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Acts 9: 1-6 (NIV)
1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
This passage holds tremendous encouragement for anybody who claims to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I find at least three reasons to be encouraged; you may identify more.
1 The Lord can use even the most fanatical opponents of the Christian faith in very positive ways.
At the beginning of Acts chapter 8 we read that “On that day (the day on which the deacon, Stephen, was stoned to death by members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem) a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” Saul was complicit in that stoning (Acts 7: 58).
Now in Acts 9: 1, we read how Saul was expressing murderous threats against disciples of Jesus. He gained written authority from the high priest to go to the synagogues in Damascus to locate any followers of the Way and to take them as prisoners back to Jerusalem. God in his mercy interrupted Saul’s journey to Damascus in a most dramatic manner, both visibly and audibly. He completely re-oriented Saul’s world view so that this persecutor of the Christian church became an immensely effective missionary whose writings continue to shape the Christian church today.
2 The Lord can and does intervene directly in the affairs of human-kind.
Our God is not a distant being who, having created our world and the universe in which he placed planet earth, has left humankind to run its own affairs without further divine involvement. Our God is intimately concerned with what he has created and he expresses this concern with love. He continues to exercise control in order that his overall purposes are fulfilled. Here in this passage we are able to see how God’s intervention was made visible to Saul and how God, having gained Saul’s undivided attention, then spoke specifically to Saul to ensure that his divine purposes would be fulfilled.
3 The Lord loves his church and every member of it, as if loving himself.
In verse 4 above, we read Jesus’ words: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus did not ask why Saul was persecuting his church or why Saul was so opposed to “the Way”. Jesus identified those whom Saul was persecuting as himself, as his own body: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting”. Later, Saul as Paul would write eloquently on the church as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 and especially verse 27). Evidently the lesson that Jesus taught Saul on the road to Damascus was well-learned.
We are to be thankful for such great encouragement in such troubling times.