Acts 7:51-8:1
Over the past seven and a half years, I have become a huge fan of Paul. When I was a new Christian and we were asked one day in a small group who we most wanted to talk to when we arrived in heaven, I said Peter. If you ask me that question now, I would answer Paul. Of course I imagine that it would be a bit intimidating to talk to Paul directly. But I would love to hang around on the fringe of the crowd and hear him tell of his days on earth and how his insights came to him and how his arrival in heaven altered his thinking. To hear the heavenly Paul critique the earthly Paul would be a great thrill.
Luke was a huge fan of Paul and when Luke wrote the history of the church, Paul was the main character, at least the main earthly character, in his history. There were many other evangelists going out with the Gospel, but we see early church history through Luke’s eyes who viewed Paul as the leading man of the church. We don’t know a lot about what the other disciples of Jesus did so our view is heavily influenced by Luke’s writing, but in terms of the impact Paul had on the world, it is not unreasonable to make him the leading man.
The Gospel is the good news of what God has done for us though Jesus, but Paul interpreted what God did through Jesus so that the church could be born. Without Paul we would still be a Jewish sect. With Paul the church came into being.
It is in the end of the seventh chapter of Acts and the first verse of chapter 8 that Paul is introduced to us, but he isn’t called Paul. His name is Saul, Saul of Tarsus. Saul is his Hebrew name and Paul his Greek name.
Listen to this description of Paul by Frederick Buechner:
He wasn’t much to look at. “Bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, with a rather large nose.” Years after his death that’s the way the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla describes him, and Paul himself quotes somebody who had actually seen him: “His letters are strong, but his bodily presence is weak” (II Corinthians 10:10). It was no wonder.
“Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one,” he wrote, “Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been adrift at sea. In danger from rivers…robbers… my own people… Gentiles. In toil and hardship, in hunger and thirst… in cold and exposure” (II Corinthians 11:24-27). He also was sick off and on all his life and speaks of a “thorn in the flesh” that God gave him “to keep me from being too elated” (II Corinthians 12:7). Epilepsy? Hysteria? Who knows? The wonder of it is that he was able to get around at all.
But get around he did. Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Galatia, Colossea, not to mention side trips to Jerusalem, Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Athens, Syracuse, Rome – there was hardly a whistle-stop in the Mediterranean world that he didn’t make it to eventually, and sightseeing was the least of it. He planted churches the way Johnny Appleseed planted trees. And whenever he had ten minutes to spare he wrote letters. He bullied. He coaxed. He comforted. He cursed. He bared his soul. He reminisced. He complained. He theologized. He inspired. He exulted. Punch-drunk and Christ-drunk, he kept in touch with everybody. The postage alone must have cost him a fortune, not counting the energy and time. And where did it all start? On the road, as you might expect. He was still in charge of a Pharisee goon squad in those days and was hell-bent for Damascus to round up some trouble-making Christians and bring them to justice. And then it happened.
It was about noon when he was knocked flat by a blaze of light that made the sun look like a forty-watt bulb, and out of the light came a voice that called him by his Hebrew name twice. “Saul,” it said, and then again, “Saul. Why are you out to get me?” and when he pulled himself together enough to ask who it was he had the honor of addressing, what he heard to his horror was, “I’m Jesus of Nazareth, the one you’re out to get.” We’re not told how long he lay there in the dust then, but it must have seemed at least six months. If Jesus of Nazareth had what it took to burst out of the grave like a guided missile, he thought, then he could polish off one bowlegged Christian-baiter without even noticing it, and Paul waited for the axe to fall. Only it wasn’t an axe that fell. “Those boys in Damascus,” Jesus said. “Don’t fight them, join them. I want you on my side,” and Paul never in his life forgot the sheer lunatic joy and astonishment of that moment. He was blind as a bat for three days afterwards, but he made it to Damascus anyway and was baptized on the spot. He was never the same again, and neither, in a way, was the world.
Everything he ever said or wrote or did from that day forward was an attempt to bowl over the human race as he’d been bowled over himself while he lay there with dust in his mouth.
