Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0842 – October 19, 2008 – Acts 9:20-31 – The Early Ministry Of Saul

Acts 9:20-31 καὶ εὐθέως ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς ἐκήρυσσεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. 21ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες οἱ ἀκούοντες καὶ ἔλεγον· οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ πορθήσας εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους τὸ ὄνομα τοῦτο, καὶ ὧδε εἰς τοῦτο ἐληλύθει ἵνα δεδεμένους αὐτοὺς ἀγάγῃ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς; 22Σαῦλος δὲ μᾶλλον ἐνεδυναμοῦτο καὶ συνέχυννεν [τοὺς] Ἰουδαίους τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐν Δαμασκῷ συμβιβάζων ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστός. 23Ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦντο ἡμέραι ἱκαναί, συνεβουλεύσαντο οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν· 24ἐγνώσθη δὲ τῷ Σαύλῳ ἡ ἐπιβουλὴ αὐτῶν. παρετηροῦντο δὲ καὶ τὰς πύλας ἡμέρας τε καὶ νυκτὸς ὅπως αὐτὸν ἀνέλωσιν· 25λαβόντες δὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς διὰ τοῦ τείχους καθῆκαν αὐτὸν χαλάσαντες ἐν σπυρίδι. 26Παραγενόμενος δὲ εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἐπείραζεν κολλᾶσθαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς, καὶ πάντες ἐφοβοῦντο αὐτὸν μὴ πιστεύοντες ὅτι ἐστὶν μαθητής. 27Βαρναβᾶς δὲ ἐπιλαβόμενος αὐτὸν ἤγαγεν πρὸς τοὺς ἀποστόλους καὶ διηγήσατο αὐτοῖς πῶς ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ εἶδεν τὸν κύριον καὶ ὅτι ἐλάλησεν αὐτῷ καὶ πῶς ἐν Δαμασκῷ ἐπαρρησιάσατο ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. 28καὶ ἦν μετʼ αὐτῶν εἰσπορευόμενος καὶ ἐκπορευόμενος εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ, παρρησιαζόμενος ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου, 29ἐλάλει τε καὶ συνεζήτει πρὸς τοὺς Ἑλληνιστάς, οἱ δὲ ἐπεχείρουν ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν. 30ἐπιγνόντες δὲ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ κατήγαγον αὐτὸν εἰς Καισάρειαν καὶ ἐξαπέστειλαν αὐτὸν εἰς Ταρσόν. 31Ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐκκλησία καθʼ ὅλης τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Γαλιλαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας εἶχεν εἰρήνην οἰκοδομουμένη καὶ πορευομένη τῷ φόβῳ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ τῇ παρακλήσει τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐπληθύνετο. (NA27)

Acts 9:20-31 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, “Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” 22But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ. 23When many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with him, 24but their plot became known to Saul. They were also watching the gates day and night so that they might put him to death; 25but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a large basket. 26When he came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. 27But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. 28And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. 29And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death. 30But when the brethren learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. 31So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. (NASB95)

Let’s continue with Acts 9. Saul is such a significant figure in the NT we’re taking our time working through this chapter. In vv 1-9 we have his conversion, this happened on the Damascus Road, just outside the city of Damascus. Today in Jerusalem you have a gate on the north side of the old city called the Damascus Gate. They named it that because that was the gate you left if you were headed to Damascus. That’s where Saul went out to persecute Christians but on the way he became a Christian. Then in vv 10-19 we saw him get his apostolic commission. He’s the apostle to the Gentiles but he’s also going to minister to kings and to Jews. It’s just that as the methodology of Jew first and then the Gentile works out in Paul’s life, Gentiles tend to be the responders to his ministry. But we don’t want to forget that doctrinally, the procedure is always Jew first, and so every city Paul visits during his four missionary journeys, he always goes to the synagogue first. 

