Acts 9.1-43

Saul’s conversion and Peter’s ministry (9.1-43)

In chapters 1 – 7, God had reached out time and again to Israel (the sons of Shem). Sadly, Jewish history repeated itself. Just as their fathers resisted God in the wilderness, this current generation had hardened their heart against the Son of God in the Gospels, and now steadfastly resisted the Holy Spirit post-Pentecost (7.51). Having utterly rejected the Triune God, ‘blindness in part … happened to Israel’ (Rom 11.25). The stoning of Stephen signalled a change in His dealings with the Semitic race. The salvation of the Ethiopian eunuch (a son of Ham, chapter eight) showed that the gospel was going global.

When the Lord Jesus personally commissioned Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road to preach to the Gentiles, He indicated that the sons of Japheth were also to be reached (26.17). This ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews’ (Phil 3.5), this Pharisee, with outstanding Jewish credentials, would serve among ‘Gentile dogs’. God’s ways are infinitely higher than ours. He uses whom he chooses. As sovereign Lord, He changed this persecutor into a mighty preacher of the gospel. Having been chosen in eternity in Christ (Eph 1.4), to salvation (2 Thess 2.13), and to testify of God’s saving grace, Saul was an elect vessel (9.15), and separated from his mother’s womb for the purpose of God (Gal.1.15). Our experience is the same: elect, saved and serving. Praise his name. The Shem, Ham and Japheth structure of Acts proves God ‘will have all men to be saved’ (1 Tim 2.4).

A pattern

Just as the God of glory (7.2) appeared to Abraham in the midst of heathen darkness, ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 4.6) burst upon the horizon of Saul’s religious darkness. Although his conversion only occupies a few verses in chapter nine, he recounted it with increasing intensity and adoration. We first read that ‘there shined around about him a light from heaven’ (9.3). Saul later described it as ‘a great light’ (22.6), and, finally, as ‘a light … above the brightness of the sun’ (26.13). This chief of sinners never forgot the sublime joy of being saved. Neither should we. As with Saul, we should constantly wonder at and be thankful for our own salvation.

Saul left Jerusalem with the intention of bringing back Christians as captives; instead, after the Lord appeared to him, he was led by the hand as Christ’s captive. On the Damascus road, Saul learnt the revolutionary idea that Jesus Christ is Lord. He immediately understood that the voice and glory from heaven was God’s: ‘who art thou, Lord’ (9.5)? It was earthshattering to hear God say ‘I am Jesus’ (9.5). Jesus of Nazareth was not the pseudo-Messiah, self-styled redeemer, that Saul had thought, but the divine Lord. Heretofore, Saul had in ignorance and unbelief, persecuted the name of Jesus, convinced that his followers were idolatrous, heretical apostates. He now learnt what every new convert understands on salvation’s day: Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

The Lord’s response to the apostle, ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest’ (9.5), teaches vital doctrines. Persecuting the church in ignorance and unbelief (1 Tim 1.13), he likely swallowed the conspiracy theory that the disciples had stolen the body (Mt 28.15). For the first time he understood the indisputable fact of the bodily resurrection of Christ, and his subsequent ascension. By revelation, here in embryonic form, he began to appreciate the mystery of the church being the body of Christ (Eph 1.22-23; 3.3, 6). It was fitting, at the outset of a new dispensation, that the mysteries of God, hidden for so long, were revealed to the apostle of the Gentiles. He had ignorantly persecuted the body that was in vital and living union with the risen Christ; with the same zeal, now redirected, he would tirelessly make known the wonder of the church being the body and the bride of Christ. May we never cease to worship at the truth; ‘in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off and made nigh by the blood of Christ’ (Eph 2.13).

The words ‘it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’ (9.5), emphasise the truth that God is longsuffering and not willing that any should perish. Saul became a textbook convert; a prototype of sorts (1 Tim 1.16). Every subsequent conversion would follow a similar pattern: the conviction of sin, the goading of the conscience, the recognition of guilt, and the sinner finally casting their all on Christ’s mercy. To varying degrees every conversion has followed this Pauline mould. In a day and age where Satan makes false professors and sows counterfeit Christians, we must remember what happened to Saul of Tarsus – the pattern convert. Easy believeism and an absence of fruit after profession, is a violation of Saul’s conversion pattern. James is very forthright saying, ‘faith without works is dead’ (Jas 2.20).

