Acts 10:36-48

36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues[b] and praising God.

Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.



Dig Deeper
A few years back the church at which I now minister had a member of the church family who happened to be a player for the local professional NFL team in our area. That was before we moved here but many of the people who are still in our church family here knew him and his wife (he was injured and eventually retired from professional football before moving back home). I thought about that recently, though, when my youngest son asked me about going up to the stadium and maybe catching a game. He said that he would like to watch the game and then go into the locker room and meet the players. That’s a great idea, but of course I had to explain to him that we didn’t have tickets and couldn’t afford to buy any. Then he thought that perhaps we could just go up to the stadium and go into the locker room without getting tickets for the game and going to that. What he didn’t realize is that there is no way that we could ever get into that locker room. We could try and plead and beg and do everything else that came to mind but they would not let us anywhere near the locker room. We are not members of the team and you don’t get in unless you are a member.

But the brother that I mentioned was a member of the Green Bay Packers. He could go into the locker room whenever he felt like it because he belonged to the team. Of course no one else in the church at the time was a member of the Packers and so they could not go in even if they wanted to. But from time to time, this player would take a couple of disciples from the church with him into the locker room. They could go where they normally would not have been allowed simply because he told the security guards that they were with him. Because he belonged, he had the right to bring them in with him and his endorsement signified to the security people that it was okay for them to enter. Any of the normal objections would be voided by the fact that he had vouched for them.

Now that’s not a perfect analogy, analogies never are perfect, but it does start to help us understand some of the confusing aspects of this scene here. We can easily recall passages like Acts 2:38 where it is promised that all who enter into the life of Christ through repentance and baptism will receive the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But here, at first glance at least, it looks as though the Spirit is being given before baptism. That can be confusing for some folks. But first we must remember that there is an important difference between the Spirit of sonship that we receive at baptism, that subtle indwelling that guides us through the process of growing into Christ’s family and being transformed into the image of Christ, and the outpouring of the Spirit that enabled people to display the miraculous gifts of the Spirit as a verifier of the truth of their message. It is the difference between the “gift” of the Spirit and the” gifts” of the Spirit.

The reality is that what is going here is not at all confusing when we look at it from the perspective of the above analogy. The Gentiles could not previously enter into God’s family but they would be allowed now. And just so that there was no confusion and no arguments, one who belonged to the family, the Spirit of God himself, would vouch for them. The Holy Spirit would give them his special outpouring, something that for the early church usually only came through the laying on of hands by the apostles. But this was not a normative event. This was a once-and-for-all opening of the door to the Gentiles that was similar in its magnitude to the outpouring of the Spirit that came upon the apostles in Acts 2 at Pentecost. He poured himself out on them, enabling them to perform signs and speak in tongues to show that the door to God’s family really was opening and that people really could be baptized into God’s family. He was pouring himself out on these Gentiles now to vouch for them and show the Jewish Christians that God’s family door was opening to them as well. If the Spirit had vouched for them then they all they could really do was to endorse the Spirit’s call and baptize these folks into God’s family.

Throughout Peter’s speech to the household and friends of Cornelius he continues to stress that everything that has happened and everything that he was claiming about Jesus Christ was a result of God. Cornelius was not a Jew but he was a God-fearer. He was one who had been staring in through the shop window for a long time and had liked what he had seen about Judaism but he could not realistically become a member of God’s family. So Peter makes it clear to him that this was the same God. Everything that Cornelius admired and desired about this God had come to fulfillment through Jesus Christ, and what was more was that he no longer had to stand on the outside and look in admiringly. He and all other Gentiles could finally come in.

At every turn in this section, Peter brings out that the promised salvation that would make people of all nations God’s people had come through the agency of Jesus Christ but it was orchestrated through the hand of God. It becomes clear that when Peter referred to God, he was primarily referring to the Father whose role is to appoint and ordain the actions of the Son and the Spirit. God sent Jesus Christ to announce peace to the people of Israel. He, through the power of the Holy Spirit, went around showing people that he truly was the Messiah, but he was able to do all that because God was with him. He was put to death on a cross, but God raised him from the dead. This was not an event that was witnessed by all people but was witnessed by those whom God chose to serve as witnesses to his resurrection to the rest of the world. They were the ones that were appointed to preach that God had appointed Jesus Christ as the judge of the living and the dead.

Finally, said Peter, all of the prophets testified about Jesus, declaring that everyone who believes in him would receive forgiveness of sins through his name and life. The person who insists on finding a specific prophecy or passage that makes this exact statement will have some trouble. Peter was not claiming any such thing. He was not claiming that there was a specific passage in the Old Testament that made this prophecy. His point was that the whole of the Old Testament promises that came through all the prophets pointed to this exact concept. God’s people would always be built on faith and the specific expression of that faith would come through dying to self and having resurrection faith in the life of Jesus Christ (see Romans 4 where Paul expounds upon this exact idea).

It appears that verse 43 was not the end of what Peter was planning to say because he was interrupted by the Holy Spirit. We can speculate that perhaps Peter was ramping up to give a similar call to Acts 2:38 where he called his listeners to repent and be baptized in Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But God knew how challenging this was going to be for the Jewish Christians and the watching Jewish world. Many would have a hard time accepting the entrance of Gentiles into the family of God based solely on being baptized into Christ and reception of the subtle but powerful gift of the indwelling Spirit. They were so conditioned to think of things like circumcision and following the Law as one’s uniform of the people of God. It would have been easy for them to continue to question the validity of the Gentile believers and to eventually splinter God’s people into two groups of Christians. But this would have gone against the very point of God creating his one people out of the two (Eph. 2:11-22).

In fact, this was such a challenging concept that the Spirit considerately stepped in and gave a clear sign that God was accepting the Gentiles just as they were based on nothing more than their belief and baptism into the life of Christ. What God was calling clean, no man should call unclean. That this was a monumentally difficult acceptance for Jewish Christians is evidenced by much of the rest of the New Testament. Books such as Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans have the difficulty of fully accepting Gentiles into God’s family despite not being circumcised or following the Law as a primary theme. And that is after the Holy Spirit broke in upon the Gentiles and poured out the miraculous gifts upon them.

Some have wondered, though, if the Spirit coming upon them meant that the Gentiles were already saved without really needing to be baptized into Christ through water baptism. In some ways this speaks more to our Western need to break everything down into its smallest parts to understand it, and usually winds up in us separating things out that don’t need to separated from one another. But this passage has led to so much confusion for some that it is probably a legitimate question to consider. The key, as mentioned above, is to understand the difference between the outpouring of the Spirit and the indwelling. Even in Old Testament times, the Spirit would occasionally come upon one person or a small group of people in a special act and enable them to partake (including someone like King Saul who was certainly not a man after God’s own heart but could be used occasionally for God’s purposes), however temporarily, in specific work of God. This practice would continue for a brief time after the coming of Christ. But this is separate to the gift of the indwelling Spirit that was received only when one entered into Christ and received a new heart through the work of God’s own Spirit (Ezek. 36:26). What the Gentiles received, then, in the outpouring of the Spirit and the ability to demonstrate the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, was not entrance into the family of God. It was a voucher from the Holy Spirit. It was a one-time, non-normative event that was showing God’s people that this group of non-Jews really did belong into God’s family. The only thing that one needs to enter into the life of Christ through baptism is faith in his life; nothing more and nothing less.


Devotional Thought
Chances are pretty good that you are a Gentile. Have you really ever spent some time thinking deeply about the great lengths that God went through to bring you into his family. Not just as a Gentile but even as an individual. Spend some time today praying through your own salvation story and how God brought you into his family. Express your deep gratitude for how much he has done to bring you into his family.

Acts 10:17-35 Commentary

17 While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three[a] men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22 The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.




Dig Deeper
Not all that many years ago a young woman that I know was born into a family many miles away from where I was born. She was, it goes without saying I guess, born into a different family than mine. Once that happened that was it. Once you’re born into family, of course, you cannot go back and be born into another family. And so there it was. She and I were part of a different family and would remain that way all while growing up. We never met while growing up, but we finally did meet almost 17 years ago now. It didn’t take too long for that beautiful young lady and I to decide that we wanted to get married and be together for the remainder of our lives. We did so and we got married and something rather interesting happened during that wedding. Based on nothing more than being married to me, my wife became a member of the Burns family. She had not been born into but she was now as much a Burns as I was. Yet, in many ways she was very different than any of the other Burns family members. She is not related by blood to any of the Burns’ and she couldn’t really change that. All of the Burns ancestors are white and my wife is black but she could not change that. She doesn’t have the same sort of characteristics and attitude that seem to be something of a hallmark of Burns women and she did not need to change that. She is a member of the family.