Now, we want to pick up today with some of Saul’s early ministry starting in v 20, and as we read, mark all the time references, anything that has to do with duration, just mark it because we’re going to come back to that. and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “This man is the Son of God.” 21All who heard him were amazed and were saying, “Is this not the man who in Jerusalem was ravaging those who call on this name, and who had come here to bring them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22But Saul became more and more capable, and was causing consternation among the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. 23Now after some days had passed, the Jews plotted together to kill him, 24but Saul learned of their plot against him. They were also watching the city gates day and night so that they could kill him. 25But his disciples took him at night and let him down through an opening in the wall by lowering him in a basket. So Saul’s preaching at Damascus caused quite a stir, everywhere this man goes people seem to get bent out of shape and here he has to skip town in a basket just to avoid being killed. If we could get that kind of response to the word of God in Fredericksburg it would just be terrific. At least you would know you communicated.

Now, we want to look at the two time references you should have marked, one in v 20 and the other down in v 23. Everyone recognizes Saul takes a trip somewhere in here. So hold your place and turn to Gal 1:17. Let’s find out where Saul went. People have had difficulty reconciling Luke’s record in Acts 9 with Paul’s personal bio in Gal 1. In vv 13-14 he gives his background, in v 15 he gives the plan of God for his life which includes his Damascus Road conversion, and at the close of v 16 note the time references again, after being converted he says, “I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. 18Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem…” According to v 18 we have three years from his conversion till he gets to Jerusalem and during that three years he goes to Arabia and back to Damascus. What we’re trying to figure out is when he went to Arabia. In this passage it seems to say that he was converted, then he went “immediately” to Arabia,” after he spent some time there he returned to Damascus. But flip to Acts 9:20. What does this say? and immediately and we assume he means immediately after his blindness was healed, he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues. So which is it? Did he go immediately to Arabia or did he immediately go to the Damascus synagogues. Is this a contradiction? You can’t be immediately doing two different things in two different places. Yet the same Greek word used in both chapters. Feel the tension. Something is strange here so we want to see if we can resolve this. Saul, after you were saved did you stick around in Damascus and preach in the synagogues for awhile and then go to Arabia or did you immediately go to Arabia and come back to Damascus and then preach? One solution is to say Saul stuck around in Damascus for awhile and preached, then he went to Arabia and came back. They put the trip to Arabia after v 21 because v 22 says Saul “became more and more capable,” so they are inferring that when Saul went to Arabia he got some teaching from the Lord and he came back and with his new learning he was really a problem for the Jews. The second view is essentially the same in that Saul spent some time preaching in Damascus and then he went down to Arabia, but they say he went between vv 22 and 23. And this second view people say this, obviously because of the time reference in v 23, now after some days had passed, that’s when he went to Arabia. Now what both of these views are emphasizing is Luke’s version over Paul’s. Luke’s got the right chronology, Saul preached in Damascus first for a little bit then he went off to Arabia. I don’t like that for several reasons. One of the reasons is that Luke is not giving a strict chronology of Saul’s life. We know that because he doesn’t even mention the trip to Arabia. Nowhere in Acts 9 do you find Saul in Arabia for a three year sabbatical. Yet in Gal 1 Saul says he went there immediately after his conversion. So Luke must be doing what he commonly does with historic events, he telescopes them. Remember in Stephen’s speech, Stephen liked to telescope events, all this means is he doesn’t give all the historical details, he compresses them so he can get to the main point. This was a common practice for Jews reciting history when they wanted to get to the main point. So in terms of a chronology Gal 1 has to take priority over Acts 9. Second, Gal 1 says he did not immediately consult with anyone but he went immediately to Arabia. But if either of the other views is correct then he stuck around Damascus preaching for awhile. Are we to really believe he did not consult with Ananias and Judas or other believers in Damascus before going out to the synagogues? It seems far fetched to me to say that Saul just went out preaching on his own without any consultation. So what’s the solution? When did Saul go to Arabia? I suggest before he did any preaching at all in Damascus. Thus, between vv 19 and 20 there seems to be a break. And you say, but it says immediately in v 20. Yes, it does. But immediately after what? See, some versions close v 19 with a period and open v 20 with a new sentence. Others don’t. Even Greek versions differ on this grammatical point. But I think for reasons we’ll develop there’s a full stop at the end of v 19, making verse 20 a new sentence. Here’s why. First, v 19 says after he was healed from his blindness he spent quote “several days with the disciples,” and then v 20 it says “immediately he began to proclaim,” Isn’t there an easier way to say this than to put two time statements together like that? How would you do it? “Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus, 20and” then “he began to proclaim Jesus,” you wouldn’t say “and immediately…” so something is not right here, something’s fishy. F.F. Bruce, the famous scholar says, “…his preaching in the Damascus synagogues may have followed his return to Damascus (Gal. 1:17c); we need not press the word “straightway,” he means the word ‘immediately,’ “in v. 20 overmuch, the more so since Luke has nothing to say of the visit to Arabia.” So Bruce is agreeing with me. I came to this conclusion a different way but he also saw the possibility that Gal 1 takes precedence and Saul went to Arabia and then came back and did his preaching at Damascus. Second reason this is correct, if Saul had immediately entered the synagogues in Damascus and preached Jesus as the Son of God don’t you think the news would have got back to Jerusalem and everyone would have found out that the great persecutor of the Church was now the great preacher of the Church. Yet nobody found out until three years later when in 9:26 he actually went and preached in Jerusalem. Now how is that possible if he preached in Damascus and got all the Jews in a hissy before he went to Arabia? It’s simply impossible. Saul had gone off on a mission for the chief priests of the Temple in Jerusalem. If he had preached Jesus as the son of God and got all the Jews in Damascus stirred up I guarantee you they would have alerted the authorities in Jerusalem. Third reason I think Saul went immediately to Arabia then returned and preached at Damascus. Look at v 20, what was the content Saul preached in the Damascus synagogues? That Jesus is the “Son of God.” Now, in the 21st century we say, “Oh, yeah, Jesus is the Son of God, no big deal.” But do you know what you’re saying when you say that? Probably not. This is advanced truth. This is not Bible basics, this is not milk doctrine, this is not about faith or repentance or baptism or resurrection or judgment or something, this is serous business. We’re going to cover it under three points in a minute because we want to see how advanced this Son of God concept really is. But are we to really believe that a few days after his conversion and no consultation Saul could preach this advanced doctrine? I don’t think so. So let’s summarize by looking at the suggested chronology. 

