Chapter 9. The Conversion of Saul And His Preliminary Ministry.
Having gone forward and seen the result of the persecution in Jerusalem in terms of the successful activities of the men who were driven out, we are now brought back to Jerusalem and made aware what a difficult time the Jerusalem church was having, but only in order that we may see the next advance of the word.
Saul had filled the prisons, and now found that all whom he sought had otherwise fled, and he was so filled with angry zeal that he was determined to pursue them. When news came from the synagogues of Damascus that many had fled there and were spreading their teaching, he went to the High Priest for his authority to haul them back to Jerusalem for trial. Although the High Priest had no jurisdiction over the synagogues in Damascus, he did have the authority to request that ‘criminal' elements who had fled from Jerusalem might be returned there. The letters that Saul therefore obtained would be to give him official authorisation to arrest any fugitives from Jerusalem so as to bring them back for trial.
It may seem surprising that a man of his calibre would partake in such vicious activities, but in view of the fact that he saw the attitude of believers as blasphemous he had plenty of precedents. Moses had ordered the slaying of idolaters at Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:27-28), and at Baal-peor (Numbers 25:1-5). Phinehas was commended for promptly slaying the Simeonite chieftain, thus turning away God's wrath from Israel (Numbers 25:6-15). It may well have been clear to Saul therefore that such prompt action was now required again, and that he was the righteous man to do it. He had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2).
But what he did not realise was that he was a marked man. The God of his fathers whom he was seeking to serve in such a vicious way had chosen him for a task that he could not even have dreamed of. He was to be the spearhead of the taking of this new message of the Kingly Rule of God to the world.
Thus on the road to Damascus, which would become one of the best remembered roads in the whole world precisely because of this incident, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him and basically informed him that from now on he must serve Him. He who was going to arrest others found himself divinely ‘arrested'. He would be led, blind, into Damascus to learn his future. It was symbolic of the condition of his own heart.
Humanly speaking we can understand why he was chosen. As a Jew and a prominent Pharisee he knew Judaism inside out, and had a sister prominent in Jerusalem's priestly circles, as a Roman citizen from birth he would grow up familiar with the Easternised culture of Rome, as a Jew of Tarsus, a university city, he would be fully familiar with the more broadminded Hellenistic ideas relating to Judaism, and his background in Greek ideas, which he could hardly have avoided as he grew up, rounded him off as a man of wide experience and knowledge. Furthermore he would reveal that he had a brilliant mind, and was a man of unceasing zeal.
His conversion brings to mind that of another like him. Sadhu Sundar Singh the Indian mystic was seeking ‘God' with all his heart and in total despair spent what might have been his last night on earth in deep prayer, determined that if he could not find God he would commit suicide. His hope was for one of his gods to appear. But the One who appeared to this desperately seeking soul was the last person Whom he had imagined. He too saw the Lord Jesus Christ, and he too became as a result a dedicated servant of His. In both cases they were men of deep religious desire, and in both cases they were seeking in the wrong direction. And to both Christ unexpectedly appeared. There were no deeply psychological reasons in either case why they should see the unexpected. It happened because it was so.
But why God should choose him to ‘oust' the Apostles, making him the central determining figure who would direct the future of Christianity, second only to our Lord Himself, can only be a mystery. For even Peter pales into relative insignificance in contrast with this mighty figure.
When we commence the Acts of the Apostles and read the first chapter we think that we will find before us a description of how these men went to the ends of the earth with the Good New. And at first our wish is fulfilled. For the first few Chapter s they and their appointees dominate the scene. Their effectiveness in Jerusalem cannot be doubted, and even their outreach to the surrounding area. But once we get to chapter 9 the book is almost hijacked by Paul. From then on it is he who is seen to be the gigantic figure who spreads the Good News as far as Rome, building on Peter's initial outreach to local Gentiles. And not only so, but it is his letters which become foundational to understanding the doctrines of the Christian church.
And yet none can doubt that God was right. Not only did he establish the church from Jerusalem to Rome, but he provided the finest possible explanation of the teaching and significance of Jesus that is known to us, provided revelation from God which illuminated Who and What Christ is, and bestrode the Christian world of his day. And yet he accomplished it all acting humbly under the auspices of the Apostles. His rise to superiority could well have happened had he wished it, but never did he seek to replace them or diminish them. He always treated them with the greatest respect, acknowledging their right to act as final arbiters, and describing himself as ‘the least of the Apostles', although few others would have looked at him in that way.
Jesus as Saviour, Redeemer and Lord, and as both God and Man, was the centrepiece and focus of the Christian message. Paul was to be the magnifying glass that brought His glory and significance to light not only to the Hellenistic Jews but also in the eyes of the whole Gentile world. He was supremely the ‘Apostle to the Gentiles'.
However, having said that the Apostles undoubtedly played their part nobly. They did found the work on Christ, they did establish the infant church in its first roots, Peter did use the ‘keys of the Kingly Rule of God' to open the way first for the Jews and then for the Gentiles, and they did ensure the preservation of the Tradition of Jesus and its final recording in the Gospels, and while they lived they were the final source to which men went for the truth about Jesus' life and teaching. They were ‘the living voice' as Papias makes clear. When the early church set in parallel Peter and Paul, Peter represented the whole Apostolate, but Paul represented (in the best possible way) himself.
However, when we are first introduced to him here it is under his Jewish name of Saul of Tarsus.