My wife was accepted into the family despite all of that because she was my wife and for that reason alone. Can you imagine, though, if my family had reluctantly accepted that she had become my wife but did not really accept her as part of the family? Oh, she could marry me, and that was all fine and good, but what if they still didn’t view her as part of the family? What if they began to tell her that it was nice that she had married me but to truly be part of the Burns family there were a few things that would have to be taken care of? First, she would need to go through a series of treatments to whiten her skin because Burns women have lighter skin than her and that’s just how things are. Then, they told her that she would need to change certain things about her character and personality to fit into the model of Burns women. She would have to cook like a Burns woman, keep house like a Burns woman, and follow many of the patterns and typical behaviors that Burns women had always done. Only then, could she really be part of the family. Not only would that be discouraging and unrealistic in many ways, it would certainly make her feel inferior. It would also indicate that marrying me did not accomplish all that much as far as making her a Burns. In fact, it meant virtually nothing as far as that was concerned.

For hundreds of years the family of God belonged to the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. The family had been promised to descendants of Abraham and they believed that membership into this family was quite literally their birthright. Sure, there were promises to Abraham and through subsequent promises that the whole world would be blessed through this family, but they assumed that that would all somehow happen when God had exalted the nation of Israel, dealt with and judged the pagan nations, and cleared the world of evil and oppression. Only then, in the age to come, would God somehow bring about blessing to the Gentiles. And there were a handful of Jewish converts over the centuries who became Jews but in order to join the family of God, they had to literally become Jews. They had to get circumcised and follow all of the Law of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was only in circumcision, following the food restrictions, and the other laws that people would show themselves to be part of God’s family. There just was no other way that the people of Israel could conceive of being part of God’s people.

This whole issue can be difficult for us, two thousand years later, to connect with and understand but the analogy above (although it’s not a perfect analogy) starts to give us a bit of insight. It seems outrageous for us to see how the followers of Jesus could not grasp that Gentiles could not be saved but that really wasn’t the issue. They knew that God had not promised individual salvation the way we tend to view things nowadays. God had promised a family and had promised that blessing, forgiveness of sin, and salvation would come to those in that family. Jews believed that they would always be that family and failed to understand Old Testament passages that hinted at the fact that they would one day not automatically be so but that it would be passed on to others. They grew furious when Jesus asserted that he was the fulfillment of that promised family and that only those who came to him would be part of it rather than physical descendants of Abraham (see John 8:31-41). So when Jesus told his disciples that Gentiles would come streaming into God’s family as well, they naturally assumed that God’s family was synonymous with being Jewish, with being circumcised and holding to the Law. So they assumed that to be part of God’s family one must do all of those things.

The problem with that, as Paul argues so ably in Romans is that “For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless. . . Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’” (Rom. 4:14-17). In other words, if one is shown to be in the family of God by following the law, then there is no point in faith. It must be faith in the life of Christ alone that places someone in God’s family or it is nothing at all.

This is the issue at hand that Peter and the other disciples had failed to grasp. This is what God would show Peter as he made his way to the house of Cornelius. This was a big moment in the history of God’s people which is why Luke gives so much attention to it and why the circumstances surrounding it were so non-normative. This was nearly as big a moment as the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost (and in actuality was something of a completion of that event) because this was the time when God’s people finally began to fully grasp what God was doing and that this truly would be one family of all nations, all peoples, all language, and all tribes.

When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house it became quickly apparent that Cornelius had not known exactly what would happen but he must have sensed that God was going to do something big as he had invited a large number of his family and friends. He was so excited that we can easily understand his slight breech in getting carried away and going overboard by dropping to the feet of Peter in reverence. Peter quickly corrected him, reminding him that in God’s kingdom, there was no hierarchy, just a brotherhood of believers.

As Peter began to address the large gathering of Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, he put the primary issue on the table, so to speak. Normally it would be against common practice for a Jew (and up to that point, a Jewish Christian) to eat with or associate with those outside of God’s family, the Gentiles. But God had shown Peter in his vision that the time for the food laws and dietary restrictions were over and he quickly realized that this meant that God would not be excluding Gentiles from his people any longer. It wasn’t that the law was bad, but the Messiah had come and the law was no longer necessary (Gal. 3:19) as it separated Jews and Gentiles in its very purpose. Now God had made the two into one and destroyed the barrier between the two (Eph. 2:14-15). Just as you might tell a child at a busy street to stop and not walk, but then tell them to go quickly once the crossing light comes on because the situation has changed, so the time to follow the Law as a necessary aspect of being God’s family had passed. The Messiah had come and that was all anyone needed to join into his family.

Thus, Cornelius recounts his encounter with the angel to Peter. The reasons for Cornelius’ re-telling of his encounter and eagerness to hear what God has to say through Peter are obvious, but the only reason that Luke would basically repeat the very details that he has already given is to stress to his readers the importance of what was going on.

Peter had already stressed that his coming into their home was in and of itself a sign that something big had happened to change his worldview and he quickly began his address to his riveted audience by getting to the heart of the matter. God had promised to Abraham that one day God would create one family of all nations and that time had truly come. There would be no special hoops to jump through to be part of God’s family. It was not required that one be physically born into this family or become like those that viewed themselves as already part of it in order to fit. Entrance into this family was based on faith in the life of Christ alone and nothing else. One could not be born into it but one could be born again into this family through Christ (Jn. 3:5) Peter had finally come to realize that “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This message is as true today as it was when Peter first uttered those words nearly two thousand years ago.




Devotional Thought
In Galatains 2:20, Paul described the moment that he died to his own life and will as being crucified so that he no longer lived for himself but for Christ alone. Have you ever had a clear moment like that in your life when you died to self and was baptized into the life of Christ alone? If you have, have you truly been living a crucified life?

Acts 10:1-16

1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!”
4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.

The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”

7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

Peter’s Vision
9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.


Dig Deeper
I seem to get a lot of questions wherever I go about what my plans for the future are. People are constantly interested in whether we plan to stay in the ministry where we are at or if we would hope to move somewhere else one day. Or they want to know what is in store as far as the teaching ministry goes. Usually I tell them that it is all up to God. I say that because it is true. We don’t have any plans to go anywhere and I pray constantly that the teaching ministry will go exactly where God wants to take it. At the same time, we are always open to God’s call upon our life. Every now and then, though, someone will ask me quite specifically if I would ever be open to moving to one place or another to serve in the ministry in that place or even to plant one where there is a gap. Sometimes the places that people mention are actually quite attractive and I just tell them that if we ever felt God calling, we would be happy to go (usually those places involve somewhere with rather consistently warm weather, at least those are the places that sound most attractive to my wife and oldest son). On occasion, though, someone will bring up a place that I just don’t want to go and ask me if I might ever consider going there, like my hometown for instance. In those cases, I usually joke that I would be more than happy to go once the actual hand of God appeared and wrote specific instructions on the wall for us to go. Anything short of that, I jest, and I would not go. I usually say this jokingly, but the point is real. There are some things that are so challenging to our way of thinking that it would take something out-of-the-norm, something monumental, in order for us to be willing to do it.

Throughout his ministry Jesus had hinted that the time was coming when the physical Israel would no longer automatically be the children of God, God’s people. Jesus had said that a time was soon coming when the people of Israel would say “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But, Jesus responded that he would reply, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus went on to promise that there would “be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” (Lk. 13:26-29). This was nothing new. After all, the prophets had declared that God’s intention was to bring all nations into the kingdom of God (see Isa. 56:1-7 for instance).

This was no easy concept, however. It wasn’t something that Jews, even Jewish Christians could easily understand or accept (in fact it would take them the first entire generation of Christianity to start to sort it all out), even though Jesus had clearly told them that their mission was to involve going to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). If one held so tightly to a certain definition and understanding of what it meant to be part of God’s people, it would be easy to miss what God was going to do with the Gentiles. After all, the Jews had kept themselves apart from the nations for hundreds of years, at God’s behest, by not intermingling with Gentiles. They circumcised themselves to demonstrate their covenant with God and to show themselves separate from the pagans. They kept the food and dietary laws as a powerful separator between the people of God and all of the other nations. Jews had been persecuted and killed upholding these laws and the honor of God’s people. Changing that mindset would not come easily. Perhaps Jesus had called them to include all people but weren’t these markers like circumcision and the food laws the very things that God had given his people to show them and the world that they were his people? Surely, if anyone wanted to join the Messiah’s family they would have to realize that it was still the family of God. They would still need to follow all of the laws and standards of being part of God’s people in order to number themselves among God’s family that was being formed in the Messiah.