Now, the dates are approximations. I’m not certain about that, all I’m proposing is the sequence of events here. Years from now maybe I can propose some dates. Starting on the left side, Saul was converted on the Damascus Road, then he was led to the House of Judas, Ananias came and healed him, then he spent “several days” there recovering and then he “immediately” went to Arabia, where’s Arabia and what in the world is he doing in Arabia? Arabia is out here, it was a part of the Nabatean kingdom. It was a desert wilderness, just sand dune after sand dune, oasis after oasis, that’s all Arabia is. I’ve showed you pictures of the area around the Dead Sea, Qumran and so forth, that’s what this is. Wouldn’t you just love to spend a vacation out there counting the grains of sand between the oases, that’s all you can do. But it’s an excellent place to think. There’s no telephone for one thing, and you can get away from people and just be alone to get your stuff together and that’s a great thing. It’s an experience you should all have at least once in your life. I had to just bury myself in Lubbock for five years in a little crevice of an office studying the word of God. Evening after evening my wife would sit there alone while I studied the word of God and I’d emerge out of my cave every once in a while and that’s what it was like. Because I had to get away from the world system and think. That’s what it takes and that’s what it took for Saul, this man is going to get about 2 ½ years of direct instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ. So where did he learn this advanced doctrine of v 20, that Jesus is the Son of God? From the Son of God Himself out in this desert. And when Saul did this for 2 ½ years he finally began, and remember, he’s already a PhD under Gamaliel’s ministry and so this we are talking is the equivalent to post doctoral studies out in the desert. I want you to see the preparation and the time it took to get this man prepared, three years of post gospel studies out in the sand dunes. That’s where this man learned the basics of Christian theology.   

