CRITICAL REMARKS
Acts 9:20. And straightway he preached Christ.—Not after his return from Arabia (Plumptre), but after his conversion and during or at the end of the certain days. Paul’s preaching at this stage was not of an apostolic or missionary character, but merely an argumentative setting forth of the Divinity and Messiahship of Christ.
Acts 9:22. The visit to Arabia (Galatians 1:17) is best inserted here (Holtzmann, Zöckler) During it Saul increased the more in strength, and on returning to Damascus confounded the Jews there by his preaching.
Acts 9:23. Some interpreters (Neander, Meyer, Hackett) find room for the Arabian visit in the many days of this verse.
Acts 9:24. The gates were watched by means of a garrison of soldiers (2 Corinthians 11:32). The impression made upon Paul’s mind by this, the earliest of his persecutions, may be gathered from his allusion to it long after in his letter to the Corinthians.
Acts 9:25. The should be his disciples, Saul having already drawn around himself a body of converts. Let him down by a wall in a basket should be let him down through the wall—i.e., through the window of a house upon or overhanging the wall (2 Corinthians 11:33), lowering him in a basket. That Saul’s friends used a basket accorded with the present customs of the country. “It is the sort of vehicle which people employ there now, if they would lower a man into a well or raise him into the upper story of a house” (Hackett).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 9:19-25
Saul at Damascus; or, the Persecutor turned Preacher
I. The preaching of the preacher.—
1. When it began. After “certain days” spent with the disciples at Damascus, but whether immediately after these days (Conybeare and Howson, Hackett, Neander, Meyer, Spence), or after his three years retirement in Arabia from which he returned to Damascus (Plumptre, Farrar), is uncertain. “Straightway” (Acts 9:20) appears to favour the former supposition.
2. How long it continued. First, till he departed for Arabia (Galatians 1:17), which journey is variously located in Luke’s narrative: before the middle of Acts 9:19 (Pearson); before Acts 9:20 (Michaelis, Plumptre, Farrar); in the middle of Acts 9:22 or before it (Alford, Zöckler); at Acts 9:23, during the “many days” (Neander, Meyer, Lecbler, Hackett); between Acts 9:25 and Acts 9:26 (Olshausen. Ebrard). Next after he returned from Arabia and before he fled to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26).
3. Where it was conducted. In the Damascus synagogues which his unbelieving countrymen frequented, and with which the disciples had not yet entirely broken. His zeal for the salvation of his kinsmen according to the flesh led him, in the first instance, to seek a hearing from them (compare John 1:41). Besides, it was indispensable that they who knew him best should be able to judge of his conversion. Saul had no idea of being “a disciple secretly for fear of the Jews” (John 19:38).
4. The thesis it maintained. That Christ or Jesus whom their rulers had crucified was the Son of God. Probably his preaching at this stage (i.e., before his Arabian sojourn) consisted of little more than a proclamation of the new-found truth which God had revealed in his soul (Galatians 1:16), and the Damascus vision had burnt in upon his understanding. Afterwards, on returning from Arabia with matured and arranged thoughts, he advanced beyond proclamation to demonstration (Acts 9:22).
5. The vigour it displayed. If it began timidly, mildly, and half apologetically, it gradually waxed bold, fervid, and confident. The more he attained himself to a clear understanding and firm grasp of the new doctrine of Jesus which had been flashed in upon his intellect, heart, and conscience, of the ground on which it rested, and the significance it imported, the more courageously did he push his way into the citadel of his hearers’ souls.
6. The effect it produced.
(1) It filled all who heard him with amazement. And no wonder! Who ever heard before of a conversion so sudden, violent, and unlikely? A Pharisee become a Nazarene! A persecutor turned preacher! And that, too, like a clap of thunder! And for so little cause—because, as he alleged, he had seen a vision, or (as his opponents would say) he had been dazzled and frightened by a flash of lightning. No doubt the wiseacres laughed, ridiculed, shook their solemn heads, and called him Fanatic!
(2) It confounded all their previous notions about both the Scriptures and Jesus. If this new doctrine of the hare-brained Rabbi was correct, then they had completely misunderstood the teaching of their sacred books, and been guilty of a hideous crime—two charges (ignorance of God’s word and murder of God’s Son) under which the Jews could hardly be expected to sit with comfort.
(3) It kindled in their hearts hostile and even murderous designs (Acts 9:23). It woke up against him the same demon of persecution that had sent Stephen to his death. Possibly Saul was not surprised at this. It was what his new Master had suffered, and what he himself had been preparing for his new Master’s friends.
II. The peril of the preacher.—
1. The plot of his enemies.
(1) Its deadly purpose—to kill him. Nothing short of his blood would satisfy them. They must have been convinced that Saul was lost to them for ever, that he was no insincere convert, but a recruit to the side of Christianity who would never come back; they must have had a high appreciation of his ability and worth as a religious controversialist and propagandist when they could not afford to permit him to transfer his services to the other side; they must have been poorly off for arguments to answer his preaching when they felt themselves obliged so soon to resort to the persuasive weapons of fire and steel.
(2) Its unsleeping vigilance. Night and day they watched the city gates, with the help of a Roman garrison (2 Corinthians 11:32), to apprehend him (compare Acts 23:21). So the wicked sleep not except they have done mischief (Proverbs 4:16), while “their feet are swift to shed blood” (Romans 3:15).
2. The observation of Paul. He was not so absorbed in preaching as not to become aware of what was going on. Saul, from the first to the last of his career, was a remarkably wide-awake person, who always knew the machinations of his adversaries, and understood the right thing to do. In this case he got to hear about the wicked devices of his foes.
3. The stratagem of his friends. Who says that Christians are incapable imbeciles? Under cover of the darkness (having taken him into one of their houses on the city wall), his disciples let him down from the window in a basket (see 2 Corinthians 11:33). “This nightly journey in a basket down over the town wall, whilst underneath perhaps the Jewish spies were waiting to apprehend him and drag him off to be stoned,” says Hausrath (Der Apostel Paulus, p. 139), “remained with him constantly as a frightful recollection which twenty years after he depicted in a more lively manner than all the other sufferings recounted by him, more especially even than the stoning which he once endured, or than the shipwreck in which he was tossed about a night and a day upon the deep.” Having eluded the lines of his would-be captors, he escaped not to Arabia (see Hausrath), but towards Jerusalem, where he abode fifteen days with Peter (Galatians 1:18).
Lessons.—
1. When a man preaches or seeks to propagate the faith he once sought to destroy, there is good reason to conclude he is converted.
2. Sudden conversions, though not impossible, are often difficult to understand.
3. If the Scriptures be authority, Jesus of Nazareth was both Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Redeemer.
4. Zealous preachers of Jesus Christ, if not now murdered, are commonly disliked by the world.
5. God’s eye is always upon His faithful servants to watch over them, especially when the eyes of their enemies are watching against them.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Acts 9:22. Paul’s increase in strength.
I. Whence it came.—
1. From the indwelling Spirit (Ephesians 3:16).
2. From acquaintance with the Scriptures (1 John 2:14).
3. From practice in preaching.
II. In what it resulted.—In more efficient service.
III. What it proved.—The reality of his conversion.
Acts 9:23. A New Convert’s Danger.
I. Hatred and persecution of the world (Acts 9:23).
II. Distrust on the part of believers (Acts 9:26).
III. Spiritual pride of one’s own heart.
IV. Contempt of the Church and the ordinary means of Grace.—Gerok.
Acts 9:25. Paul’s Escape from Damascus.
I. A disappointment to his foes.
II. A kindness to his friends.
III. A mercy to himself.
IV. A blessing to the Church and the world.