It would take something big and something rather clear to help the apostles, and the entire Christian community, to accept the Gentiles fully into the family of God. If for no other reason, that is exactly why Luke will spend so much time on these dual visions of Cornelius and Peter. This was big. It was the final door that needed to be opened as God’s family became open once-and-forever to people of all nations. This would be difficult for the Jewish Christians to accept, but it would be equally big and encouraging news for Luke’s presumed audience of Theophilus and the other Romans around him.

Cornelius wasn’t just a Gentile. He was a Roman. He wasn’t just a Roman, he was a Roman soldier. He wasn’t just a Roman soldier, he was a centurion that was in charge of a hundred men. He didn’t live in just any city. He lived in Caesarea, a city that the Jews hated and called “the daughter of Edom”; it was a city within Israel but it served as the administration center for Rome in Palestine and boasted more Gentiles than Jews. There was much that was going against Cornelius in the minds of Jews and Jewish Christians alike. But there was also some things that would make him favorable in the eyes of those groups. He was a God-fearer, meaning he greatly respected much about the Jewish religion and observed certain aspects of it, but had not become a full proselyte or been circumcised and would still have been considered an unclean Gentile by most Jews and certainly not part of God’s family. But Cornelius was still a devout man who observed regular Jewish prayer and the consistent giving of alms.

During the regular Jewish afternoon prayer time Cornelius was visited by a divine messenger. Cornelius had been noticed by God as an authentic believer and had been chosen for a great task. The thrust of the message was that Cornelius should find Peter and bring him to Caesarea. What would happen once Peter got there would be directly from God. Of that Cornelius need not worry.

The next day we are told that Peter went up to the roof to pray, at the same time as trusted servants of Cornelius and a fellow devout soldier went to Joppa to find Peter. As Peter was praying, he had a vision. This vision was particularly appropriate because he was hungry and his vision involved food. In his heavenly vision, Peter saw something like a large sheet open up that contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean. The voice in the vision told Peter to eat but Peter was immediately horrified. As a devout member of the people of God he would never agree to eat such things. This would be unthinkable in Peter’s mind because in the very act of eating such things, he would be showing that he was not a member of God’s people. Following the Law, including the dietary restrictions was the uniform of the Jewish people that showed the pagan world that they were indeed God’s people. It was, in other words, the sign of their justification, a term that referred, at least in part, to being part of God’s people.

Peter did what Peter seemingly tended to do and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, for better or worse. He would not eat unclean food, divine voice or no divine voice, in a protest that bore similarities to Ezekiel’s in Ezekiel 4:14. How could God be commanding him to eat such things? Just to make it clear, the voice rebuked Peter for his objection and urged him not to call anything impure that God has made clean. The obvious implication was not that these things were always clean but that God had now made them clean.

The great issue of this vision that has been disagreed upon by Christians down through the centuries is whether the vision referred to the declaration that all foods were now clean for eating or whether the vision was allegorical and was referring to the coming inclusion of the Gentile people in the kingdom of God. The arguments generally seem to focus on the belief that it must refer to one or the other. It is true that Peter had heard Jesus basically declare all foods clean (Mk. 7:14-19) but it was perhaps not until this vision that he truly grasped the shocking point that Jesus had made (it is quite possible that this vision helped Peter come to the clear conclusion that Mark declared in Mk. 7:19). But there was an inextricable link between the dietary restrictions and the barrier between Jews and Gentiles (see Lev. 20:24-26). The food restrictions were designed to teach God’s people of the deep dangers of taking sin into their lives and binding themselves with sin. They would continue to learn that important lesson by remaining separate from the pagans and the food restrictions were one of the primary means of doing that.

Now that Christ had come, the Law, including the dietary restrictions were no longer necessary. The lesson had been taught and God’s family was now open to people of all nations, just as God had promised all along. In being told to accept all foods as permissible, Peter would inevitably realize that he was also being prepared to accept all human beings. One was connected with the other as Peter will soon learn. God had promised Abraham that he would one day have a family of all nations and one thing is for sure, God always keeps his promises.


Devotional Thought
The vision that Peter received was certainly jarring news for him but Peter was constantly seeking God’s will for the life of the believers so when he received it he was immediately willing to change lifelong practices. Are you equally in constant search of God’s will and open to new ground and new adventures? What might God be calling you to do today?

Acts 9:32-43

32 As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord’s people who lived in Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. 34 “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up. 35 All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”

39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. 41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. 42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.



Dig Deeper
One of my favorite all-time television shows is the Andy Griffith show. Even though that show came on the air and was gone before I was even born I have always loved it. I have watched it ever since I can remember and, in fact, it happens to be on the television as I write this right now. I dare say that I have seen every single episode of that show that was ever made. One of the most memorable episodes for me when was when Sheriff Andy Taylor, the main character, was asked to be the sole judge of the town’s beauty contest at their founder’s day celebration. The week before the contest was full of young ladies trying to woo the sheriff and impress him with their considerable talents and attributes. They all desperately tried to demonstrate for the sheriff just how important they were and how foolish it would be to not pick them. To make matters worse, the parents and those close to the different young ladies try to use their influence to convince the sheriff to choose their loved one during the contest. The sheriff was almost overwhelmed by all of this but managed to get through the week and get everything prepared for the big day thanks to the tireless efforts of a very kind and quiet older woman, Ms. Bishop, who took care of almost everything for the event. On the day of the celebration the sheriff didn’t know what to do. He was simply torn as to who he should vote for. As the moment came where he had to crown “Miss Mayberry,” he had a brilliant thought. Everyone was so worried about the “important” girls in town that they failed to even notice this quiet but infinitely helpful servant, Ms. Bishop. So, even though she wasn’t an official contestant, Andy named Ms. Bishop the winner of the contest for being the one who displayed true beauty and grace all week.

It is easy to pay attention to the flashy and important folks around us, even within our church families and not notice the Ms. Bishops very often. They are the quiet humble workers that maybe don’t have the gifts that put them up front in the eyes of others but they are the real heart and soul of the church. They are the ones that make it go, but they very rarely get any credit, not that they would usually want any, and they certainly don’t get noticed much. It’s a good thing for us that Luke wasn’t as unaware of those invaluable people as we often can be. Without his careful preservation of people like those mentioned in this section, we would never know about people like Tabitha and Aeneas. Although Luke is giving the large sweep of the most important events in the development of God’s people, he takes the time to record some of the regular folks who were truly the lifeblood of that family.

We aren’t told exactly why Peter was traveling around the country and visiting the Lord’s people, but it was presumably to encourage and build up the communities there. These communities had likely been formed as Christians that fled the persecution in Jerusalem spread throughout the area (Acts 8:1, 4). Although it is also true that Philip had passed through this area as he preached to gospel as he was going from Azotus to Caesarea (Acts 8:40). Lydda was about twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and Joppa was thirty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem.

As he traveled, Peter met with the Lord’s people in Lydda. The word rendered “Lord’s people” in the NIV is literally “saints.” The meaning of “saints” were those who were set apart for God. Thus, the translation “Lord’s people” is quite appropriate. It is important to note that this word “saints” is always used in the New Testament for a group rather than individual people. Saints are not specific people who have attained some higher spiritual standing than most. It is a collective term that refers to God’s people as a whole. Christians are not saints in and of ourselves, we are all part of the saints, the special collection of God’s family.

While in Lydda, Peter came across a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years (although the Greek could also be taken to say that he was bedridden since he was eight). Luke never explicitly tells us whether Aeneas was himself a Christian or not at the time of his encounter with Peter, but the specific use of his name probably indicates that he either was one at the time or became one after this incident. As Peter encountered this man he made it clear that it was Jesus Christ who was supplying the healing power, not Peter. Aeneas had just experienced the verifying power of the Holy Spirit as he confirmed that this group of the Lord’s people really were just that. People need not see them as a group of blasphemers or God rejecters. They really were God’s people. As a result, then of his healing, more people to come to the truth of the gospel.

As Peter moved on to Joppa he quickly joined up with the family of disciples there as they were caring for a disciple named Tabitha. Tabitha was not someone that we would normally hear about. She apparently did nothing spectacular or specifically important as far as spreading the gospel goes. She seemingly held no big title and had no defined leadership role within the Christian community. Yet, as Luke makes clear, she was just as important as any other disciple, evangelist, or apostle, for in Christ there are no distinctions (see Gal. 3:26-29) that make one person any more valuable than another. Tabitha was extremely important, though, because she was a disciple of Jesus Christ. She lived what she claimed to believe. She was always, Luke tells us, doing good and helping the poor. She was one of those people that is easy to not notice but she was dearly loved because she understood that being a Christian meant a life of devotion and service to God’s people and to those who were on the bottom of society.