Then we can come to verse 20, in verse 20 he’s returned to Damascus and “immediately he began proclaiming this advanced doctrine. So there’s a 2 ½ year break between those verses and it’s during that time he got his theology worked out. So let’s look at the advanced doctrine of the Son of God. First, the “son of God” is a phrase used of Israel that comes from the Exodus generation. Exod 4:22. “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Israel is My son, My firstborn.” Now think of the word “son,” what kind of word is that? It’s a family word isn’t it? So we’re back to DI#3, the family. DI#3 is the background for this term. When God created he told Adam and Eve, I want you to multiply, I want you to have lots of little kids running around because that’s going to help you extend your dominion over planet earth. I gave the world to you to run according to My plan and My plan is for you to subdue. Of course Adam dropped the ball, but the mandate remains and the form remains of father-son, father-son, father-son down through time so the concept is embedded in the human race, everyone is familiar with the father-son relationship. And here the Lord picks up that form He established at Creation with the Exodus generation and he says now Israel, you are My Son. And then later on He’s going to say to King David, “you are My son,” and finally later on the Son of God is going to be Jesus Christ. So what’s He doing? He’s narrowing the application of this term. First it’s the whole nation, then it’s King David and his seed, finally it’s just the Lord Jesus Christ. So putting this all together what is Saul preaching? That Jesus Christ is the second Adam, that He is the Son of God par excellence, that He is the perfect representative of Israel and He did not fail in His dominion mandate as Adam fell, but he is the successful administrator of God’s plan for dominion man, that He is sovereign over all creation. All this is tied up in Saul’s proclamation that Jesus is the “Son of God.” It’s nothing less than the total package of who and what Jesus Christ is. So don’t tell me he got all that in a week of study. This took years of personal instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ. Years of mulling this over in the desert as the Lord would say, “Alright Saul, think about Gen 1:26-27,” and Saul would mull that over and then the Lord would say, “Alright, now connect that with Gen 3:15,” and Saul would say, “Okay, Lord, fine” and then he’d have to think about how that fit. Now add to that Gen 49:10, Ps 2, 16, 22, 89, 110, Isa 7:14; 9:6-7; Isa 53, Mic 5:2, Zech 9:9 and on and on and on. And finally he was able to put it all together. Then he returned to Damascus and started, in a very crude way at first, but very effectively, he communicated that Jesus was all this, He was the “Son of God.”  

Verse 21, All who heard him were amazed and were saying, “Is this not the man who in Jerusalem was ravaging those who call on this name, and who had come here to bring them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22But Saul became more and more capable, he got better at doing this, practice makes perfect, this is why it’s so important to talk about the Scriptures because the more you talk about it the better you’re able to articulate it, and all Christians ought to be able to articulate what they believe and why they believe it. And Saul was doing this and it was causing consternation among the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. And that word consternation means they couldn’t answer him, he was confounding them with the Scriptures. They were dumbfounded. Then notice the word proving, he was proving that Jesus is the Christ. That’s the word sumbibazo, it means “to put together,” some of you were saying a minute ago, “C’mon Jeremy, you’re putting me about all this stuff Saul was putting together out in the Arabian desert. How do you know all that?” I know all that from this word picture, it means to put together pieces, it’s like putting together a puzzle, you have all these pieces laying around disconnected and you start putting them together and after awhile the picture becomes clear. Where did he get this ability with the Scriptures? Where did he learn to do this? He had the framework of rabbinic Judaism but now he’s got the Christian framework. Where did he learn to put together the OT Scriptures like this and show they point to Jesus? In Arabia that’s where. 

