You can watch this post on You Tube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgB1Cj5SW14
Acts 9:1-19 You can read it here if you haven’t yet:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%209%3A1-19&version=NLT
Re-enter Saul Most of the rest of this book follows this man, but it’s in other letters that we get his background. I don’t know who may or may not read this. It’s possible this is the first you have heard of him, so I want to give him more of an intro than he gets in this passage.
First, A little clarification on his name: Depending on your translation of the Bible and the passage you are reading you will see the name Saul and Paul speaking of this same guy. Saul is a very Jewish name. Paul seems to be more Roman. We find out later he had dual citizenship. Some people think he changed his name when he was converted. There’s really no evidence for that. It seems that, the same way guys from Europe named Johan and Jean sometimes get called John when they live in North America, Saul/Paul was just flipped around depending on the culture among which he was interacting.
Beyond his name, Saul provides a little pre-conversion bio in a letter he wrote to the Philippians several years later. In chapter 3, verses 5 & 6 he explains he was from the Israelite tribe of Benjamin and had become a very respected Pharisee. Pharisees were a Jewish religious/political party who were experts in the law. They were often scribes and teachers. We are told he was raised by parents who respected and honoured the law diligently and that he grew up following it religiously. He studied his scriptures thoroughly and he knew them well. So when Jesus appeared on the scene and started gaining an audience, he was not what Saul had grown up expecting the Messiah to be. Saul was convinced Jesus was an imposter and a deceiver who had tried to undermine the faith that Saul held dear. He saw himself as a protector of the law and the scriptures, so Saul made it his mission to stamp out the memory of Jesus and his teachings. People were calling the teachings of Jesus “The Way”, and Saul believed he was defending God by rounding up anyone who claimed to follow The Way and dragging them to Jerusalem where they would stand trial before the Jewish religious court.
We get a little insight into his temperament here. Depending on the Bible translation you read it will say some variation of Saul was threatening murder. This guy is intense and dedicated and it isn’t just a personal vendetta. He is zealous for God’s honour and he feels like these followers of The Way are claiming there is another God. Saul’s God is the only true God and Saul is having none of this.
So when Saul is on his way to Damascus and this crazy thing happens on the road, he is sincerely confused. This obviously divine voice coming out of a brilliant light asks why Saul is persecuting him, and Saul is sincerely unaware of the source of the voice. Notice, he responds to the voice/light calling it Lord. He knew that whatever was talking was coming straight from God, but since he thought he was acting on God’s behalf, he was justifiably confused. When the voice answered that it was Jesus, Saul would have been absolutely shocked. Compounding his astonishment was the fact that he was suddenly completely blind. It’s no wonder he spent three days without eating or drinking anything. His entire world had just flipped on its head. This was a man who loved God, who wanted to honour God and who was willing to go to pretty crazy lengths to do what he thought would accomplish that. Now the voice of God claims to be Jesus who he was ardently persecuting. This man had to rethink everything he ever believed. Those three days of blindness must have been so much darker than anything sightless eyes could have caused.
But God loves Saul. This confrontation wasn’t just an attempt to help the people Saul was persecuting. It was God reaching to rescue Saul in the only way that could possibly get his attention.
God also loves a guy named Ananias. So he gives him a job to do.
“There’s a guy named Saul in town. He’s blind and I need you to heal him.”
“I’ve heard of Saul. He’s kind of hard on people who follow you. I feel like this will end poorly for me.”
“No worries. He is about to become as passionate an advocate of The Way as he has been its adversary. It’s gonna be a rough path, but I’ve chosen him for it.”
Can we admire the faith of Ananias? First of all, when God tells him what to do, yes, he does stop for a moment’s clarification. But he doesn’t say, “Um, no. I’m not handing myself over to that guy”. He listens to be sure he has understood his instructions. And when God tells him that Saul is about to become a follower of The Way, Ananias believes God. He is so completely certain of God’s faithfulness that when he first addresses Saul, he calls him brother. To Ananias, if God says it’s gonna happen, it’s already done. And it was. As soon as Ananias prays and Saul’s sight is restored, he is baptized.
I hope I can develop a heart like Ananias. I would love to think that, when God had a job to do that was truly crazy, that required absolute confidence in his goodness and wisdom, that he might choose me. What if he looked in my heart and saw that I trust him that much?
If I had to provide a definition for faith in God, I would call it “confidence in the character and capacity of God”. I need to know who he is and what he is capable of. If I am confident that he is good, and that he is wise, and that the only limit of his power is his own character, I really don’t have much to worry about when he gives me a job to do. I hope I know my God that well, and I hope I have that level of confidence in him. He knows my heart better than I do, so I can trust that he won’t give me a job he hasn’t already given me the faith to do.