During Peter’s stay with the disciples, Tabitha herself became ill and died. The family of believers immediately took on the role of family within that culture by caring for her body because they knew that she was their true family. This is in stark contrast to most Christians today who might think fondly of other Christians and even spend a fair amount of time with them, but would hardly consider them as their true family in the areas of being their true identity, the true source and object of their loyalty and affection, and the ones who they would consider more important than their blood families. It was the disciples who would care for Tabitha’s body and bury her if necessary. But they seemed to have something else in mind. Rather than immediately burying her, they sent for Peter.

Tabitha’s constant labor and service within the family of believers had won her many friends. This was exactly what Jesus had urged his people to do with their worldly resources (see Lk. 16:9 where Jesus urged his people to use their resources to gain friends rather than just on themselves). Rather than hoarding our resources and using them for ourselves, we are called to give, serve, and love other people and in doing so, create a community of believers where all achieve sufficiency and none lack because surplus is also rejected. This woman had spent her life helping those who were seemingly insignificant to the world, especially the widows, and would probably have become rather insignificant in the eyes of the world around her at the time, but she was not insignificant within the people of God or to Peter. He immediately went to see her.

As Peter arrived we can almost imagine the touching scene as those that she had shared her life with, showed Peter the clothes that she made for them and surely shared with him all of the ways that she let the words of Jesus inhabit her life and become who she was. They wanted Peter to know how loved Tabitha was and how much she had loved them not because they were poor but because they were part of God’s family. It was the Tabithas who made up the very fabric of the Christian community and who continue to make it up today. They are the tireless and quite servants who never cease in serving and loving others because they know that that is how they demonstrate their true love and loyalty to God (see 1 Jn. 4:19-21). Tabitha didn’t go around helping poor people and becoming involved in causes because she wanted to fulfill some duty or ease her own guilt. She had joined a community of God’s people that had pledged to live their lives in mutual submission to one another (Eph. 5:21) and live with the interests of one another as their key priority (see 2 Cor. 5:15 and Phil. 2:3-4).

As Peter entered into the room where Tabitha was lying, it is hard to imagine that his mind didn’t drift back to the room of Jairus’ daughter that he had entered with Jesus not too many years before (Mk. 5:37-43). He sent everyone out of the room just as Jesus had done and then he turned in prayer to the one who could raise people from the dead. After he prayed, Peter’s mind probably recalled Jesus turning to that little girl and resolutely saying “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up.” Perhaps Peter remembered those words fondly as her turned confidently in the power of the Lord and said “Tabitha Koum,” or “Tabitha, get up.”

Peter, no doubt, took great joy in taking Tabitha, now raised from the dead, and presenting her to those who loved her so dearly. Her life had been about the benefit of others. And now her death and the subsequent miracle of being raised from the dead would also continue to benefit others as word of her raising would cause many more to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and enter into God’s family.

Before Peter left Joppa, though, he stayed with Simon the Tanner. This is one more important detail given to us by Luke as he continues to describe the social barriers that were quickly disintegrating in the family of God. Tanners were looked down upon and often ostracized in the Jewish culture because they were constantly handling dead animals and were continually ceremonially unclean. This would have been rather shocking, but then Luke was making clear that Jesus meant what he said when he quoted from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). At every turn this passage reminds us that the people that are most forgettable to the world are not forgettable to God, nor should they be amongst his people.


Devotional Thought
When you die what will the believers say about you? Will they be able to fill a room with the evidence and the tales of all that you did in the service and love of others? Are you truly using what God has given you to gain friends and prepare for his eternal kingdom?

Acts 9:19-31

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. 20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. 21 All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
23 After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, 24 but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. 25 But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
26 When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. 28 So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews,[a] but they tried to kill him. 30 When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.



Dig Deeper
There are still Christians in the world today that live in constant fear of real, physical persecution and even death for their faith. But most Christians, especially those in the United States, know virtually nothing about that life and we rarely, if ever, encounter true persecution. The early church, however, faced it all the time and they had to be on their toes and constantly aware of those who sought to destroy them. Saul was the chief among those persecutors in the early days of the church but then rumors began to spread around that not only had this chief thorn in the side of the church ceased his damaging activities but he had actually become one of them. Obvious questions had to be raised among them concerning whether or not he could be trusted. Would it be out of the realm of possibility to believe that Saul might fake a conversion and even follow through on this charade for months and even years in order to work his way into the presence and trust of the leaders of the movement, the apostles? Once he had gained their confidence the whole movement could be brought to its knees in one fell swoop.

It’s easy to see why the church might feel this way and react with such hesitancy but there is even more to their response than that. Yes, there was an initial distrust of Saul but enter into this story for a moment and imagine yourself in a similar position. Imagine that someone came out publicly as an opponent of your current church family and began to gain the power and support needed to destroy your church. Imagine that they began to speak publicly of wiping out your church and hunting down every single member and making an example of them so that other Christians in other cities would think twice about remaining loyal to this movement of Messiah people. Now imagine how you would feel as this persecutor of your church led an effort to have a beloved and important leader in your church dragged out into the street and killed with everyone there to watch. Can you even begin to fathom how difficult that would be. What would you be feeling? How difficult would Jesus’ words to love your enemies seem under those circumstances? How hard would that be for your church to deal with? What would you tell your dear brother’s widow and children? How challenging would it be to continue to preach about hope in the resurrection and an unfailing commitment to love those who persecute you? That would take real conviction wouldn’t it?

Can you truly imagine all of that and enter into this story? Now really challenge yourself. How would you feel about that man that had persecuted your church, killed your friend, and promised to finish the job with the rest of the believers soon? How would you feel if he suddenly popped up and said that he had come to believe in your Messiah and that he not only wanted forgiveness but wanted to become one of you. Certainly you would be filled with mistrust and caution but overcoming that would be the easy part. Can you imagine loving this man as a brother and allowing him to move among you as one of you? Can you imagine the other friends and family and even the wife of your slain brother in Christ doing the same? That kind of Christianity is not for the weak of stomach. That is big-boy Christianity. Yet, it is exactly what we see in the early church. What Luke is describing is something more than your run-of-the-mill religion. This was what happened when a community of people took seriously Jesus’ call to live by love (cf. Jn. 13:34-35).

After his incredible conversion and baptism into Christ, Saul spent several days with the disciples but he wasn’t just enjoying the fellowship with those that were his enemies just a few days previous. He began to immediately preach that Jesus was the Son of God after all. This teaching was not unique to Saul but he certainly seemed to have stressed it more than anyone else. The term “the Son of God” held deep significance for someone like Saul because it was a term that had come to be connected specifically with God’s promised Messiah based on such Old Testament passages as Psalm 2. The term also became an important concept for the early Christians because they saw it as important to establish Jesus’ status as God’s true son. This identity, they believed, was established by God (Matt 3:17; 17:5) and showed that Jesus was the true inheritor of God’s family rather than Israel who had first been called God’s son (Ex. 4:22). Eventually the term came to be used almost as a shorthand way of describing the strange truth that Jesus was somehow an extension of God himself and was a marker of his identity. In those early days of Saul’s preaching, however, it is most certain that Saul’s primary contention was the Jesus really was the Messiah. His death on the cross was not a mark of his shame but a necessary step as God’s faithful and suffering servant who was resurrected by God, thus declaring his sonship (see Romans 1:1-4 as Paul would develop that thought years later).

Saul’s sudden and dramatic switch was confusing to those in Damascus, to say the least. It would be even more shocking than if Osama Bin Laden suddenly appeared on the Fox Television Network to espouse the great qualities of the United States and to identify himself as an American Patriot who was now seeking citizenship in the land of the free and the home of the brave. People simply did not know what to do with all of this or what to make of it.

It appears that during the “many days” that Luke quickly refers to includes a time period of nearly three years that he spent in Arabia (Gal. 1:17). During that time in Arabia he continued to preach the gospel and apparently made an enemy of the Arabian King Aretas who, on Saul’s return to Damascus, worked with the governor in Damascus to try to get rid of Saul (2 Cor. 11:32-33). Saul’s friends helped him escape Damascus by lowering him over the wall, an act that Saul would use to demonstrate his weakness and humility by human standards in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33. But these friends were even more than just that as Luke already calls them his followers. In just a few short years, Saul went from going to Damascus to kill Christians to having them see him as something of a leader and worth following. The transformation of the gospel in Saul’s life was incredible.

By the time Saul arrived in Jerusalem we might think that he was greeted with open arms but that was not the case. These were people that were committed to living as Jesus’ family but they were still human beings with human fears and hurts. Saul had caused them great damage and had killed their dear brother Stephen. Now here he was just a few years later wanting to be accepted by the believers as one of them. Surely Saul had to understand the situation and his writings never display anything other than great humility and and an overwhelming feeling of grace that he had been accepted into God’s family, but that had to be in doubt, at least for a moment as he arrived in Jerusalem.