Verse 23, Now after some days had passed, the Jews plotted together to kill him, And we gather from this he spent a few months in Damascus at the most so that all in all from his conversion to this point is a total of three years. I take it that the majority of those three years were spent in Arabia then he came back to Damascus, preached a short while they got all upset and now their plotting to kill him. Now again, we mentioned this with the Jewish reaction to Stephen. You don’t try to kill someone because they called you a bad name or they won a minor point in a debate. The only way you can make people angry enough to want to kill you is to undermine their entire framework, their entire way of thinking. Saul has effectively come in and just removed the foundation of Judaism. He’s doing the same thing Stephen had done to him back in Jerusalem. But now the tables are turned. He’s not defending Judaism, he’s arguing against it. And these Jews obviously feel the threat. They are threatened by this “son of God” doctrine, he may be bringing in things about the Mosaic Law and the Temple like Stephen did, but all together this is smashing the framework of Judaism and erecting the framework of Christianity and this, needless to say got under their skin. 

Verse 24, but Saul learned of their plot against him. How he learned of it we can only imagine that the believers were gathering intel, they were looking out for one another. They were also watching the city gates day and night so that they could kill him. 25But his disciples took him at night and let him down through an opening in the wall by lowering him in a basket. Notice the guys who helped him out. They were his own disciples, so apparently he was here long enough to start training believers. And the whole thing comes to a close when they Let him down through an opening in the city wall. Saul recounts this later in the list of sufferings in 2 Cor 11:32-33. Turn there. The words of Jesus Christ in v 16, that Saul will suffer for His name’s sake, had already begun to be fulfilled. V 32, “In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, 33and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands.” So, we don’t know all the details of this organized assassination attempt, but we can guess that since Aretas was anti-Roman and so were the Jews, these Jews must have told him that Saul was a Roman citizen and therefore they organized the official police and some of the Jews to guard the gates and Saul escaped out a window, just like the spies in OT Jericho. 

9:26, When he came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. 27But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. 28And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. 29And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death. 30But when the brethren learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. Verse 26 When he came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate, but he was not succeeding, this man had terrorized these people three years ago. And they still remember his long resume of persecution. Saul admits later, “I punished men and women, I forced men and women to blaspheme, I murdered men and women,” so When he came to Jerusalem and tried to associate with the disciples what are they going to do, just let him join in? Forget it. “He’s just trying to infiltrate the flock, get the addresses of the Christians, places of business and so forth so he can murder them. 

Verse 27, But Barnabas took hold of him, that’s a nice way of saying he grabbed him by the shirt collar and said “Come here boy, you don’t know what you’re doing to these poor people,” and so he brought him to the apostles because Saul’s never going to get accepted if he doesn’t start from the top down. So apparently Barnabas had received intel from Damascus about Saul’s conversion on the Damascus road, how the Lord had talked to Him and so forth, so he knows his true colors and he brings him before the apostles and makes the case for Saul. We’ve already seen Barnabas introduced back in Acts 4:36-37, we’re going to see a lot more of him so let’s review who he is. Barnabas was a Jew of the tribe of Levi, so he was of the priestly tribe, he was born out on the island of Cyprus, out in the Mediterranean, apparently this is where he had a field that he sold for a large sum of money and he gave the proceeds to the church to help out with the widow problem in Jerusalem. So he was a very generous man, had the proper motives, he was held in high esteem by the early church. His name, Barnabas means “Son of Encouragement” and that’s his dominant characteristic. Some people have said he has the gift of encouragement or exhortation and there’s no question that this is the predominant theme in his life. Here he helps and encourages Saul and later he’s going to do the same thing for John Mark (Acts 12:25; 15:37, 39), we don’t know for sure but it seems that most of his encouragement was directed toward new believers. He sort of takes them under his wing and works with them, helps them get on their feet as new believers so they can stand under pressure. 

