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You're listening to Al Pastor, the show that helps you love God, love your neighbor and eat more
tacos.
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I'm your host, Pastor Brian.
Welcome to the show.
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Hey friends, I want to welcome you to today's podcast.
We're going to be covering Acts Chapter 9, verses 20 through 25.
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In the previous episode, we saw the conversion of the Apostle Paul.
That's how I want to call him from now on because my brain gets really confused sometimes.
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But you know, technically speaking, he is Saul at this point.
And that's just the name that's being addressed or used and employed by Luke.
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And so it's also very difficult to overstate the dramatic turn of events that takes place starting
here in Acts Chapter 9, verse 20, because just a few days prior, Saul was blind.
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He was fasting.
He was confronted by the reality that the very name he sought to destroy belong to the risen and
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glorified Son of God who is now on the throne.
And so we see as we transition into verse 20 that his sight is restored, His sins are forgiven, His
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heart has been transformed, and He takes his place in the middle of the very people that he was
seeking to eradicate.
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Let's pick up in verse 20.
The Bible says that immediately He preached the Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.
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I want to emphasize the Christ.
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He preached the Messiah.
This is the Jewish hope that had been passed down from century to century from prophets and priests
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all throughout the history of Israel.
He preached the Christ.
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This is what we would call a definite article, not a Christ.
There had been many messianic figures, but no, this is the Christ.
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And notice the location.
Ay, attention to the geography in synagogues, plural.
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And he says that he is the Son of God.
O, let's go over this just just a little bit.
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First of all, I want us to to focus on the Word immediately.
In other words, there was no delay.
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He has been filled with the Holy Spirit, and in the pattern that we've been seeing in Acts is that
the baptism of the Holy Spirit changes everything.
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He wasted no time in proclaiming and preaching and Speaking of Jesus Christ.
And where does he begin?
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Of course it's in the synagogue's, the very places where he had intended to root out an arrest the
followers of Jesus.
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Now instead of delivering them to change to to Jerusalem, he is now standing before them declaring
that Jesus is the Son of God.
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We take this phrase for granted.
Can I, can I, can I say that again, we take the phrase that Jesus is the Son of God for granted.
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This is the first time Stanley Horton really lays this out.
I like this.
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This is the first time in the book of Acts that Jesus is referred to as the Son of God.
And so I feel like I'm so full of this phrase.
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We cannot overstate this enough.
This is highly significant.
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Now in the Jewish mind, calling Jesus the Son of God wasn't just a title to honor somebody.
It is a definitive, declarative title and assertion of His divinity.
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In other words, He is God.
This was the the the same charge that led to Jesus's crucifixion when when the Jewish leaders
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understood Jesus's own claim as being equal with John.
We find this in John chapter 5, verses 17 and 18.
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This is what got Jesus crucified.
And so now here's the irony.
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Here's the twist.
The very man who had been devoting his life to opposing this very claim is now boldly proclaiming
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that same truth in the synagogues.
Now notice the reaction of those in Damascus, and it's one of complete astonishment.
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Let's read verse 21.
The Bible says then all who heard were amazed and said, is this not he who destroyed those who
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called on his name in Jerusalem and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them
bound to the chief priest?
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Now for them, this transformation is too radical to believe this is the same man who we we really
kind of looked and leaned into that phrase.
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He wreaked havoc that Hapax Lagaman, right.
The only time that that was used, he wreaked havoc like like a wild boar just trampling through a
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garden or through a vineyard.
He he had done this to the church in Jerusalem back in Acts chapter 8.
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And so this same guy is now proclaiming Christ.
You bet.
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It's hard to believe.
I mean, the reports of the brutality had spread among the people.
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They knew that Saul had come with full authority, right?
He, he, he had letters from the high priest.
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But now, instead of trying to stomp out the name of Jesus, silence the name of Jesus.
What's he doing?
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He's lifting the name of Jesus high, but he's not just giving the testimony of his experience.
He's actually reasoning from the Scriptures proving that Jesus is the Messiah and I love this verse.
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Verse 22 it says, but Saul increased all of the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt
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in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
Now first of all, the phrase increased all the more in strength.
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Now that we're not talking about physical strength here, we're talking about spiritual empowerment,
that same empowerment that Jesus promised in Acts chapter one, verse 8.
