Sunday: Persecutor of the Church
Paul was a Hellenistic Jew. His birthplace was Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia (Acts 21:39). Notwithstanding, to a certain extent he deviated from the Hellenistic stereotype, for he was brought to Jerusalem, where he studied under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), the most influential Pharisaic teacher at the time.
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As a Pharisee, Paul was strictly orthodox, though his zeal bordered on fanaticism (Gal. 1:14). This is why he led Stephen to his death and became the key figure in the ensuing persecution.
Read Acts 26:9-11. How did Paul describe his actions against the church?
Paul says elsewhere that the gospel was a stumbling block to the Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). Besides the fact that Jesus did not fit the traditional Jewish expectation of a kingly Messiah, they could by no means accept the idea that the One who had died on a cross could be God’s Messiah, for the Scripture says that anyone who is hung is under God’s curse (Deut. 21:23). To the Jews, therefore, the crucifixion was in itself a grotesque contradiction, the clearest evidence that the church’s claims about Jesus were false.
Acts 9:1-2 shows Saul of Tarsus in action against believers. Damascus was an important city about one hundred thirty-five miles north of Jerusalem, and it had a large Jewish population. The Jews living outside Judea were organized in a kind of network whose headquarters were in Jerusalem (the Sanhedrin), with the synagogues functioning as supporting centers for the local communities. There was constant communication between the Sanhedrin and such communities through letters normally carried by a shalia?, “one who is sent” (from the Hebrew shala?, “to send”). A shalia? was an official agent appointed by the Sanhedrin to perform several religious functions.
When Paul asked the high priest, the Sanhedrin’s president, for letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, he became a shalia?, with authority to arrest any followers of Jesus and bring them to Jerusalem (compare with Acts 26:12). In Greek, the equivalent to shalia? is apostolos, from which the word apostle derives. Thus, before being an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul was an apostle of the Sanhedrin.
| When was the last time you were zealous for (or against) something you later changed your mind about? What lessons should you have learned from that experience? |
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The most wonderful lesson in this is God’s ability to change and transform anything that isn’t like Him in me. It doesn’t matter where I learned it or from whom. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a habit, behavior, thought or belief. He can change anything.
Like Psalm 121 says, ‘My help is from the Lord Who made Heaven and earth’.
Revelation 12 reveals a great conflict between Michael and his angels("messengers"), and the dragon and his angels("messengers"). There is no 3rd option in this ongoing controversy, so it is Michael or the dragon. It was the dragon who controlled the Sanhedrin, which made Saul an apostle of the dragon. Thus it is with every soul in this great controversy. "Who's messenger am I?" is a good question to ask ourselves.
It is interesting how souls blinded by sin call good, evil and evil, good.
We can easily imagine the earnest zeal in Saul's persecution of the church by observing the earnest zeal by which he preached Jesus wherever he was led by the Holy Spirit. Doesn't this become a point of examination in our own lives(2 Cor 13:5)? Is our zeal for the gospel as great as our former zeal for the world and it's vain "pleasures"?
Because Paul was aware of the Jew organization, his training and knowledge about God’s law, he asked for permission to persecute the Christians. He was zelows about them, he was afraid of the conversion of the sinagous into christianism. His jelouness for his God and for his organization made him acts accordingly to the rules. He didn’t act by himself, he just became a persecuter, an apostole of the Jews to go after the new believers and bring them to Jerusalem for trials. His authority came from the most high priests, and God didn’t destruyed them, but used him to preach the truth, the real truth he needed the entire world had to hear about and know.
According to Paul, who is a Jew? One who -
Has faith...
Is obedient...
Keeps traditions..
Who is a Christian? One who -
Has a faith that is inclusive...
Disregards the oracles...
Neglects deep rooted Jewish traditions
Studied at the feet of Gamaliel, Paul could not sit idle watch the very pillars of the Jewish faith being shaken by the followers of Christ.
He had the zeal to protect he was a Jew
Newbegin, I think you are trying to summarise the change in direction that happened in Paul's life at conversion. He was indeed a zealous Jew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and the epiphany of the Damascus road that was the turning point. Pauls background does indeed illuminate much of what he wrote in later life.
Only Christ can truly change a person.
All the Jewish economy pointed to Jesus, the Messiah.
What had happened, was that the "shadows" had become the end in themselves.
The nation had been set up by God, and given 490 years (Daniel 9:24) to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah!!! It was to be nation proclaiming the GOSPEL, the good news of "reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness", which the Messiah's mission was all about, and which the "visions" were pointing to!
But instead they saw their identity in the "shadows" not in the mission.
Yes, Saul was all zealous of protecting the "shadows" and the pride of the nation at first.
But then he realized the true "MISSION" was about salvation and about the ONE to whom everything had pointed.
To Paul it was like the resurrection from the dead.
Once dead in sin, but now alive in Christ!
His complete change is regarded as second only to the resurrection of Christ as the most convincing proof of the truth of the Christian faith. If this militant opponent to Jesus Christ was truly converted to become Christianity’s most ardent advocate, it demands an explanation.
Ephesians 2:5-8 Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (ESV)