So in v 28 this encourager presents Saul’s case and it was obviously pretty convincing because from that day forth Saul was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, arguing, now that’s an imperfect voice, it means day after day after day he was arguing with them. Some Christians won’t argue with anyone, they think it’s wrong to argue, we ought to all just let everyone run over us, that’s the Christian thing to do. Never argue. Why then does Jude tell us to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And what that word means is fight, you fight for the truth, you don’t lay down and get run over. You run over them. Now why won’t Christians in America run over people when God says, “run over them?” Why do we keep crying God bless me when we will not stand up for His word? Don’t be an idiot. God is not going to bless you for being a tolerant, passive doormat. One reason you don’t fight is very simple, you don’t believe what God says. You haven’t been convinced of the truth. You’re still floating around in a postmodern milieu, “Can we really know truth?” No one who thinks that way is going to stand up for the truth, he’s not sure he’s got truth. Two, you are too concerned with being politically correct and acceptable to everyone. What you’re interested in is people saying, “Oh yes, so and so’s a nice guy, so and so’s a sweet girl.” By which they mean you’ll go along with anything, you don’t make waves, you’re the perfect slave citizen. What we need today is a few Christians like Stephen and Saul, men who will stand up and fight. Where are the Saul’s? Where are the Stephen’s? Oh, we don’t like people that make waves, their divisive. What did Jesus Christ say about division? Matt 10:34-35, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35“For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;” Now look, Jesus Christ came to divide people and he did a pretty good job of it. Families today still divide over Him. And we make an important point here about Saul. Remember who Saul was? He was a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” daddy sent him off to get trained by Rabban Gamaliel, he was going to be the next leader of Judaism and he comes home a Christian? What do you think happened to Saul when he got home? He got ripped a new one, that’s what happened, he got run up and down one side of the house to the other. He was never accepted back in that house. We find out later he was totally cut off from his family inheritance. The man had to scrape by making tents. It was so bad what happened in that house up in Tarsus, his father got so angry that some commentators have said it’s the background for Paul saying in Colossians and Ephesians, “Father’s do not provoke your children to wrath,” because he was personally had been on the receiving end of it. And Saul never forgot it. And all the rest of his life as he would go in church after church after church he always had that one theme to the Christian fathers, everywhere to the Christian fathers, discipline your children but never provoke them to wrath. So Christ came to divide and this little bit of arguing here is going to do just that.

So don’t worry about arguing. Arguing is fine, now you do it gentlemanly, respectfully, but you do fight for the truth. This arguing by the way is the same word use of Stephen’s disputes back in Acts 6:9. So Saul has picked up where Stephen left off. Saul who once debated against Stephen is now walking in Stephen’s footsteps. He’s right back arguing in the same place with the same people, the Hellenistic Jews. Remember, the Hellenistic Jew was the Jew whose ancestors had been enslaved outside the land of Israel and they had grown up outside the land in the Greek culture. So these Jews were more cosmopolitan in their outlook and they were sort of frowned upon by the locals so they set up there own synagogues in Jerusalem. And look at the response he got, end of v 29…they were attempting to put him to death. Same arguments, same place, same people, same results. Its obvious Saul was too powerful for them just like Stephen had been too powerful for him. They simply could not defeat the power of the Scriptural arguments. This is one of the most fascinating about Scripture. There is no argument that can defeat the Scriptures. I don’t care how smart you are, I don’t care how high your IQ, you can be a nuclear physicist, you can work with differential equations all day, you can have five Ph.D.’s, it doesn’t matter. Why is this? Why can no human argument compete? Because the Scriptures are sourced in God’s infinite knowledge base but human arguments are sourced in man’s limited knowledge. It doesn’t matter how far you read, how many of the great ideas you’ve mastered, God will always know infinitely more than any of us. So they sensed this as he smashed their whole framework, their whole way of life and because they could not defeat him intellectually they turn to the only alternative, defeat him physically.