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You shall receive power.
The Holy Spirit in this moment is equipping Saul for the for the task that's at hand, his mission,
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his ability to be able to argue in reason, not from logic and not from intellect.
God can certainly use those things, but his starting places from the Scripture and he is going to
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grow sharper each and every single day.
What's the result?
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Well, he's confounding the Jewish leaders in Damascus.
Now.
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The word that is used here means to throw into complete confusion.
They can't answer him.
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They can't refute him.
His knowledge.
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OK we've got to pause here for a second.
His knowledge of the scripture is unparalleled.
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Not because he just got a direct download from the Holy Spirit.
No because he had enough of the raw material for God to work with.
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You need to understand he is a Pharisee of Pharisees.
He had climbed to the top of the ranks it within the system of Pharisee ISM.
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He had the entire Tanakh memorize.
You say what's the Tanakh?
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Well, that's from Genesis to Malachi that we would want to refer to it.
They they didn't organize their books the same way.
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But think about this.
He had it memorized.
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I call that the raw material.
He his.
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His knowledge of the word was unparalleled.
And so now he's got the guns loaded.
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He is proving, he's connecting dots.
This is what the Holy Spirit does in our life.
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And so we also see, just like we saw with Steven when Steven went to go to the synagogue of
Friedman.
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When truth cannot be refuted, opposition often turns to violence.
Let's read verse 23.
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It says now after many days were passed, the Jews plotted to kill him.
Now here I I want to make note the phrase after many days.
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It might seem like it's vague.
And I was talking with Noah a little bit this morning about it because he's like, is this the three
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years?
And I said, yes, this is.
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And I said, when if I were to say to you like, Hey, we're going to go get a pizza right after many
days, how long would you say that is?
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He's like, I don't know, two or three?
I said exactly.
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Now, what we've got to understand is the modern writing conventions of the days.
Luke is using this phrase.
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And yes, it seems vague, but later Paul tells us exactly what many days means.
In Galatians chapter 1, verses 15 through 18, it says that he didn't immediately go to Jerusalem,
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but instead went into Arabia for a time before returning to Damascus.
And so most scholars, not all of them but most, suggest that this period in Arabia was a time of of
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training, a time of prayer, a time of preparation.
He was there for three years.
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He wasn't taught by any man.
His entire life had been dependent on sitting at the feet of rabbis.
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He, he was under Gamaliel.
And so that system, he now is sitting at the feet of the King, Rabbi Jesus.
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And so he received, he tells us in Galatians 112, the gospel directly from Jesus.
Now I want to just kind of address this here because this is the period of three years.
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Now what what about Arabia?
You know a lot of times we try to impose just, I had said this in a previous episode about Ethiopia,
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our modern sensibilities with borders right now in ancient Israel or 1st century Judaism in Rome for
that matter.
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Anything that was north of Israel and West if you were to look at a map would be considered Arabia.
So he is very well, he could have been all out in that regions.
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I went into some deep dives with a scholar by the name of Craig Keener.
He also suggested that Paul could have went in his travels through Jordan.
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He could have stayed a while with some of the Jewish brethren and and well Jewish converted brother
and I should say in in Petra and then was out in the Sinai Peninsula and we can't prove it.
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I there's this is just speculative now there's just me talking.
OK, so hold this loosely.
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I believe that Paul most likely probably visited what he believed was Sinai.
There's debate on where exactly Mount Sinai is even today.
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I happen to personally believe that it is in the in the in in Saudi Arabia.
That's that's a that's a different podcast.
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But what's going on here?
Is it again, let's circle back after many days.
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This is the three-year period.
Now what we see is that he returns to Damascus.
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That is a that is another story all in itself.
But opposition at this point begins to come to a head, a boiling point.
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Now the Jews are unable to silence him through their arguments, and so instead they try to silence
him through murder.
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Now this pattern is going to follow him throughout his ministry, and it's not exclusively for him.
We will see this same pattern throughout anybody who's preaching the gospel.
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In fact, James, the brother of Jesus, will be beheaded very, very soon.
And so just as the Jewish leaders had plotted and conspired to kill Stephen when they couldn't
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refute his wisdom back in Acts chapter 6, they're doing the same thing with Saul.
