We are familiar with Saul the first King of Israel, ultimately killed in battle then replaced by David. – שָׁאוּל
His Hebrew name šā’ûl means ‘desired,‘ however Saul of Tarsus was not the ‘hebrew of hebrews’ that any follower of The Way currently wants to meet.
A brilliant and well-educated man under the tutelage of Judah’s most respected Rabbi, Saul was an up-and-coming leader bound for greatness in the eyes of all of the sanhedrin. A keen observer of their political and religious tutelage, Saul seized his potential claim to fame just as the Apostles had disrupted all Jerusalem.
“Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord. They threw him out of the city, and stoned him.
The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Sha’ul.
They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying,
“Lord Yeshua, receive my Spirit!”
He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
It had been some scene!
That was the day many disciples began fleeing Jerusalem and now, this Saul of Tarsus pursues them in hopes of more trials and executions like that of Stephen.
10 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.”
And the Lord said to him,
“Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.”
ACTS 9:11-12 NASB – The Word of the Lord to Ananias in a vision
We have already witnessed the Apostles laying hands on people who then received healing. This disciple of Jesus, Ananias, may have witnessed such signs or perhaps even the stoning of Stephen.
“Lord, I have heard from many people about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.”
Do you fear a high official of the priestly court who has authority to murder you?
Of course you do; but it is the Lord speaking in a vision to this saint in Damascus.
15 But the Lord said to him,
“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer in behalf of My name.”
ACTS of the Apostles 9:15-16 – The word of the Lord to Ananias
Ananias anoints Saul
So Ananias departed and entered the house,
He placed his hands on him and said,
“Brother Saul,
the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road you were traveling, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
20 Immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues:
Yeshua is the Son of God.
ACTS of the Apostles 9:20b, Complete Jewish Bible – Proclamation of Saul of Tarsus
You have to picture this NEW witness of Saul
.. in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying,
“Isn’t this the man in Jerusalem who was causing havoc for those who called on this name and came here for the purpose of taking them as prisoners to the chief priests?”
But Saul grew stronger and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
Luke records a little more of Saul’s conversion story in ACTS of the Apostles 9; however his reference to later readers some three decades later begins, ‘ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦντο..’ that is: ‘When many days had elapsed..’
Saul, later records in his letter to the church in Galatia:
but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him for fifteen days.
Simon Peter, who had denied Christ three times during the Lord’s trial but was then restored by Jesus after the resurrection, introduces himself as a servant [bond-servant] and Apostle of Jesus Christ. He speaks of Jesus in the present tense, for Christ has shown Himself to many alive and risen from death!
Peter is a bond-servant of the Living God in the Person of Christ Jesus. And the Apostle writes not to all, but to those chosen by God to receive ‘the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.’
2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Peter builds up believers in their faith, assuring them:
18 We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.
THE JUDGMENT OF FALSE TEACHERS
The Apostle then cautions the church of false teaching.
YES, even from the first days of Christ’s Church, built on a foundation of His Apostles, some sought to destroy the Good News of the Lord’s resurrection and restoration of sinners by distorting the way, the truth and the life of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Peter warns:
There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.
They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them.
The King James Version then pointedly follows Peter’s warning translated thusly:
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Matthew 7:14 KJV
FEW find the strait gate and the narrow way leading to eternal life. FALSE teachers WILL NOT teach that, though our Lord Christ Jesus preached this challenging truth.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Matthew 7:15
Returning to Peter’s analogy of Sodom
The Apostle acknowledges the challenges of believers living in a world of sin and disbelief.
Peter preaches that God cast angels down to hell and did not spare ANY in a sinful world, except Noah and his family.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example of what is coming for the ungodly..
2 Peter 2:4-6 NASB Bolded emphasis mine. – RH
The Apostle of the Lord Jesus then encourages the church to be faithful, as were Noah and Lot.
So what is the Apostle’s encouragement to believers who persevere in their own difficult challenges of the first century? (Or, I might add, equally applied for the believer of this 21st century?)
.. and if He rescued righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the perverted conduct of unscrupulous people..
.. then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from a trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt passion, and despise authority.
We are righteous in Christ Jesus, beloved believer, (though we were condemned as sinners).
Did you notice my omission of verse (8) above from Peter’s encouragement?
Here the Apostle shows our empathy for Lot as he lived in Sodom.
