Experience: S2 - Day 12

The risk of taking a new path

Acts 9:19b Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days. 20 And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is indeed the Son of God!”

21 All who heard him were amazed. “Isn’t this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem?” they asked. “And didn’t he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests?”

I like to imagine what it would have been like to be among the crowd of Jesus’ followers, listening to Saul that day.  They all had heard the horror stories of what he had done to followers of Jesus, and they knew how he sided with the Jewish leaders who had Jesus killed.  But now, he’s standing before them, preaching convincingly that Jesus is the Son of God.  He’s telling them how wrong he was, likely how sorry he is for the pain he caused, and how important it is for us all to come to know Jesus as their Lord.

If I were them, I’d be super skeptical!  Was he trying to trick them? Get them to let down their guard so he could wipe them out?  Or was he serious?  I mean, up to this point, his words were just that, words.  He hadn’t been “converted” long enough to have much fruit to back up those words.  So likely, there were those in the crowd that day that I questioned his conversion, this new path he claims to have chosen.

We still do this to people today.  We wonder if the person that betrayed us last year, who is now standing in the waters of baptism with the pastor if they’ve really changed.  Or we question the murderer on death row who now claims to have accepted Jesus and received His forgiveness.

But in this story, I’m struck by how quick some of those Jesus followers were to accept Saul’s conversion, even if they did so at an arm’s length for a time.  I’m sure Ananias’ testimony helped, as did Saul’s description of what happened and how he claims to have seen the resurrected Jesus.  Maybe he even told them what he looked like.  Additionally, something had changed for Saul.  He wasn’t so full of anger and rage.  He seemed to have a peace and a calm that almost seemed other worldly.  Between his change in demeanor and his change in his theological position, many struggled to make sense of it all.

In verse 21, it says that all who heard Saul were amazed. The Greek word for amazed is existemai. It means to stand beside oneself, to be dumbfounded, and to struggle to explain or account for something.

To the worldly observer or the Jew closed off to Jesus, none of this made any sense.  However, to the believer in Jesus Christ, to the crowd that had received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, to those that had seen miracle after miracle, they may not have fully understood it, but they knew from whence the change came.  The only thing that made sense is that Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was forever changed.

I doubt Saul knew in those first days of his conversion exactly how his life would change: how he would lose his seat in the Sanhedrin, how he’d likely lose family and friends, or how, in the coming years, he would suffer much for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But Saul would soon discover that there were risks in taking a new path for choosing to believe in something different.  Not everyone, including friends, family, and former colleagues, would understand.  At the same time, when you know you’ve found the most important thing in life, there’s nothing you won’t give to hold onto it.  And when that one thing is Jesus, you realize there’s also nothing you won’t do to share Him with others.

Questions:

1. Have you ever doubted someone else’s conversion? If so, who and why?
2. Have you ever had an encounter with God that left you amazed, dumbfounded, and unable to explain?
3. Has someone in your life struggled to support you and your beliefs? What’s that been like for you?