And so verse #24 says that their plot became known to Saul and they watched the gates day and night
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to kill him.
And so I want you to get this.
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They stationed men at the city gates.
Now, they wanted to make sure that nobody could leave or enter without their knowledge.
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And so the intention is abundantly clear here, right?
Saul is not going to escape alive.
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And now here comes an interesting point.
Because because Luke tells us that this was the Jewish leaders.
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Now they had likely informed the governor at that time, which is under, we know historically
speaking, King are a Reyatis.
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I, I don't know if I'm saying that correctly.
It's a RETAS king a Reyatis.
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And Paul actually recounts this in 2nd Corinthians 1132.
Now I want to pause here for a second because sometimes cynics and critics of the Bible will say,
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you know, these two, these two accounts are contradictory because Luke says that it was the Jews.
And Paul says in Second Corinthians 11/2, he's listened to the verse.
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It says in Damascus, the governor under a Reyatis, the king was guarding the city of Damascus with a
Garrison, desiring to arrest me.
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No, this is not contradictory just because Luke is saying that it was the Jews that were plotting to
kill him.
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Think about this, just as the Jews plotted to kill Jesus, they conspired with the Roman government.
Who?
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Who did they go to?
They went to the government.
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They went to Pontius Pilate, who was what?
He was the governor of that time of that region.
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Well, guess who's the governor of this region?
This is the modern day Pontius Pilate for that geographical location.
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King Areatus the 4th.
And so there is no contradiction here.
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It is the Jews that are using their political and financial power to conspire with the government.
They're just covering all of their ends because they want to take out Saul.
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Now, in verse #25 we read it says then the disciples took him by night and let him down through a
wall in a large basket.
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Now, there's a couple of ways to look at this.
Some people say that this would have been very, very humbling for him.
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I don't know.
It most likely was because, I mean, think about the man who had entered Damascus with the authority
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backed by the government of the high priest.
He's now leaving, like kind of with his tail tucked between his legs.
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But I don't see it as a negative.
He's lowered in a basket like a a fugitive.
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And the word for basket here refers to a, a large flexible basket woven with with like bull rushes
or with rope.
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And it's interesting to me because we see something similar in the book of Joshua about the walls of
Jericho.
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And you know what?
God seems to like to deliver certain people in the Bible in a basket.
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Didn't he do the same with Moses?
I think he did.
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And so I think one of the points here is that this humble word for basket in this humbling scene can
communicate to us that God's deliverance, it's not always glamorous.
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It can come in some humble forms, right?
And so the irony here is really undeniable.
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Saul had entered Damascus as the one in charge, as a persecutor.
I mean, he's trying to to to take and drag Christians off in chains.
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But now look at him.
He's being lowered in a basket and he's fleeing for his life.
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Now this event is really the marking of the beginning of his life suffering for the sake of the
gospel, just as Jesus had told him back in verse 16.
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He said he he had said to a nice remember, I will show him how many things he must suffer for my
name's sake.
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You know, as we reflect on this passage, I want us to remember that the transformation of Saul, it
really is a testament to the power of the gospel.
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The man who tried to destroy the church is now defending the church and his very first mission
field, even though he's going to be the apostle to the Gentiles, it was to his own people.
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It was to his to, to his family, we could say to the Jews, and you know, isn't that similar to us
today?
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That is our mission field.
That is our, our Jerusalem.
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He didn't go immediately to the Gentiles, but he went to Israel to show them that the Messiah had
come, the Son of God.
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And we also see that when truth can't be refuted, often persecution will follow.
And so I'm also reminded that his escape in this basket reminds us that, you know, God's
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deliverance, it can come in unexpecting, humble ways, right?
I mean, God will protect his children, but he doesn't always do so in the way that we expect.
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Now from this point forward, his life will be marked, definitively marked with suffering, but yet
he's going to say one of the most famous verses that people like to quote in Philippians 413.
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Maybe you know it.
Paul says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
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But let me give you a little preview to the next episode.
We are going to see Saul on his way to Jerusalem, where expectantly we're going to see that he's
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going to face fear and skepticism and and a new ally by the name of Barnabas.
And so I want to thank you so much for tuning in.
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We'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for listening to Al Pastor with Brian Overturf.
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Until then, we'll see you later.