(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)
2 Peter 2:8 NASB20 – speaking of Lot living in Sodom before its destruction by the LORD
Is the city of your church a Sodom of sorts?
(Of course it is.) Here we feel the same compassion for Lot which Peter points out.
Further Description of False Teachers
For your own instruction you may want to read some characteristics of false teachers who will not preach Christ Jesus crucified and risen. READ the rest of the Apostle Peter’s second letter {below}.
Then consider if YOUR church, your Bible study, your ‘church group,’ and the children’s ministry of YOUR church all preach Christ Jesus.
The Lord Jesus’ Apostle, Simon Peter closes his letter to the church with this:
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position.
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.
Second Letter of the Apostle Peter to the Church 3:18 CSB
Paul – Peaching Christ to Believers in Sodom
Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, though a rabbinically trained Jew of high learning, Paulos of Tarseus{his Greek name}, after encountering Christ Jesus personally on a road to Damascus, also wrote to the Church with encouragement and cautions against false teachers.
In an intellectual environment of Athens where Paul could well have debated hours on end with its idolatrous and worldly philosophers and political leaders, this Apostle to the gentiles chose to defend Jesus Christ our risen Lord as ‘the unknown god.’
IS CHRIST JESUS the unknown god in YOUR city?
Who do you preach in your church?
Do you preach Christ OR some unknown ‘Jesus‘?
We glance back at scenes of the Son of Man, Christ Jesus, walking with Peter and the Twelve throughout all of Galilee, Samaria, Judea and other places – bringing the Good News to all who would believe.
Many of us who grew up in the instruction of a faithful church heard stories of evangelists like John Wesley and others riding further distances into unknown towns on horseback, preaching Christ Jesus and planting churches. These faithful preachers of Christ followed a model of the Apostle Paul of the first century Church.
Some even sailed into new lands as did Paul.
So whether in Athens, Corinth, Rome, London, New York, Washington DC — even Cincinnati or the ‘sin city’ where you reside:
We see Sodom in the mirror of our neighborhood, don’t we?
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates known for luxury shopping, ultramodern architecture and a lively nightlife scene. Burj Khalifa, an 830m-tall tower, dominates the skyscraper-filled skyline.
16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
.. The God who made the world and everything in it —he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things..
So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”
Acts 17:30-31 NASB
The Apostle preaches to the idolaters of their ignorance of the Living God! Paul then preaches God’s mercy in overlooking their past sins. And the Apostle to the gentiles warns:
God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”
This ‘unknown god’ to those on Mars Hill who sought Paul’s teachings is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does your church preach THAT?
So we hear Paul preach Christ crucified and risenfrom city to city.
Those young saints of the first century Church did repent and believe in the Lord. They often suffered and frequently died for their faith — a true faith — in the One God and risen Lord Jesus Christ— NOT an idolatrous faith in a god of war (Mars), a temple prostitute priestess, or a false prophet promising sinful bliss.
Paul – Writing to the saints in Sodom
Again, I direct our look back at Scripture to understand the heart of those preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
(Oh, how our Lord was so grieved over an unrepentant Jerusalem and all the other cities which witnessed the many proofs (signs and miracles) of the Son of Man, the Messiah Jesus.)
As the Apostle to the gentiles sustains the saints of The Way, Paul writes to believers in cities such as Corinth.
(Of course Athens and Rome were NOT the only sin cities of Paul’s missionary journeys.) The manifest sin of these cities tormented Paul’s heart as such unrighteous men had troubled Noah and Lot and in the Apostles’ time, Christ Jesus.
The city of Corinth was prominent in the first century. It is located in Greece on an isthmus between the Aegean and Ionian Seas, which guaranteed its importance both militarily and commercially. Corinth was the capital of the Roman province Achaia. It was a prosperous city but also known for its immorality. Because of Corinth’s sordid reputation, a new Greek word was coined, korinthiazomai, which meant “to live immorally like a Corinthian.”
Paulos, To the ekklēsiatheos(church of God) at Korinthos,
to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus,
saints by calling,
with all who in every place
call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
Do you have ANY question to whom Paul writes?
TO the saints of the church of God, separated TO GOD in Christ Jesus — those brothers and sisters of the Church who Name (also as He IS for us) Jesus Christ Lord.
(It is not an earthly name; i.e. Caesar, King, Governor, Prefect, Premier, President, Emperor, Iman or Pope.)
The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus by Name forty-three [43] times in his two letters to the Corinthians.