From his letters and Luke’s account of the early church, we know that Paul was born in Tarsus, in Cilicia. This is an area on the northeast coast of the Mediterranean Sea in modern day Turkey, but in that day was a Greek-speaking area. This would make Paul a Greek-speaking Jew – except that he seems to have been in a family that chose not to assimilate into the local culture.
In Acts 23:6 when Paul was on trial before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, he said
My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee.
When he talked to the crowd at the temple in Jerusalem, before being brought to the Sanhedrin, he told them (Acts 22:3)
I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.
From these hints it seems that Paul was born in Tarsus and lived in that city until his teenage years when he came to Jerusalem and began his studies under the famous Pharisee, Gamaliel. Even in Tarsus, it would seem that his family worked hard not to lose their Hebrew roots. They may have spoken Greek in the streets but spoke Aramaic at home so Paul would not lose his Hebrew identity.
So what was Paul’s mother tongue? What was his heart language? He was equally adept in Greek and Hebrew and probably the local dialect in Tarsus. He was multilingual as are many in this church.
I ask people who are fluent in several languages what language they dream in, what language they can read most easily in. Truly bilingual or multilingual people float in and out of languages depending on what they talk about.
I suspect Paul was like this, but there is a hint about what was Paul’s mother tongue. In Acts 26:14 when Paul was recounting his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, he said
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
When Jesus spoke to him, he spoke to him in Aramaic and it seems that the resurrected Jesus would know which language to speak that would most effectively reach his heart.
In fact, Paul went out of his way to identify himself as a Hebrew. In Philippians 3:4b Paul listed his credentials.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
His name, Saul, was the name of Israel’s first king and the greatest man in the history of Israel to come out of the tribe of Benjamin.
His Hebrew roots were important because in taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, he was making a giant step out of traditional Judaism and needed to reassure people that he was doing this as a Jew. So Paul reminded Jews over and over again that he was one of them.
In the same way in this country, there are Moroccans who broadcast Christian programs over the television. The fact that they speak Moroccan Arabic gives them a credibility that a non-Moroccan does not have.
For similar reasons, to help bring a radically different message to the Jews of the time, Paul emphasized his very solid Jewish roots.
There were about 32 years of Paul’s life, from his conversion to his death and he was probably between 25 and 30 years old when he was leading the crusade against the followers of Jesus.
I thought a lot this past week about what Paul was doing in the three years of Jesus’ public ministry and did a lot of research to see what others have thought about this. Did Paul ever see Jesus before his resurrection?
It would be reasonable that Jesus came into Jerusalem many times before he began his public ministry. Scripture records a visit when he was twelve. How many other of the three annual festivals did Jesus attend over the years? One would assume that he came often. Jesus and Paul were about the same age so they may have passed by each other during one of these festivals, but there was probably nothing to make either of them stand out.
Although Jesus came only once to Jerusalem in his last three years, he attracted increasing amounts of attention and the Pharisees sent delegations to him to question him.
Because Gamaliel was the leading Pharisee and because Paul was one of his star pupils, it must be that Paul was part of the discussions about Jesus. Was he really a prophet? What about the miracles that were being reported? But if Paul had met Jesus, one would think that would have been mentioned by Luke in his gospel or in Acts.
So while Paul heard a lot about Jesus and may have seen him as a member of the crowd around Jesus, there does not seem to have been a personal encounter.
Whether or not Paul saw Jesus and whatever Paul thought about Jesus, when Jesus was crucified it became clear to Paul that Jesus was not the Messiah who was promised. How could he be so sure? When Jesus was crucified, he was revealed to be a cursed man and it was impossible for the Messiah to be a cursed man.
Deuteronomy 21:23
If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, 23 you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.
The crucifixion of Jesus was positive proof for Paul that Jesus had not been who he claimed to be and that those who were following him and claiming he had been raised from the dead were following a lie.
There were many discussions about Jesus before he was crucified and many discussions afterwards when his followers made claims of his resurrection from the dead, backed up by miraculous signs and wonders.