But watch verse 30, When the brothers found out about this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. So again, believers intel at work. Where did they take him? Up to Caesarea, here on the Mediterranean coast. Why? So he could take a ship up to Tarsus. So let’s familiarize ourselves with a few things in Caesarea. We’re going to be seeing a lot of this city. First, this city an older naval port called Stratos Tower. In the time of Herod the Great he decided to remodel it and make it a big playground for all his Roman friends. So it became an entertainment villa and he renamed it Caesarea after Augustus Caesar. It served as the Roman military base, they were hands off from Jerusalem but they were close enough to deploy if something happened, besides they had a squad there in the Antonia Fortress, but because of all the offense of Roman life they had their pagan entertainment up here. Part of that entertainment involved this theatre, it held 7,000 people. Then down in front of the sea you had the Hippodrome, this is where you had chariot races and such, it seated 22,000. Here you can see Herod’s palace, the promontory palace, built out over the sea, not too shabby accommodations, salt baths, nice view. Out here was the manmade harbor. So this is the port Saul set out from. And he headed back to Tarsus, this is when he would have had his run in with his father back home. Here’s Tarsus, it’s in the province of Cilicia, it was the chief city, it was a very wealthy city, and its schools excelled those of Athens and Alexandria. Alexander the Great once lived there. It was a center of Stoic philosophy. Stoic thought was a fusion of Greek philosophy and Oriental thought, Saul’s going to run into Stoic philosophers in Acts 17 at Athens and we can tell from his argument he was very attuned to Stoic philosophy. So this just shows you how important your geographical background is in your intellectual development. Saul was in tune with all the great ideas of the ancient world because his hometown was located right on the main road. So he’s going to spend some time up in these regions.

Verse 31, after Saul left the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. And we could go into the details but the main thing is this is a progress report. Once Saul left things calmed down a bit and the church could grow. But we want to emphasize that the kind of growth they enjoyed after Saul left was primarily spiritual depth growth, notice they were going on in the fear of the Lord and that has to do with their reverence for Him, it has to do with a proper view of who God is, so they were gaining appreciation for who God is through the study of His attributes. And also in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit and this has to do with the Paraclete ministry of the Holy Spirit, that is, a unique function of the Holy Spirit to the Church is the fact that He’s the teacher of the believer, He’s the personal instructor. This doesn’t do away with the need for studying the Scripture. Some believers get the idea if they just hold hands with Christians they’ll soak up knowledge, God the Holy Spirit just injects truth in you. That has never happened and will never happen. God the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and He will never bypass your volition. You have a responsibility and you’re responsibility is to study the truth, ask questions of the text, research the various places and people you run across, look at the verb tenses, the noun cases, compare Scripture with Scripture, that’s your job and as you do that the Holy Spirit will open up new vistas of understanding the text. That’s what they were doing and that is the primary growth they were enjoying.

So what have we seen today? We have seen a man who was a violent persecutor of the church get some personal training from the Lord Jesus Christ out in the Arabian Desert and become a great instrument of the Church. To do that the transition took 2 ½ years of post doctoral studies before he ever returned and thought about ministering. And once he did, once he put together the doctrine that Jesus was the Son of God, he immediately began up in Damascus. What happened in Damascus? They tried to kill him and he had to slip out a window at night. When he got down to Jerusalem he tried to incorporate himself with the church there but they wouldn’t accept him. So Barnabas comes in, gets him an appearance with the apostles, by the way, he just saw Peter and James on this trip, he didn’t see all the apostles, just two of them, the rest were out in Judea ministering. Then he started in where Stephen worked, in probably the same synagogue Stephen debated and what were the results? Same results. They wanted to kill him too. So they shipped him off from Caesarea. And this is just a foretaste of Saul’s life, you think, “My goodness, it’s chaos everywhere this man goes, the guy just opens his mouth and people go ballistic on him.” And that’s right, everywhere he flaps his mouth people get bent out of shape. And the reason has nothing to do with Saul being a mean guy or anything, the fact is he just knew everyone’s position so thoroughly that he could easily undermine it with Scripture. And that’s what got everyone at odds with Saul. So this is just a foretaste of things to come.  

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