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King James Version (en)

Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9, verse 6

⁶And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

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9:6 It shall be told thee - So God himself sends Saul to be taught by a man, as the angel does Cornelius, Act 10:5. Admirable condescension! that the Lord deals with us by men, like ourselves.

NOTES

Today we read about the conversion of Saul, an event that not only turned his life upside down, but also in many ways determined...

The Lord had prepared a surprise for Ananias. Ananias was plainly quite ready for God to speak to him. But even he did not expect this: to go to Saul of Tarsus...

Today's reading brings us back once again to the question of religion's boundaries and limits. It tells us of...

Today's reading brings us back once again to the question of religion's boundaries and limits. It tells us of Saul's conversion to Christ; after his conversion, he will enter Church history as the apostle Paul. There is no doubt that Saul was sincerely religious and absolutely firm in his religious convictions: for his religion, he was prepared both to die and to kill (vv. 1–2). He was utterly ruthless. But religion that knows neither the Kingdom nor God's love is always ruthless, for it appeals to values it regards as far more important than human life. Yet Saul's ruthless religiosity was entirely sincere: from the beginning, he wanted only to do God's will and was absolutely convinced that by persecuting Christians he was fulfilling it in the best possible way. Of course, it was quite impossible to argue such a person out of his convictions. Conversion in the sense in which the word is often understood today was also impossible for him. For a modern person, “to convert” most often means either adopting a religion or exchanging one religion for another, and Saul would certainly not have agreed to that even under threat of death. But Christ needs precisely such servants, faithful to the end and ready for anything. And He makes Saul His servant. He does what no one else could have done, for no one else could have manifested the Kingdom in such fullness. He allows His future servant to experience and feel what the Kingdom is and who He Himself is (vv. 3–5). Then Saul converts. He was convinced not by human words, but by his encounter with the Risen One and his experience of the Kingdom. Yet Christian conversion can only be this: turning to Christ and the Kingdom, not adopting a new religion or moving from one religion to another. After his conversion, Saul remains the same energetic Saul; his first question to the Risen One is: what should I do next (v. 6)? His sincere and active nature could not endure inactivity, and God makes use of these qualities in the new convert: very soon Saul begins to preach, bearing witness to Jesus' messiahship and resurrection (vv. 20–30). He gives no thought to his former views or to what people who had known him in a completely different role will say about him. This is not because Saul was unaccustomed to reflection. Evidently, his encounter with the Risen One on the road to Damascus had made so great an impression that he could not help telling others about it and bearing witness. It was not merely a new truth that had been revealed to Saul: the Messiah had been revealed to him, and silence about such a revelation was impossible. Religion had come to an end. The fullness of the Kingdom had opened before the future apostle Paul.

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