Saul needed someone to believe in him and in the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in his life. He found just such a man in Barnabas, a man who had already demonstrated his unyielding commitment to God’s family (Acts 4:36). Saul, verified Barnabas, really had become one of them. This was no mere ploy. He had boldly preached the word of God in Damascus and had come into contention with the Hellenistic Jews, the very group of which Saul had likely been a part and had worked with to kill Stephen.

In the context of all of that, then, verse 28 is rather remarkable. Saul was accepted into the Christian community and he moved freely among them. It is difficult to overstate the amount of love, forgiveness, and belief that this new way of living and viewing the world was really God’s will that this would have taken to bring Saul into the family as one of their own. From a worldly point of view this was crazy. But they were becoming the community of love that Jesus said they would (Jn. 13:34-35) and were truly loving their enemies (Matt. 5:44). Although Saul was only in Jerusalem for about two weeks and met only Peter and James among the apostles (Gal. 1:18-20), his welcome into the community in Jerusalem is still remarkable.

As Saul continued his preaching activities in Jerusalem, mostly with those that he was apparently the most intimately familiar, the Hellenistic Jews, they became contentious to the point that they wanted to kill Saul. He truly was beginning to find out how much he would suffer for this life of Christ, but this was only the beginning. The other believers, however, realized that Saul needed to go elsewhere so they sent him to Caesarea and eventually home to Tarsus. It is likely that this decision was a combination of the realization that Saul’s presence was bringing unnecessary pressure down on the Christian community and that he could be of more use fulfilling his God-given role as apostle to the Gentiles by leaving Jerusalem.

We will not see Saul again until several years later, still in Tarsus (Acts 11:25), but the stage has been set for the next important step in the spreading of the gospel. God’s promise was always that his family would consist of all nations and that had to include the mission to the Gentiles. God had laid the framework and called the people that he wanted to carry that message forward. In the meantime, the existing bands of Jewish and Samaritan believers received a bit of a respite from persecution and these traditional rivals could already think of themselves as “the” church. They were one already and soon, as a result of the work of Saul and others, the Gentiles would join them in the family of the Messiah.


Devotional Thought
Saul’s conversion from persecutor of the church to proponent of Jesus as the Christ is nothing short of amazing. Surely it would have seemed to the early Christians that Saul was beyond conversion. It would have seemed impossible. But what is impossible with man is quite possible with God. But take a moment to think of this. Who is the Saul in your life? Who seems beyond conversion in your mind? Make a commitment to spend time everyday praying for them. If God can turn Saul around, why not the person you’re thinking of?

Acts 9:10-19

10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”

“Yes, Lord,” he answered.

11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

13 “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.



Dig Deeper
I don’t watch too many television shows on a regular basis anymore but one show that I have caught a few times and kind of enjoy is a show called “White Collar.” The premise of the show centers around an FBI agent and one of the best counterfeiters and high end theft artists in the world. The FBI agent, who is very skilled in his own right, managed to be the first person to hunt down and actually capture the thief. Once he was in custody he was given a choice. He could stay in jail for a very long time or he could come to work for the FBI as a consultant and help them catch other difficult-to-apprehend criminals. The thief decided that he would take the deal and work with the FBI, which is where the show picks up. Each week the two men that were once foes now have to figure out how to work together for a common goal. One thing that constantly serves as a point of friction and moves the plot of the show along is that it is very difficult for these two men to fully trust one another. And it goes beyond just those two. Whenever one of them has to go into the “world” of the other man, everyone around them is very distrustful. That is especially true of the thief who is constantly questioned and mistrusted by everyone around him. The show demonstrates the human truth that people can occasionally change their circumstances but it is much more difficult venture to expect others to change their perception of that person despite their change in circumstances. Trust is a tricky thing.

As you read this particular passage try to go back through it carefully and enter the story from Ananias’ point of view. We don’t know much about this Ananias other than what we learn about him from this encounter with Paul, and he quietly slips into the shadows of history after this encounter. But imagine what he must have felt and been thinking as this scene played out. He was a man full of faith who had come to trust in the life of Christ over his own and had been baptized into the family of Christ, pledging himself to live a crucified life that would be the expression of Christ’s life and not his own (cf. Gal. 2:20). Yet and still, this incident must have pushed his faith to limits that he would not have previously known.

Ananias apparently lived in Damascus at the time that Saul was on his way there. He must have been quite bold in his faith to have stayed there with the specter of Saul making his way to the city with the express purpose of rooting out Christians and bringing them to Jerusalem in chains. The Lord came to Ananias in a vision and told him to go the house of Judas on Straight Street. It surely wuold have been quite exhilarating to have been called by God himself to a mission, but the Lord wasn’t done. Once he got to the house he would meet a man named Saul of Tarsus there. His internal response must have been something like “excuse me? You want me to meet who?” This was dangerous stuff; almost crazy. The fact that God informed him that Saul had also received a vision from God and was there waiting for Ananias to come and restore his sight could hardly have been terribly comforting. What must Ananias have been thinking and feeling? What would you be thinking if God came to you in a vision and called you to go to Pakistan and seek out Osama Bin Laden who would be waiting for you to help him convert to Christianity? That sounds crazy and dangerous wouldn’t it? You’re mind would be full of perfectly good reasons why no sane person would ever do such a foolhardy thing.

In fact, Ananias did have a few thoughts for the Lord. He was gently protesting the way so many other biblical figures did when they were called by God to step out in faith in ways that made little sense. Ananias had heard about Saul, as most Christians in Jerusalem, Damascus, and the surrounding areas had. He well knew what Saul had been doing, saying, and most importantly threatening. Perhaps God didn’t understand that Saul was there to arrest them all and possibly worse. If anything, maybe Saul had somehow cooked up a plot where he was faking conversion so that he could get access to the Christian community. That was certainly nefarious but there was just no way in Ananias’ mind that Saul could ever be trusted. Surely God must understand that? We have to give credit where it is due, though, because although Ananias was raising some issues and mildly protesting, he was never disrespectful or disobedient.

But God heard enough of his logical reasoning and ended the conversation with one word; “Go.” God understood exactly who Saul was and what he had been up to. But this was the man he had chosen for a very specific mission. He would be God’s special instrument to go the Gentiles and their kings as well as have a profound influence on the people of Israel. We don’t know why God chose to use Saul in such a powerful way considering that he was not one of Jesus’ apostles and had not spent time with Jesus during his earthly ministry, but perhaps that’s the point. Saul being brought in God’s family in such an important position sent the message that all people were redeemable by God. There would be no special inner circle of important and privileged people in God’s family. Even a persecutor of the church could be used by God to spread the message of the gospel of his Messiah.

The conversion of Saul is an important factor, though, in confirming the truth of the gospel and the reasons for the spread of early Christianity. The early Christians claimed that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and produced over 500 eyewitnesses to back up their claims. But the conversion of Saul gives special evidence. What possible reason could Saul have to convert unless he really had seen the resurrected Christ? The only consistent and logical reason is that he really did see what he claimed to have seen. After all, he wasn’t called to a life of privilege and power. From the very outset God promised that Saul would find out just how much he would suffer for the name and life of Christ (Hebrews used the term “name” to describe the totality of a person in such a way that “name” and “life” were often virtually interchangeable, based on the context). The one who was determined to cause the people of Jesus to suffer would now join them and suffer for Jesus himself.

Saul’s experience during those three days is incredibly instructive for those of us today who live in a time and place where the idea of true salvation relies much more on traditions than on the biblical witness itself. Saul had been confronted with a truth that shook his world to its very foundations. It left him unable to eat and drink for three days, doing nothing but remaining in a state of fasting and prayer. Everything he believed that he had known about God had been shown to him to be wrong in an instant. This was all a result of his interaction with the resurrected Christ.

So is it safe to assume that during those three days Saul’s worldview had shifted radically and he had come to a belief in Jesus as the Messiah and as God’s agent for salvation into his family and reconciliation? It not only seems safe, it seems the only possible reality. Saul had come to believe in Jesus as the Christ, God’s Messiah. This is instructive to those who desire to reduce salvation to nothing more than a mental agreement that Jesus is savior or with the act of praying Jesus into one’s heart (an action that is never mentioned or carried out anywhere in the Bible). Saul had certainly come to a belief in Christ but he had not been filled with the Holy Spirit and his sins had not yet been forgiven (Acts 22:16) because he had not called upon the name of the Lord through the birth of being baptized into the life of Christ.