Having seen the risen Lord, Saul fell to the earth, completely humbled; and for three days and three nights did not eat nor drink. The fear, the awe and the wonder of beholding the Lord’s glory stripped him of every worldly and material desire. May we also be blind to what is temporal and fleeting, fixing our eyes upon the risen Man in glory.

A pattern for living

Paul was also a pattern for Christian living (1 Cor 11.1). While he experienced some extraordinary and supernatural events which Christians today will never experience, much of Paul’s life was marked by the ordinary, routinely beautiful disciplines of the Christian life. After conversion, he relied on revelation from God for direction. In this instance, Saul received an open vision; his later life was marked by reading the word of God on ink and parchment. We are equally reliant on revelation from heaven, not through visions, but via the closed canon of Scripture. Saul also prayed, a discipline which no Christian outgrows. As soon as he was able, Saul was baptised, as should every Christian. We will never reach the stage where we are too spiritual to read God’s word, to pray and to live in the good of our baptism – dying to self and sin. Let us seek to follow Paul as he followed Christ.

Although Saul’s conversion ranks among the most important events in church history, we subsequently learn that even this great man needed other Christians as he brought the gospel to the Gentiles. The remainder of the chapter shows him dependent on Ananias, the disciples at Damascus, Barnabas, the assembly at Jerusalem and Peter to fulfil his commission. If he had not worked in harmony and unity with them, he would not have been able to function. Neither can we achieve much without the help of others. Ananias was the first to embrace Saul as a brother and encourage him in the faith. Babes in Christ can be stumbled and stifled without due care, but under the wise tutelage of a mature saint (no matter how brief) they can flourish.

Saul associated himself with people of like mind, for example, he was ‘with the disciples … at Damascus’ (9.19). Growing in grace, he loved to preach Christ and exercise the spiritual gifts given to him. The period described as ‘many days’ (9.23), was probably when he was in Arabia (Gal 1.17). Rather than being a monastic time, he most likely spent it advancing the gospel. His burning desire to make Christ known should rebuke our apathy and indifference. The Damascus disciples, who were with him in the good times, helped him through the difficult days of persecution, enabling him to escape in a basket. In this way, through thick and thin, they exemplified Christian unity.

Everywhere Saul went ‘he assayed to join himself’ to the Lord’s people (9.26). The caution exercised by the believers at Jerusalem on the issue of reception is highly commendable. Ultimately, however, they received him on the commendation of Barnabas, who knew his manner of life. Whilst caution needs to be exercised in the matter of assembly reception, we must avoid adding extra-biblical requirements which simply reflect our own biases.

Saul made the assembly the centre of all he did. ‘Coming in and going out’ (9.28) with a local company of believers, he was in fellowship with them in the full sense of the word, exercising the gifts given to him by the Triune God. May we throw our all into the house of God, because what we build into it will show for all eternity (1 Cor 3). Jerusalem was not, however, to be Saul’s base of operations. Through the believers, the Lord sent him to Troas. May the Lord help us to labour in the locality where he has placed us, knowing we are there according to His sovereign prerogative.

Peter

Saul did not have a monopoly on gospel preaching. Having not read much about Peter since chapter six, we now see this mighty apostle emulating Christ’s miracles, with many on the west coast of Israel turning to the Lord (9.35, 42).

Dorcas had laid some of the groundwork in Joppa for gospel testimony. While she was not a public preacher, her loving labours and good works helped the local people to see Christ in her. Although a social gospel has no place in Holy writ, believers should endeavour to get to know people in their locality and to have a good testimony before them. The gospel is a verbal message, but it is supported by the witness of godly lives. This is what we see in Dorcas.

Peter stayed in Joppa for a significant period of time. We do not read of Saul in earnest until chapter 13. Again, we learn that gospel work involves many inter-connected Christians labouring together. Although Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, the Lord was going to first use Peter in Joppa to open the door of faith to the Gentiles through Cornelius. Paul would then use this foundation to preach to Japheth’s other sons in Europe. God was sovereignly working out his gospel plan in a way that involved the unity and harmony of every believer. They were of one spirit and one mind ‘striving together for the faith of gospel’ (Phil 1.27). May we follow their example for the glory of the Lord.