Saul The Persecutor

Key Thought For This Session

Sometimes we can be tempted to surrender to sameness; we believe that change is impossible for us. But as followers of Jesus, change is not just possible, but inevitable.

Acts 26:1–23 ESV

So Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense: “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently. “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities. “In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

: 1-23

Acts 22:6–10 ESV

“As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’

James 4:13–17 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Saul

As far as the believers in the early church were concerned, there was one man that was perhaps the least likely to convert to Christ— and his name was Saul. When we look back and see that Saul became the great apostle Paul, planting churches and giving us a third of the New Testament. But those early believers saw him as a passionate, evil enemy of the faith, a catalyst for the persecution the Jerusalem Christians to scatter, losing their homes, businesses, and in some cases, their lives. Change for him seemed unlikely, impossible even, but it happened. Saul’s story gives us hope when we are tempted to give up on people who are making a mess of their lives, or are just resistant to the Gospel: God can still meet with them. And there’s hope for us as well, because if Saul can change, then so can we.

For Christians, change is not just about resolution and determination— gritting our teeth and doing our best. We do need to make good choices, but we are not alone in the pursuit of change. Christianity is not just about embracing a ‘holy’ code, but allowing the power of a holy God to fill us each day. Change is not just reviving our outward behavior, but heart change that comes when we navigate life with the Lord. Paul experienced that, and wrote about it:

Philippians 2:12–13 ESV

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Phil 2:12

In these few sentences, Paul shows that we are called to be partners with God in the process of change— we work, and He works in us. But just how does He do that work?

First of all, the Holy Spirit is the One who convicts us. There are promptings that come, not just because we have been raised with a moral code, or because of conscience, but because God is nudging us (and using that code and conscience) to show us the error of our ways. Through this, He lovingly brings us to repentance, grace, and healthy living. Saul experienced that. And that work had been going on in Saul’s heart before he ever set out on his trip to Damascus. When Jesus said to Saul, “It is useless for you to fight against my will,” many translations, including the NIV, say It is hard for you to kick against the goads ()

Goads were used to control oxen, to break them in. SO what was the goad in Saul’s experience? Perhaps it was the fact that Saul would have heard of Jesus’ work and miracles. He had seen the resilience of the Christians who were willing to face prison and even death rather than renounce their Lord. He had seen the light on Stephen’s face as he died an agonizing death, and heard Stephen’s prayer that his executioners might be forgiven. And Saul had heard Stephen’s dying outburst that he could see Jesus. All that, coupled with a conscience that surely that surely bothered him too, and we see that Jesus was relentlessly pursuing Saul.

Sometimes we kick against the goads when we willfully pursue a pathway that we know is contrary to the will of God. Conscience pains us in those moments. While we know that the conscience is fallible— some people have a hypersensitive attitude that makes them feel bad even when they have done nothing wrong— let’s be sensitive to those twinges and never kick against the goads. As Jesus said to Saul, it’s hard work to do so.

In surrendering to the convicting work of God, Saul then made himself available to Jesus and His purposes, in asking two questions of Jesus: Who are You, and what should I do?

Life brings lots of questions. What should I do for a career? Where should I live? If I’m to marry, then to whom? Which church or community should I be a part of?

The conversation of Saul brings us back to the two most important questions of life. In the various tellings of his turnaround moment, we see that the first question he asked was of Jesus: Who are You? If Jesus truly is the Son of God, the One crucified for us, the victor over the grave, then life is radically different. Being a Christian in response to that question is not vague, wooly thing, a dab of faith to get us through the tough times. Jesus is Lord, and as we understand that, we turn our lives over fully to His Kingdom purposes. And that leads us to the second question Saul asked: What should I do?

Now that we know who Jesus is our lives are not our own. And having turned over the reins of our lives to Him, we don’t want to take them back. James warns against gradually developing an independent attitude where our plans are our own, made without consultation or submission to God. Who He is leads us to ask what we should do in response to Him being Lord and King. Perhaps the second question is one that some of us used to ask but haven’t lately: What should I do for You and with You, Lord? As we do that, and genuinely wait before Him, determined to do His will, we find purpose and peace.

Author Brennan Manning wrote:

Today I double up with laughter whenever I realize that I have started “managing” my own life once more— something we all do with astounding regularity. The illusion of control is truly pathetic, but it is also hilarious. Deciding what I most need out of life, carefully calculating my next move, and generally allowing my autonomous self to run amuck inflates my sense of self-importance and reduces the God of my incredible journey to the role of spectator on the sidelines. It is only the wisdom and perspective gleaned from an hour of silent prayer each morning that prevents me from running for CEO of the universe. As Henri Nouwen once remarked,

“One of the most arduous spiritual tasks is that of giving up control and allowing the Spirit of God to lead our lives.” Henri Nouwen

Saul also experienced the power of change as he gave himself to Christian community, the church. This wasn’t easy for him. When he first tried to align himself with the believers in Jerusalem, they were terrified of him, thinking that he might be a spy— the persecutor up to his old, terrible tricks. It was only when Barnabas intervened that Saul was finally welcomed. But it was in the company of those believers that Saul discovered his apostolic calling and destiny.

Acts 9:26–28 ESV

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.

Some Christians treat church as an optional extra, even boasting that “the outdoors are my church.” Or church becomes like an extension of a house rather than a foundation for it.

Author Michael Griffiths wrote:

“Pick up a hymn book…note how very many “I” and “my” hymns are there, and how relatively few “we” and “our” hymns there are, which are really suitable for congregational singing. Most of our hymns would be more suitable for use as solos! It is as if most Christians expect to fly solo to heaven with only just a little bit of formation flying from time to time.”

But solo Christianity is not what we are called to. We grow, we learn, we change, and we discover purpose together.