Luke recorded, in verse 14, that Ananias had referred to Christians as those who called on the name of the Lord. Saul, Luke records the Lord as saying, would suffer for the name. And Saul would be baptized into, what went without having to say, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). The term name, as mentioned above, could be used to refer to the totality of the person and, depending upon the context, their authority, the complete aspect of their personality, and most often the life. When New Testament writers used the word “name” in the context of Jesus Christ it is almost always in reference to his life. When it was declared that someone should be baptized into the name of Jesus, the reference was to the life and identity of Christ (see Rom. 6:1-14: Gal. 3:26-28; Col. 2:9-3:3). Luke clearly was not intending to portray that Saul had entered into the family of Christ and received the gift of the Spirit (cf. Acts 2:38) through merely understanding that Jesus was the Messiah and that he needed to trust in him for salvation. That was total belief but Saul also needed total conversion and total commitment.

That’s where his baptism into Christ came. It was only when Ananias baptized him into Christ that he truly was totally converted and entered into the family of God where God’s children have their sins forgiven (Acts 22:16). Many modern Christian commentators have spent much time trying to make a distinction between Christian belief and Christian baptism into Christ. But this is a distinction that would have been largely nonsensical to Luke and the other early Christians. In the way that Jews and early Christians thought, your beliefs and actions went hand in hand, with your actions demonstrating your beliefs. You simply could not distinguish one from the other and call the mental action good while calling the accompanying physical action an act of earning one’s salvation. Immersion was to the early church the moment of being born into God’s family.

Paul had experienced total belief by being confronted by the resurrected Christ. He had then experienced total conversion as he was baptized and was subsequently filled with the Holy Spirit. What he would spend the rest of his life experiencing, and what God promised to him here through Ananias was total commitment. Paul would truly discover just how much he would have to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.


Devotional Thought
True faith requires not just total belief but also total conversion and total commitment. It is great to have a belief in Jesus but what about total conversion by being baptized into his life (dying to self, receiving the forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit), and total commitment? How are you doing in those areas?

Acts 9:1-9

Saul’s Conversion
1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.


Dig Deeper
Have you ever been absolutely sure of something even though other people told you that you were wrong? They might have been convinced of their position but you just knew that you were right and were sticking to your guns. I know I have been there. A few weeks ago I was looking for an important piece of paper that had some very vital notes on it. I needed that piece of paper right then but suddenly I couldn’t find it so I went rummaging through the house looking for it. To add to my earnestness, I absolutely cannot stand it when I can’t find something that I need. That’s an unusual situation for me and I don’t like it when I find myself unable to find what I want. As I was looking, though, my wife came in and asked what I was looking for. When I told her, she mentioned that she thought it was in a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. I had already looked through that stack and so I confidently told her that it wasn’t in there but that I needed to find it quickly. She repeated that she was pretty sure she saw it there a few days previous. I was annoyed now and told her that I knew it wasn’t in there because I had looked and I would appreciate if she would help me look for this paper. She went into our room presumably to look for the paper in there but by this time I had looked everywhere that it could have been and I was nearing despair of finding this paper. I was beginning to formulate a new plan of what I would now have to do without these notes. As I was standing there thinking, I put my hand on the counter and realized that it had fallen on that stack of papers. For some reason, I pulled back about half of the stack and there staring at me light a blinding white light was the paper I had been looking for. I suddenly had a sinking feeling. My wife had been right. I had been wrong. And I had wasted a lot of time looking for something that was exactly where my wife said it had been. I had just known that she was wrong, though, but now came the dizzying truth that I was the one that was wrong. It can be a difficult thing to swallow even with little things like a lost piece of paper.

Saul had spent the balance of his life serving the God of Israel with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He had given his life to a study of the Scriptures and was so committed to serving the almighty God and defending his cause that he was willing to prove his zeal by doing whatever it would take. Oh sure, he had heard these Christians claim that those who rejected Jesus as Messiah were wrong and that God would prove that one day, but Saul could safely ignore those claims. Jesus was a failed Messiah “wanna-be” that was all. All they needed to do was look at his crucifixion. In that moment, Paul had looked at the idea of Jesus being the Messiah and could see clearly that he wasn’t. No Messiah would die at the hands of the pagan Romans on a shameful cross. That was how criminals died. He saw nothing there of note, and was sure that he was doing the right thing by rejecting this blasphemy towards the true God. He would demonstrate his loyalty to God by ridding Israel of this heresy as quickly as was humanly possible.

Although some have argued against Saul’s legal ability to go around killing disciples, it is certain that the early Christian communities would have taken his threats quite seriously. Saul was there giving approval to Stephen’s stoning death and it is quite possible that Saul and Stephen knew each other before Stephen’s conversion to Christianity. If that is how someone he knew was treated what would that mean for the many Christians that didn’t know him. Those threats were serious, and whether they were strictly legal or not, Saul seemed to have enough authority behind him in the form of approval letters from the Sanhedrin, and he certainly had the will and determination to carry out those threats. Stephen was willing to die for what he believed to be the truth and Saul was willing to kill for what he believed to be the truth. It was certainly a stark difference. As F.F. Bruce stated in his book “Paul”, Stephen argued that “the new has come, therefore the old must go.” While Saul reasoned that “the old must stay, therefore the new must go.” Something clearly had to give.

Saul’s zeal is demonstrated in that he wasn’t just willing to deal with issues with Christians as they came up. He wanted to go hunt down disciples and eradicate this movement before it could spread any further than it already had. He was going to round them up and take them to prison in Jerusalem, and seemed to be quite willing to put to death any who caused trouble or refused to recant. As Paul packed up for his trip to Damascus, a town about 150 miles from Jerusalem, he had letters of authority in his bag and the determined warmth in his heart of knowing that he was doing the right thing.

We don’t know and aren’t told what Paul was doing as he made the journey between Jerusalem and Damascus but we can probably guess that he may have been praying and asking for continued guidance from the Lord or perhaps he was meditating on the presence of the Lord. But whatever he was doing, he was suddenly shaken into the moment as a bright light from heaven flashed all around him. The light was so bright and unexpected that it caused Saul to fall to the ground. Paul had presumably never experienced anything like this before but he would have almost assuredly associated this light with the Shekinah glory of God described in the Old Testament. The divine voice coming from the realm of heaven was similar to other instances of God’s voice being heard (Gen. 22:11; 46:2; Ex. 31-6; 1 Sam. 3:4; Isa. 6:8; Lk. 3:22; 9:35).

But this voice had a question for Saul. Why was he persecuting me, asked the divine voice? This must have been a shocking question for Saul. Who was he persecuting? Far be it from Saul to ever do anything that would injure the almighty God. He had made a life of serving him, not persecuting him. He was defending God. He just couldn’t be wrong about that. But then the voice clearly identified himself. It was Jesus. In that moment Saul’s life changed forever.

Saul would later say that at this moment God had revealed his son to him (Gal. 1:16); he had seen Jesus face to face for himself (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). Jesus was alive. His disciples had been right and Saul had been monumentally wrong. He could no longer deny that as he stood stunned in the divine presence of Jesus. That was the kicker. He hadn’t just seen Jesus, he was seeing him in the realm of heaven. This meant that Jesus had truly ascended to the right hand of the Father, just as Stephen had claimed. He was the Messiah. All of God’s promises had really been answered “yes” in him (2 Cor. 1:20). It was in this moment that Paul began the journey of discovery that would eventually lead to his realization that he had been viewing Jesus from a worldly point of view (2 Cor. 5:16). Saul had looked at the cross as evidence of Jesus’ failure as a claimed Messiah, but he would soon realize that it was his very confirmation. The cross was how all of God’s promises came together in Christ. From this moment on, Saul would no longer view Jesus the Messiah from a worldly point of view.

Perhaps the next most shocking realization beyond the fact that Jesus really had resurrected from the dead and was the Messiah ruling from the heavenly realm, was that these people that Paul had been so full of zeal to hunt down were the King’s people. To strike them was to strike the ascended Jesus. Saul would learn the lesson well that whatever was true of the Messiah was true of his people. When Saul persecuted them, it was really Christ he was persecuting because they were an extension of him. Not only that, but Saul would later go on to realize that all that Christ had in his identity as the Son of God and the true Messiah also belonged to those in Christ (see Rom. 6:1-14).

Not only did Jesus identify himself and place himself as the true target of Saul’s persecutions, he also ordered that Saul go into the city of Damascus and await further instructions. We are told that his companions heard a sound but that Christ did not reveal himself to them, they could only see the bright light and hear a noise but could not distinguish a voice (Acts 22:9; cf. Jn. 12:29 for a similar phenomenon). Saul’s friends led him into the city. Once there, Saul was so stunned by his encounter with the resurrected Jesus that he spent the next three days still blinded (perhaps as God’s way of showing Saul that he had been blind spiritually all along) unable to eat or drink. He apparently did nothing more than pray and fast. Saul had always had total belief in the God of Israel and now he had come to total belief in Jesus Christ as his saving agent but he was about to learn that not only does faith require that we believe in God but also that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (cf. Heb. 11:6). Saul had come to a point of total belief but he would soon find out about total conversion and total commitment. He would soon find out what it would really require of him to serve the living God.


