians 1:21–24 it seems fairly certain that he continued his witness to Diaspora Jews in Caesarea and his hometown of Tarsus. The cordiality of the Christians in Caesarea at the end of his third missionary journey may imply that Saul had an earlier association with Philip and the believers there. Many of the hardships and trials he enumerates in 2 Corinthians 11:23–27 may stem from situations in Caesarea and Tarsus during those days, for they find no place in the records of the later missionary journeys in Acts. Perhaps the ecstatic experience of 2 Corinthians 12:1–4 also comes from this period in his life.
D. A Summary Statement (9:31)
31 Luke’s second panel of material on the martyrdom of Stephen, the early ministries of Philip, and the conversion of Saul ends with a summary statement that speaks of the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoying a time of peace after the turbulence resulting from what happened to Stephen, Philip, and Saul. Though in the first two panels there has been nothing about any advance of the Christian mission into Galilee, Luke’s Gospel, in line with the synoptic tradition, has emphasized Galilee; and certainly there were believers in Jesus there. Here, however, Luke’s reference to Judea, Galilee, and Samaria probably means all the Jewish homeland of Palestine. Here also he insists that the church in the homeland, instead of being torn apart by what God was doing in the advance of the gospel through these three pivotal figures, “was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord,” despite a certain lack of discernment and openness.