In these discussions, Paul’s mind was set. The miraculous signs and wonders did not sway him. Jesus had been a false prophet and the followers of this false prophet were threatening Judaism and so needed to be eliminated.
What did Paul know of Stephen? And how did his death impact Paul?
Paul probably stood and heard Stephen teach. There were lots of discussions going on and Paul undoubtedly wanted to hear for himself what Stephen was saying. Because the Synagogue of the Freedmen was composed of Jews from Cilicia, Paul’s birthplace, he was likely among those who discussed what to do with Stephen. And when debating Stephen did not work, he probably was among the ringleaders who brought false charges against him and brought him to the Sanhedrin.
We know for sure that he was present at the stoning of Stephen because Luke wrote that he stood and acted as the official witness of this execution.
Gamaliel, Paul’s teacher, had urged a course of tolerance but his pupil was not inclined to obey his teacher. There is a Talmudic reference to an unnamed follower of Gamaliel who displayed impudence in matters of learning and tried to refute his master. If this is not a reference to Paul, then it could be.
Paul’s mind was set against Jesus and his followers. He was absolutely convinced that he was doing the right thing when he set out to arrest the followers of Jesus and bring them to prison.
His conscience was not disturbed by the stoning of Stephen. He had a job to do and he had done well with this leader of the followers of the false prophet, Jesus. He went on from the stoning of Stephen determined to completely eradicate this menace to Judaism.
But then came his Damascus experience and in the days following, his memories of what he had seen and heard from Stephen came back to him. What we read in Acts about Stephen’s defense and stoning came from Paul as he and Luke talked about this part of the early church’s history. What Paul remembered about Stephen tells us what he seemed to think was important.
There are three highlights in Paul’s memory of Stephen. First there was his teaching.
Stephen took the teaching of Jesus and moved to a deeper understanding of it. Most followers of Jesus took the teaching of Jesus
Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.
to be a reference to his death and resurrection and nothing more. But Stephen saw that this was more than a metaphor. Stephen understood that Jesus had superceded the temple. He had replaced the temple. Stephen understood what the Hebrew believers were slow to understand and perhaps never understood. Later on when Peter went to the house of Cornelius, the Hebrew believers did not understand that the temple had been superceded. When the Jerusalem council was convened twenty years later, they still did not understand. The Hebrew believers were tied to the temple and could not let go.
Stephen taught that the temple and law had been gifts from God, meant for good, but now they had found their fulfillment in Jesus and had been passed over. The Hebrew Jews were still tied to the temple but Stephen began the huge step away from the temple to a living faith not bound by buildings and rituals. Stephen began blazing a trail that Paul took to the Gentile world.
The second highlight Paul reflected on after his Damascus experience was the serenity of Stephen during his trial and stoning. One night when Paul and Luke were sitting around the fire, Paul told Luke about Stephen and key observations in Luke’s account seem to come right out of Paul’s mouth. At the time Paul had seen only a man who was a threat to the Law, teaching that the Law had been superceded by Jesus. Stephen’s serenity had meant little to him then, just something he had seen and tucked away in his memory.
With all the might of the Sanhedrin against him, Stephen stood there with a face like that of an angel.
But now with the new understanding that came to Paul as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit, he saw how it was that Stephen was able to be so at peace in the midst of conflict. What had been a slight curiosity now became filled with meaning. And when Paul faced hostility for preaching the Gospel of Jesus, he experienced the same peace of Christ that had given Stephen serenity in the midst of the storm of the Sanhedrin.
The third highlight Paul reflected on was the forgiveness Stephen offered as he was being stoned.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Who was in a better place to observe and hear the last words of Stephen but Paul? Was Paul impressed with this at the time? Paul was so headstrong and so determined to destroy this movement that no brave death was going to deter him from doing what he knew was right. But after his encounter with the risen Jesus, Paul remembered Stephen’s last words and understood that Stephen had forgiven him and Paul reflected on what it meant to be forgiven by someone he was killing.