Devotional Thought
Many people already feel like they have had their “Damascus road” experience in coming to the realization of the truth about God and Jesus but feel very uncomfortable with the thought that God might want to use them as his “bright light” in the life of someone else. Ask God to use you as his “light” to shine into the life of someone and be prepared to be bold as you lovingly show them that everything they thought they knew was perhaps not quite accurate.

Acts 8:26-40

Philip and the Ethiopian
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] [c] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.



Dig Deeper
Every year on Christmas Eve my family on my mother’s side has had a tradition to gather together for a big party. This tradition now goes back over forty years and is something that we all look forward to every year. As part of that evening we have the main traditional event of the night in which the classic poem “The Night Before Christmas” is read. My Uncle Joe started this tradition and it has continued on through all of those years even though he died many years ago now. The Christmas Eve party this year was no different as all of the traditions were carried on. After the reading of the poem, however, something unique happened this year. My Aunt Roberta, my Uncle Joe’s widow, declared that she had something to read too. Everyone hushed and listened up because she is still kind of the “Grande Dame” of Christmas Eve in our minds. As she began to read, the words that flowed from her were measured and steady. She read of a little boy who wanted to comfort his mother before his first day of school. The mother was worried and scared, but the little boy assured his mommy that he was a big boy now and every thing would be okay. We all listened mesmerized by the prose that she read. It was emotional and touching. Yet none of us completely understood why she was reading it. As she finished, we were all left to sit and ponder our own childhoods and how quickly they had raced by as well as how fleeting are the days that we have with our own children. As my Aunt closed the little diary from which she was reading, she looked up and said that this was a story that she wrote for her sister when her son Michael was getting ready for his first day of school. I was stunned. I had never considered that I was that little boy. The story that she had read that was so moving and thought-provoking was about me. I was actually part of the story. It brought a whole new meaning for me to the story and made it real in a way that I could have never imagined.

The book of Acts is full of narratives and it is in and of itself a narrative. It doesn’t just have the obvious smaller narratives like Peter preaching to thousands on the day of Pentecost or Stephen standing up boldly in front of the hostile Sanhedrin and eventually being stoned to death for doing so. The book of Acts is also full of narratives that run just beneath the surface of the text but that flow all through the veins of Luke’s writing. The grand story of Acts (narrative is, after all, just another word for story), is the spreading of the good news that the Messiah had come, had defeated man’s ultimate enemy of death, had shown himself to be the true king of the world, and had finally made the promised family of God available to all people. Now that is quite a story. You can imagine the responses of those who heard this story for the first time. But imagine hearing that story for the first time and then finding out that it involved you. It wasn’t just a story about a king and some other people. You were actually part of the grand narrative. That would make it real in a way that you could have never imagined.

As Luke shifts gears, it is significant to note that the Spirit calls Philip away from a successful and fertile ground of evangelism to a desert road that would have had very little traffic on it at the time. That must have seemed like a strange and possibly even frustrating call for Philip to have received. But he trusted God more than he trusted the seeming circumstances and so he went. As he was going down the road he saw a chariot which must have been a welcome sight to see anyone at this point. This was no regular person in this chariot, though (it would have been a little like seeing a limousine driving down the way). The chariot would almost assuredly have been drawn by an ox and so it would have been quite easy for Philip to run up and catch the chariot and then walk along side of it where he heard this Ethiopian man reading aloud which was the common practice in the first century as reading silently was almost unheard of.

The Ethiopian, we are told, was a eunuch and an important official in charge of the treasure of the Kandake of Ethiopia. The area that he was from would actually have been what is now modern day Sudan rather than modern Ethiopia. He was a black African man and was a eunuch which was a common condition for those in important royal positions back then as they could be more trusted after they had been castrated (the word for “eunuch” could be used more generically to refer to any government official but most likely carried the meaning here that he actually had been castrated). He was basically the secretary of the treasury for the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Kandake. The kings of Ethiopia were believed to be the child of the sun and were considered too sacred and divine to be bothered with the everyday tasks of a monarch, thus the Kandake, the queen-mother, was the functional ruler. It would have been her to whom this man answered.

He was returning home after coming to Jerusalem to worship, although it is unlikely that he was Jewish or a Jewish convert as Eunuchs were specifically banned from taking part in the full membership and function of God’s people (Deut. 23:1). We are not told the details of why he was worshiping in Jerusalem but it is not hard to imagine why it was that even to those who were excluded from numbering themselves among God’s people fully, the piety and discipline of the Jewish faith still had a great deal of appeal. This man, we must be clear though, was an outsider to God’s people, barred by the law from ever fully being accepted as part of God’s people. He was as we all were at one time, or to borrow Paul’s words from Ephesians 2:12, he was “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”

It would have taken some courage to approach this important official but Philip had been ordered by the Spirit and absolutely obeyed. As he approached and heard the Ethiopian reading from Isaiah he asked him if he knew what he was reading. The specific passage that Luke reports that was being read comes from Isaiah 53. It is a passage that has to do with the suffering and injustice experienced by the servant of the Lord. The faithful servant would be the one who would serve as a representative for all of the people through his suffering and take upon himself the iniquity of all. The Ethiopian was understandably confused by this. To whom was this passage referring? Who could possibly take the sin of all people upon himself? Who could take on such a task at the Lord’s bidding (Isa. 53:10) and still be given “a portion among the great” (Isa. 53:12)?

The exciting news was from Philip was that this time had come. The suffering servant of Isaiah was one and the same with the Davidic Messiah that most Jews were waiting for (there is no evidence that anyone connected these two figures as one before the time of Jesus). God had finally sent the rescuing servant and it was Jesus.

But there is more that we must understand that Luke no doubt expected his readers to see by including the specific detail that this man was a eunuch. As we mentioned earlier, Eunuchs were barred from participation in the assembly of the Lord’s people. But as the book of Isaiah continues to talk of the suffering servant of the Lord, he holds out a specific promise for the outcasts such as eunuchs, “Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely exclude me from his people’. And let no eunuch complain, ‘I am only a dry tree’.” For a time is coming, declares Isaiah, when all people will be brought into God’s family; all people will be accepted and God’s house, his dwelling place, will finally be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:1-7).

Can you imagine if you were this man hearing this all from Philip for the first time. The great narrative of God working among his people from which he was reading, included him. Even the eunuchs would finally be brought into God’s people. And that time was happening now. The story was about him and all people like him. The outsiders were being brought into God’s kingdom.

As they continued on, Philip explained the rest of the good news which no doubt included much of what Peter had told the Jews on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. It is no wonder after hearing the good news that the suffering servant had come and fulfilled God’s promises by taking his wrath onto himself and opening up God’s promises to even the eunuchs that this man was more than ready to jump in and share in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection by being fully immersed in the waters of baptism (cf. Rom. 6:1-14).

We are told by Luke that the Ethiopian continued on his way but history seems to indicate that he well understood the true nature of the life to which he had been called. Second century church leader Irenaeus reports that this man went on to evangelize his own country and created large enclaves of Christians in northern Africa. Despite the fact that some have used this passage to argue for lone ranger Christianity, meaning that Christians don’t really need to be part of specific Christian family or community of true believers, Luke intended to convey nothing of the sort. This man knew that he had been brought into God’s family and that God had called him during a unique time for the unique task of opening God’s family up to the people of Ethiopia (Incidentally, early church writings indicate that this man went on to build a huge Christian community in northern Africa). It is, by the way, no coincidence that during the days of Luke, Ethiopia was called the ends of the earth. Just as the gospel had been brought to Samaria, as Luke has described in the last passage, so it was truly beginning its journey to the ends of the earth just had Jesus had promised (Acts 1:8).

The Bible is really one grand narrative that weaves together the promises that God has given mankind and tells the story of those who believe those promises. Paul boldly declared in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” Just as the Ethiopian found that true and found his own part in God’s story we each have our own part as well. God’s promises stand true whether you are riding in a chariot in Gaza or sitting at a computer right now. What are you waiting for? Go join in and be part of the story.



Devotional Thought
Are you as prone to listening to the guidance of the Spirit as Philip was? Imagine what might have never happened had he not obeyed the urging of the Spirit. What is the Spirit guiding you to do today? Who might he want you to talk to? Who is your “Ethiopian”?

Acts 8:4-25

Philip in Samaria
4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. 6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.

