Speaking suffering and living suffering

 “The Jews, Saul, and his disciples”

(Acts 9:23-25, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, February 12, 2012)

23 When many days had passed,

The account that the Lord caused Luke to record in Acts did not contain every detail about the early years of Saul's ministry. If there is anything else that God wanted us to know about that, He would have recorded it in another place. So we want fold into our story here something Paul wrote about in Galatians 2:11-24, even though we don't know exactly how to place it in the time-line of the Acts account:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.

the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him,

A second passage (2 Corinthians 11:30-33) tells us some more about these early moments of boldness and difficulty:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.

The Lord had promised that Saul would have a ministry of suffering. He learned to boast in that as part of his weakness, rather than to brag about his strengths, which he counted as nothing. Strengths become nothing, when the cross becomes everything.

Saul's former allies, the Jesus-rejecting Jews, were plotting to kill him. When people are making plans for religious murder, something intense is happening in their hearts and minds. Many people seem to group all religious zealots together. They talk about how many people have been killed in the name of God. That's fine, but we cannot consign every murderous religious battle to the file that is entitled “Religious Insanity.”

There was an intense struggle between Jesus-receiving Jews and Jesus-rejecting Jews in the years between 30 and 70 AD. It started during the life of Jesus, but it continued with greater intensity after Pentecost, spreading everywhere where Jews worshiped.

The disagreement was about the Old Testament, not about the New. Some of the New Testament had not yet been written. It then had to be collected, and even after that it had to be copied and circulated before it was more broadly known. Men like Saul preached their message from the Old Testament Scriptures which were in both Greek and Hebrew and were in synagogues everywhere.

The Jewish disagreement was not just about Jesus. It became focused on a broader issue of the nature of the expected Messiah. The Jesus-rejecting Jews did not believe that the Old Testament taught Israel about a Messiah who would be a personal suffering servant of the Lord. The Jesus-receiving Jews were firmly convinced that many passages prepared Israel for just such a suffering Messiah who would die, rise again, reign from heaven, and return in glory. They believed that Jesus of Nazareth was this Suffering Servant. They learned this from Jesus.

25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

When Saul embraced the Jesus-receiving version of Judaism, He began to teach from these same Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. He became a disciple of Jesus. Disciples make disciples. In this passage we read about what Saul's disciples did. Saul did not teach them to have faith based on something great about Saul. Saul wanted them to be disciples of Jesus.

Disciples are students. They learn about the Scriptures from the service of someone else, but they must evaluate it for themselves. They must come to know for themselves that passages from Genesis all the way through Malachi prepared the Jews for a Savior who would suffer and die, and that He would be victorious after His death.

Consider Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Who is this offspring of the woman that would be wounded on His heel, but would crush the head of the deceiving serpent, Satan? Jesus, the Suffering Messiah, was revealed in the opening pages of the Scriptures. These are the sort of lessons that Saul would have been teaching his fellow Jews.

God blessed this teaching by giving Saul people who had ears to hear the message. They loved Jesus Christ, and they loved their teacher, Saul, not only for what Saul taught, but for how he lived. When his life was threatened, they came up with a plan that involved a daring escape through an opening in the city will. The great Pharisee was lowered out of Damascus in a basket.

True witness yields religious controversy. When Jesus sent out His disciples, He said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” We are not trying to kill or to be killed. We are trying to bring the message of life through a suffering Messiah to a world He came to save. We speak suffering and we live it.

Saul came toward Damascus as a wolf looking for sheep, though he imagined that he was just defending the honor of the God of the Jews. He left Damascus by being lowered down in a basket. He had become a sheep, and there were wolves seeking to consume him now.

This difference between Jesus-receiving Jews and Jesus-rejecting Jews was no small matter. It was a question of life or death. It was a matter of Biblical interpretation that made a very passionate divide between Jew and Jew. Is the man who died on a Roman cross a Messiah-imposter and failure who would have deceived the people of Israel? Or is He the Savior who came to suffer for our sins in accord with the Hebrew Scriptures? You believe in God. You believe in Jesus. Do you believe in the cross? Do you believe that the victorious Jewish Messiah had to suffer and die for you? Do you believe in His suffering enough to follow Him in suffering?

1. Why did certain Jews want to kill Saul?

2. How serious were their intentions?

3. Who were Saul's disciples?

4. What did Jesus mean when He told His followers to be as wise as serpents innocent as doves?

OT Passage: Psalm 93