Acts 22: Pride and Prejudice get in the way of Love

 

Scripture: Acts 22:5 "Ask the Council and the high priest, they know who I am. They gave me letters of authority so I could go to Damascus and bring these people back to the city as prisoners to be punished."

 

Title: How Pride and Prejudice get in the way of Love.

 

Paul is standing before the crowd, at the door to the prison and asks the commander if he can speak to the mob that has followed them to this point. The mob wants Paul to die, plain and simple.

 

1 "I address you as my brothers and fathers. Please hear me out." 2 Since he was speaking to them in Aramaic, they quieted down quickly. Paul continued, 3 "I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia and am a Jew. I grew up in this city and have been taught the ways of our Law by Gamaliel. I have lived a life of zealousness for God. 4 "I have brought many men and women to prison because they chose to follow the Way. 5 "Ask the Council and the high priest, they know who I am. They gave me letters of authority so I could go to Damascus and bring these people back to the city as prisoners to be punished. 6 "On the way to Damascus, around noon, I experienced a bright flash of light from heaven. 7 "Falling to the ground I heard, 'Saul, Saul! Why do you so desire to persecute Me?' 8 "I spoke in return and asked, 'Who is speaking to me?' The voice replied, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are persecuting.' 9 "Those who traveled with me also saw the light but could not distinguish the words.

The mob quiets down because Paul speaks in a language that is clearly native to Israel, Aramaic. The language of the Roman Empire is Greek. Actually, there were two forms of Greek spoken during that time; one for poetry and writing and the other was more of the language of the masses, called the Koine dialect. This is the language of the New Testament writers, although some of the scholars of the last century believe that the gospel of Mark was first written in the language of Aramaic and then translated into Koine Greek.

 

Paul starts by talking about himself and especially the parts of his story that help the people in the crowd identify with him. He is a Jew, and a student of the Hebrew Law in a school right here in Jerusalem. He says, “You all have heard of Gamaliel the teacher, I studied with him, and he is one of the best teachers in all of Jerusalem.”

 

He talks about the strictness with which he obeyed the Law and even went so far as to arrest people who were following Jesus, called the Way before it was called Christianity. He wanted to wipe out this sect and turn Israel back to what it was like before. He said he even had the authority of the Council and he encouraged the people to go talk to them and check out his story.

 

But, he told them, something happened on the way to Damascus. He was stopped in his tracks and confronted by a divine light that knocked him off his horse and he found himself on the ground and blind. The conversation with the voice from the light led him to believe that he had talked directly with Jesus and was told he needed to go into Damascus and wait for someone to come tell him what he should do next.

In my experience Jesus speaks through bright lights and writings on the wall very seldom. But He often uses other people to tell us what He wants us to do. Whether it is through preachers, friends, or even enemies, Jesus often uses the words of others and the working within us of the Holy Spirit to guide us to do the right thing in life; i.e., to do the “will of God.”

 Ananias comes to Paul. If you remember the story, he is reluctant to do this and even declines to be God’s instrument at first. I have made that choice often when I felt Jesus calling me to do a particular thing and I did not want to step out. But in the end, I put my trust in Jesus and He helped me through so that I could follow His leading. Often, his help came through the encouragement of others.

 Ananias commands Paul to receive his sight. He doesn’t say, “God would you give Paul his sight back?” or “I pray that Jesus would heal you, Paul.” He just tells the sight to return. A statement of authority. He can do that because he has had a direct conversation with Jesus about Paul, but he also understands the authority which Jesus has given to him. He is an ambassador of Jesus, he can act on His behalf. Jesus has given us His permission to act in faith and speak health and hope and faith and wisdom and anything else that He leads us to. That we might bless other people with the goodness of our Lord.

10 "I asked, 'What would you have me do?' I was told to get up and go into the town of Damascus and I would find someone who would tell me what I was supposed to do next. 11 "Those traveling with me had to lead me into town because the light had blinded my vision. 12 "While I was in town, I received a visit from a man named Ananias. He was deeply respected by all of the Jews in that city. 13 "He came to me and commanded, 'Saul, my brother, receive your sight!' And right away I was able to see him.  14 "He also said, 'Our Father's God has allowed you to see the Righteousness One, and to hear His voice, and you will know His will for you. 15 "'You will begin to show others everything you have seen and heard. 16 "'It is time for you to be baptized and have your sins washed away by calling upon His name.'

 Ananias says, you are blind because you saw Jesus, and He wants you to go tell everyone you meet about Him. Talk about the things you have seen and heard. But first you need to be baptized and have your sins washed away.