Simon the Sorcerer
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
24 Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
25 After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.



Dig Deeper
One movie that nearly everyone who grew up as a teenager in the United States during the 1980’s will remember is the teen classic “Can’t buy Me Love.” In that movie a very unpopular and nerdy young man who had been saving up $1500 for a telescope bumps into his dream girl at the mall. This very popular cheerleader had borrowed an extremely expensive dress from her mother without asking, had worn it to a party only to ruin it, and was at the mall trying to exchange the dress for a new one at the store where her mother had purchased it. The young man overhears her plight and immediately hatches a plan. If she will pretend to be his girlfriend for one month he will give her his $1500 dollars so that she can buy a new dress and her mother will never know what happened. His thinking was that if everyone at school thought that they were dating and in love that he would quickly become very popular as well. She accepts the plan and things start out going well, but in the end he discovers that he was sadly mistaken. He could not buy either popularity or love. It was just as the Beetles had sung in the 1960’s, “I don’t care too much for money, ‘cause money can’t buy me love.”

That movie has always reminded me of the old saying that declares that you cannot buy love or happiness. That is true I suppose. You really cannot purchase true love or true happiness, there is little dispute to that. This passage in Acts makes it clear that there is at least one other thing that can be added to the list of things that money cannot buy. Money might be able to buy goods, services, power, prestige, and many other things but it cannot buy the important things in life. It cannot buy love. It cannot buy true happiness. And it cannot buy the Holy Spirit. In fact, thinking that the Holy Spirit is a commodity that can be purchased from men or even from God by doing the right things or “giving generously” so that he will “bless us” with the Spirit. As Jesus made clear, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8). The Holy Spirit is God and his power can neither be purchased or harnessed. To attempt to do so, is to demonstrate a crucial and exceedingly dangerous misconception as to the very nature of God and his work in the world.

Acts 8 is another of those great passages that demonstrate the sovereignty of God. Time and again, what man plans for evil, God uses and turns for good. The Sanhedrin had given Saul permission to put his zeal for God to good use and to stamp out this new movement of Jesus followers. They had believed that the old adage “if you cut off the head, the snake will die,” would hold true for those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but they quickly found out that they were wrong. These people had the power of the Holy Spirit moving in them and among them and animating the common life that they shared as the family of God. So rather than being truly harmed by the persecution of Saul and the Sanhedrin, it actually facilitated the next stage in the spreading of the gospel as Jesus had promised that they would be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Phase 1 had begun and now as they were scattered into other places, they continued to preach the word wherever they went, including the area of Samaria which would have taken great boldness as the Samaritans and Jews did not get along at well. But this was always to be one family of all nations as was symbolized at Pentecost day as Jews from every nation received the message of the gospel. In this passage Luke will show us how the gospel began to be preached to those that were firmly on the fringes and were considered virtual outcasts of the Jewish people.

Although going to preach in Samaria was a bold move, it would not have been completely out of context. Not only had Jesus foretold that the mission would eventually go into Samaria, the Samaritans also believed that God would send a prophet or Messiah as he had promised in Deuteronomy 18:15. Philip was one of the seven men who were giving the responsibility of overseeing the ministry of bread distribution to the widows and on whom the apostles had laid their hands, giving him the Spirit-given ability to perform signs and wonders through the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. As he came into the region of Samaria, he boldly preached that the resurrected Jesus was the Messiah that they had been waiting for. To demonstrate that his words were truly from God, he performed the kind of authentic signs and wonders that caught the attention of the people. It was confirmation that God was really behind this message.

This all brought the notice of Simon. Simon was a man who had practiced sorcery and wowed the people for some time and thought that he was truly a big deal. Philip was stepping into his turf and gaining the attention that was normally Simon’s. We aren’t told exactly what sorts of sorcery Simon had performed but it was enough to sway the people and fool them into thinking that he had the power of God flowing through him. But Simon’s great works only pointed people to him. Philip was different. Not only did his signs and wonders evidently seem to be of a different level of truth and power, they also pointed not to Philip but to the kingdom of God. As they accepted Philip’s message of the gospel, they were baptized into the life of Christ and became full members of the Messiah’s family. Even Simon was apparently so amazed by Philip’s works that he was baptized as well, probably with the hopes that his own powers and abilities would increase all the more. But as Luke continues on in this account, it becomes quickly obvious that Simon’s faith wasn’t real. It was more along the lines of the Jews who “believed” in Jesus after hearing his message (Jn. 8:31) and then tried to kill him just a few minutes later when they heard the totality of what he was truly preaching (Jn. 8:59).

Luke tells us that when the Samaritans were baptized that they had “simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” Although some have taken this to mean that Luke is saying that the Samaritans had the Spirit withheld from them, there is no indication of that. His point in telling this story is not as much to describe what happened with the Samaritans as a group as it is to describe what happened with Simon. Simon was taken aback and enamored with the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. He had no interest in the subtle but still powerful action of the Holy Spirit coming into the life of the believer at their baptism (Acts 2:38), the gift that serves as a down payment and guarantee of the inheritance of the believer (Eph. 1:14), and who gently guides believers in their transformation of the life of Christ (Gal. 5:22-26). These Samaritans were true believers who had been baptized into Christ and received the Holy Spirit just as had promised to all who believe but that was it. They had not received the miraculous power of the Spirit coming upon them, allowing them to perform the signs and wonders of the Spirit. This was a special gift that came only as the apostles laid hands on believers and allowed the Spirit to come upon them in this special way. This is what interested Simon.

His nominal belief and baptism had not given him what he wanted because he was not interested in the genuine life of Christ. But when he saw that the apostles laid hands on the people and they began to exhibit the same impressive signs of the Spirit as had Philip, that caught his attention. That is what he wanted. He wanted the power and prestige. Notice that he immediately offered money to the apostles to purchase that gift. But it wasn’t even the gift of the miracles that he wanted. He wanted the ability to pass on the gifts as the apostles had. He wanted what he saw as the real power and control.

But, we might ask, why would Luke have spent so much time to focus on Simon and what he wanted? Certainly this stood as a warning to anyone who thought that the power of the Spirit was there for their own advancement, excitement, blessing, or prestige. There are many who fall into this same error today, often referred to as Simony, or the attempt to purchase the gifts of God. Today, the appeals of this nature are much more subtle and spiritual sounding than Simon’s request to just buy the power, but the heart is the same. People are promised advancement, blessing, and spiritual power if they will tithe more, give bigger amounts, and sow seeds in the ministry of one person or another. These are attempts to control the Spirit which is exactly why Peter rebuked Simon so harshly. His heart was shown through his actions and he had no part in their ministry. Peter warned him harshly and made clear that the only hope that Simon, or anyone prone to that same error had, was to immediately repent and plead with the Lord for forgiveness. There was nothing down the road that Simon was heading except bitterness and captivity to sin. Simon wanted power not the Holy Spirit. With power comes self-adulation. With the Spirit comes self-denial. Simon couldn’t see the vital difference.

But there is another important reason why Luke likely spent so much time describing Simon’s encounter. (Which is not an insignificant thing considering the great cost of writing and copying text in the ancient world which meant that every word mattered greatly. There were no empty words in the ancient texts.) Christians of later generations would go on to describe Simon as a man who would become the greatest nemesis to both the apostle Peter and the church in general. He is attributed by some (as early as Justin Martyr in 150 AD) as being the father of the Gnostic heresies which appeared early in the Christian movement as an alternative to true Christianity and swayed many from the truth. Gnosticism appealed to a secret knowledge that was only available to some and would bring great advancement to those who engaged in the Gnostic form of Christianity. Justin Martyr would go on to say that Simon was very active in Rome (possibly by the time that Luke was writing Acts) and caused great trouble for those who held to the true gospel. It is quite possible then that Luke, as he was writing to Theolphilus, who was quite possibly an important Roman official, thought it necessary to describe the roots of Simon’s “belief” and warn others to stay away from him and to not go down his same path.

Simon’s final recorded words are quite interesting. He didn’t pray for himself for repentance or even ask Peter to, but asked Peter to pray that he would be spared from judgment. Luke doesn’t go any further into that but seems to indicate that Simon had sealed his own fate, as history verifies. Simon’s attempts to purchase the power of the Spirit for himself would fail and although they would lead many astray, the truth of the gospel continued to march through the rest of the Samaritan villages. False versions of the gospel may be quite powerful but they will never fully derail the truth. They can neither control the Spirit for themselves or keep it from others.



Devotional Thought
Peter was immediately able to discern Simon’s errors in his thinking about the Holy Spirit and he confronted him directly out of his love for the true believers. Are you equally able to recognize false teachings and attitudes and have the conviction to stand up to them when needed?