He calls our Savior Jesus Christ(meaning Yeshua the Messiah to Jews) seventeen [17] times AND
Christ Jesus an additional nine [9] times,
once adding ‘the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us..’
Paul’s frequent reference to our Master (and his, as a ‘bond-servant’) is Lord Jesus Christ [49 times in 15 verses] & specifically eight times in 1 Corinthians, as well as four times in 2 Corinthians.
The Apostle further makes some of his most pointed arguments for our Lord Jesus using His Messianic title in Greek: Christ.
The Church will always hear Paul preach Christ Jesus. The Apostle always serves our Lord Jesus testifying to the truth of His Gospel.
NASB; KJV; CSB; ΠΡΟΣ ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΟΥΣ Α΄ 15
SBL Greek New Testament
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
Paul frequently warns of the false teachers who preach this heresy boldly or in the guise of interpreting ‘God’s word.’
.. no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is in vain.
“IF,’ Paul preaches — IF these things are true, THEN the Gospel of Jesus Christ is false. YET some false ‘christian’ denominations preach and teach this heresy.
Paul says in effect, “You may as well go home and stop calling your self a ‘christian’ or a ‘believer.’
.. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
You know what some preach? No resurrection to the judgment or condemnation to hell. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
But IF God is good and just, how can He just save all to heaven (if indeed life beyond the grave is even possible)?
Many are the heresies which have crept into ‘christian’ thinking over the millennia of these last days.
What about all those funerals?
18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
19 If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Are we celebrating (a last time) the lives of the dead? OR
Do our final days and death proclaim Christ?
But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep..
1 Corinthians 15:20 NASB
Do YOU preach Christ?
& Does your church teach Christ Jesus?
Paul has much more to say about the Lord Jesus Christ, as do all the Apostles.
IF you are not fully convinced, dear brother or sister in Christ, READ more of the letters to the Corinthians.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 NASB20
.. for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down,
we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens.
We began from a dream of beloved relationship in a sinless paradise. But then our security met with unexpected interruption when our eyes opened to a scene east of Eden.
There we discovered dependence on prayer and seeking the Lord’s direction.
What if there is no escape from this misdirected chaotic place, even from a prison of isolation not of our making?
Our own prayer as one after God’s own heart longingly pleas:
Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted.
Psalm 25:16
Prayer, and then.. ?
Jesus illustrates how prayer’s persistent knocking will guarantee relationship with our loving Heavenly Father.
I illustrated what it must have been like for our beloved friend David who awake to the knock of a friend.
Luke does not tell us anything from Jesus’ parable about the man who journeyed many miles to meet his friend late in the day. But you know him.
Most know Luke’s second scroll from which today I will take our illustration of a pilgrim with frequent traveler credentials.
Acts of Good News
He had an encounter with with the Risen Christ Jesus, then journeyed the rest of his mortal life from place to place teaching the Gospel to beloved friends in distant lands.
Saul of Tarsus – Breaking through Social Boundaries
How can we be in relationship with our beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord when we will not break the virtual bonds of artificial relations?
Saul of Tarsus was a socially connected leader of traditional religion and traditional values imprisoned by his zeal for righteousness of others; that is, until the Lord Jesus called him along a road to Damascus as an Apostle.
Paul preached the Gospel from prisons to public squares.
Saul (Hebrew name) or Paul (Greek name) encountered more social distancing by way of imprisonment and avoidance of former friends determined to kill him than any of us ever will. The instances are too numerous to mention here.
[They] instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. – 13:50
.. the crowds .. stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. –14:19
[leading businessmen of the town] .. seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities… But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.. – 16:19b,25
||| — A.D. 2021 — | | | – Now what?
Prayer to the Father.
the Lord Jesus taught us that
Read God’s Word and open your heart to the Holy Spirit.
Reach out to fellow believers in faith, as so often the Apostle did by letter from prison.
and finally,
when you are released from your prison,
like Paul:
GO to those brothers and sisters,
who with you are members of Christ’s body the Church, beloved friends on a journey who love you and embrace the Good News.
Paul calls himself ‘a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.’ + Romans 1:1
He confesses that he is ‘called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.’ 1 Corinthians 1:1
Are you willing to be a slave of Christ rather than a leader of the worldly?
Like Saul of Tarsus can you admit that your own zealous works are nothing without confirmation of the will of God?
The Apostle writes a second time to the Church at Corinth:
Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent!
