SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/11/2018 9:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-The Circumstances of Paul’s Conversion
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 22:6-16
Message of the verses: “6 “But it happened that as I was on my way, approaching
Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all
around me, 7 and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ’Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ 8 "And I answered, ’Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to
me, ’I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 "And those who
were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the
One who was speaking to me. 10 “And I said, ’What shall I do, Lord?’ And the
Lord said to me, ’Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has
been appointed for you to do.’ 11 “But since I could not see because of
the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me
and came into Damascus. 12 “A certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the
standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,
13 came to me, and standing near said to me, ’Brother Saul, receive your
sight!’ And at that very time I looked up at him. 14 “And he said, ’The God of our fathers has
appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear
an utterance from His mouth. 15 ’For you will be a witness for Him to all men
of what you have seen and heard. 16 ’Now why do you delay? Get up and be
baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’’”
Paul continues to defend the charges that he has against him
from the Jews by telling them the story of his conversion which actually
changed him from being the foremost persecutor to being its foremost proponent
of the gospel. Paul was acting in
submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have
mentioned in an earlier SD that Paul’s conversion to becoming a believer in
Jesus Christ is found in three places in the book of Acts. The first was in chapter nine where he was
actually saved, and now this one in chapter twenty-two and we will see it again
in chapter twenty-six when we study that chapter later on. Paul, indeed now has the attention of the
crowd, that is for now.
Paul goes
on to tell his listeners that he was on a mission to extradite Christians back
to Jerusalem for punishment, but while “approaching Damascus about noontime,”
which is the time of day when it is the brightest as the sun is directly over
head, Paul suddenly saw a bright light.
Now I suppose that if one is on the desert about noontime and something
brighter than the sun appears it would get your attention, and it surely got
Paul’s attention. When we read in the
book of Revelation about how the New Jerusalem will not need any sun because of
the brightness of God we can get a little better idea of the brightness that
Paul saw. This was the brightness of the
Lord Jesus Christ which Paul saw and it blinded him. Now that the Lord had his attention He began
to talk to Paul, who by this time was on the ground, probably because of the
bright light, and partly because of fear, and partly because he was now
blind. Jesus wants to know why he is persecuting Him. That is a tremendous statement for Paul was
persecuting believers in Jesus Christ and Christ says that was tantamount of persecuting Him. Paul asks Him to identify Himself and of
course it is Jesus speaking to him. He
tells him that He is Jesus the Nazarene, and I am sure that this must have
horrified Paul because he, like most unbelieving Jews thought that Jesus of
Nazareth was dead. I am sure that Paul
did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for if he did he would not
be doing what he was doing.
Paul may
have thought that this crowd would not believe him and so he tells them that
those who were with him on the road “beheld the light, to be sure.” We know that they saw the light, and heard
some noise, but did not understand what the Lord was saying to Paul. John MacArthur writes “Although some have
imagined a contradiction between verse 9 and 9:7, this is not true. Because Jesus’ message was only for Paul, he
alone understood the words; his companions merely heard the sound (cf. John
12:29). Similarly, although his
co-persecutors saw the light (v. 9), only Paul discerned the Person of Jesus
Christ (9:7; cf. 9:17, 27; 22:14; 26:16; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). Nevertheless, Paul’s traveling companions on
that fateful day could testify to the objective reality of what had
happened. They saw the blinding light
and heard the sound of Jesus’ voice speaking to Paul. Paul’s experience, therefore, could not be
dismissed as either a subjective delusion or a lie.”
We will,
Lord willing, look at the rest of this section in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today:
Although we have not looked at verse ten yet as the Lord tells Paul that
He will tell him what He has for Paul to do, I take that that He has something
for all of His children to do also.
Although we usually do not get the kind of information that Paul gets we
do receive things from the Lord through Bible study, just reading the Word of
God, or perhaps from circumstances or the preaching of the Word.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Have my spiritual ears opened at all times.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Zacchaeus” (Luke 19:2-4).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who said ‘And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name
Jesus’?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/11/2018 10:13 AM
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