It is so important to help people understand that all of our sins can be forgiven and washed away. I like the words of the hymn, It is Well with My Soul, “My sin, not in part, but the whole, has been nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Oh my soul.” Everything I have ever said or done or ever will say or do that is outside the realm of God’s will has been washed away from my life according to the loving work of God in Jesus Christ. I am not free from sin, since it is still part of my life, but I am free from the quilt, God has set me free, cleansed me, and lifted the burden that used to weigh me down.

 Working from that base, I have the freedom to step out with the love of Jesus towards others. I can more easily forgive them for wrongs they do to me, I can bless them in return because of the example that Jesus has set in my life. It has nothing to do with earning this forgiveness, but it is a gift that He has given to the whole world. He “chose to help us understand the depth of His love for us by dying on the cross in our place when we were still in our sins.” (Romans 5:8 EBV) And He would like us to copy that kind of sacrifice in our love for all other people.

 Paul is telling the people that he had been called by Jesus to share the good news with all the nations, not just the Jews in other parts of the world. In case they did not hear him clearly, He told them that it happened again when he had come back to Jerusalem.

 17 "Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem I went into the temple and fell into a trance. 18 "I saw Jesus speaking to me and telling me that the people of Jerusalem would not accept the truth of my story. 19 "I replied to the vision and said, ‘these people know my story and how I used to beat those who followed the Way. 20 "’They even saw me condoning the stoning of Stephen and protecting the clothes of those killing him.'

 21 “But the voice said back to me, 'It is time for you to leave. Go to all the nations with this message and leave right away.'

It was time for me to leave Jerusalem and take the message of the Messiah to people of the other religions. But that created the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” The fact that the Jewish religion, even remade a bit by Jesus was for everyone and not just for the Jews was taking things way too far. The Jews could not accept this statement and it set them off into mob mentality.

There is something in everyone which keeps them from believing in Jesus. It might have something to do with an experience in their past, a church member, or an unanswered prayer. Sometimes you can ask the question, “what do you think is the one thing that keeps you from believing in Jesus?” They might be willing to answer that question but they might not know what that sticking point is. We might need to listen, pray, and seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to find that key discussion that will help them flip the switch of faith to the on position. If we want them to come to know Jesus, we have to know what keeps them from believing,

What are they afraid of, what experience in their past created so much hurt, who influenced them to believe that Jesus is all a big lie?

 In the story, the Jews did not seem to get upset when Paul talked about Jesus and sharing His story with other Jews, they were happy with Paul going to the Jews dispersed throughout the world, but they could not handle his telling them God had called him to tell this story to people of other religions.

They were so upset that they wanted Paul to die. He was disrupting their society. It was okay for Jesus to come and bring salvation to them, but not to the people they did not like, namely, everyone else in the world.

Their lives were filled with Pride and Prejudice. They were filled with Pride that they were the only chosen people of God that they could not bear to allow non-Jews to be children of God as well. They were so Prejudice that they thought everyone else in all the world was just scum, and could never be loved by God, since they were not Jews. And God was convicting them to think differently.

22 The crowd had heard enough at this point and resumed their shouting, claiming that I needed to die. 23 They started taking off their coats and creating a whirlwind of dust in the area, 24 so the commander ordered the soldiers to take Paul into the prison and get him ready to be flogged and questioned. 25 While Paul was being readied for the flogging he asked the leader, "Are you allowed to do this to a Roman citizen who has not had a fair trial?" 26 This scared the soldier, and he went right in to see the commander and let him know of Paul's citizenship. 27 The commander came to Paul and asked, "Are you truly a Roman citizen?" Paul said, "Yes!" 28 The commander said, "I bought my citizenship, how did you get yours?" Paul said, "I am a citizen by birth." 29 The soldiers who were questioning him stepped back and the commander became quite concerned that he had illegally put a citizen of the Roman Empire in chains without a trial. 30 But there was still a need on the part of the commander to find out why Paul was being accused by the Jews. To do that, he took Paul to have a hearing before the Council and the chief priests of the Jews.

 We do not fully understand why God allows us to go through difficult times, like Paul and his imprisonment, but we do know that for Jesus and for Paul, persecution led to blessing in the lives of others. Jesus was able to offer us complete forgiveness of our sins. Paul was able to write letters to various churches so that we would have a more complete understanding of the ways of God. And Paul says, “One of the things we know for sure is that God cares about us and is always working in our lives to bring about good things.” (Romans 8:28 EBV)

 Through the experiences of Paul, he was always needing to put aside his pride and prejudices and humbly accept the forgiveness of Jesus and also the truth that all people on earth are the people of God; He loves us all.

 Bless you.

 Edd Breeden