In a movie titled, Saving Private Ryan, a platoon of men are sent to bring Private Ryan out of the front lines of the battle to safety. At the end of the movie the captain says to Ryan as he dies, “James… earn this. Earn it.” And the scene changes and now Ryan is an old man at the cemetery standing by the captain’s grave. He salutes the grave and says that he hopes that he has been able to live a life good enough to repay the debt he owed to the captain and the others who died to bring him back. Ryan was obligated to life a good life because of the sacrifice that had been made for him.
Did Paul live his life in an attempt to live the life he had taken from Stephen?
That was not his motivation. When Paul wrote about his motivation for pressing forward through adversity this is what he wrote (Philippians 3)
I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
When Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, did Jesus tell him, “Saul, Saul, why did you persecute Stephen?” No. He said,
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
When David wrote his psalm of confession after committing adultery with Bathsheba and covering up the resulting pregnancy by murdering her husband, he said to God
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
Jesus taught a parable about the end times and that we would be judged by how we cared for the poor, the hungry and the strangers and he said (Matthew 25)
I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Once again we are reminded that the Christian life is not about us, it is all about Jesus.
Paul lived his life motivated by the fact that when he deserved to be struck down on the road to Damascus for persecuting the followers of the risen Jesus, he was extended mercy by not being killed and grace by being recruited to work for Jesus. As Buechner wrote:
Paul waited for the axe to fall. Only it wasn’t an axe that fell. “Those boys in Damascus,” Jesus said. “Don’t fight them, join them. I want you on my side,” and Paul never in his life forgot the sheer lunatic joy and astonishment of that moment.
Paul worked for Jesus with a deep sense of gratitude for the undeserved grace he had received but he never forgot what he had done. Twenty-two years later when he wrote I Corinthians 15:9 he said
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
The stone marbles that were distributed before the sermon are meant for you to put in your pocket, perhaps a coin purse or pocketbook or pencil case. It is meant for you to keep with you and from time to time you will see it or feel it and take it out and hold it in your hand and think about what it means.
If Paul had carried this stone marble with him, this is what I think it would have meant to him and this is what I think it means to us.
Paul would have lifted up the stone and placed it in his hand and remembered the stones that had been thrown down on Stephen. He would have remembered the ugliness of the blood and smashed flesh and he would have remembered the words that came out of the lips of Stephen,
Lord, do not hold this sin against them,
reminiscent of similar words that had come out of the mouth of Jesus as he hung on the cross,
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing
Paul would have remembered that moment on the road when he expected execution and was instead offered an invitation: I want you on my side.
Like Paul, your sinful nature condemns you to eternal death. You may not have done terrible things in your life, you may not have tried to kill Christians, but your sinful nature condemns you to eternal death.
But if you have submitted to God and accepted the gift of salvation offered by Christ, then also like Paul, you have been forgiven and you have been recruited. God has come to you and asked you to be on his side.
You may be discouraged about your Christian life, but this stone marble reminds you of the mercy and grace of God in your life. You have been forgiven. You have been accepted. You have been recruited.
I am now about the age Paul was when he died – which makes me realize how much of my life I have wasted pursuing things that have no heavenly value. I look at all Paul accomplished and see the poverty of my own life.
I may not be a star member of the team as Paul was, but this stone reminds me that I am on the team, that I have been forgiven and recruited to work for Jesus.
When you face temptations, pull out this marble, hold it in your hand and remember who you are and on whose team you work.
When you are discouraged, pull out this marble, hold it in your hand and remember who recruited you to be on his team.
When you are terribly distracted by the busyness of the world and you out your hand in your coin purse to pull out some money and feel the stone marble, remember that the team for which you have been recruited is working for what money will not buy.
Like Paul, you have been forgiven and recruited.
What were the first words Stephen and Paul exchanged when Paul arrived in heaven?
“Stephen, I am so sorry for what I did to you.”
“And I am so sorry for the ways you suffered. But look around you, wasn’t it all worth it? Look how God used us. Look at all the people here because of how God worked in our lives? It is like you wrote in your letter to the church in Rome
‘Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.’”
You are on God’s team. Some day, sooner rather than later, you will be on the heaven side of eternal life. Let the stone marble remind you to live your life for Jesus. God chose you to be on his side.
