Jun 13 2013
Knowing the Unknown God
As I climbed the flight of stairs I kept arriving at doors that had strange brass faces. Some faces were kind of smiley while others looked rather evil. A number of doors also had statues resembling weird creatures. One part of me wanted to leave, but another wanted to knock on doors and preach. I mean why would anyone worship these things? Was it a case of following a cultural superstition, or did they actually believe these things existed? Were you ever in this situation?
When the apostle Paul walked around Athens and saw all their objects of worship he felt ‘distressed’ (Acts 17:16-34). But instead of wanting to leave, he had a strong desire to convince the Athenians to turn from their false gods and worship the God of Israel. Paul was so disturbed by the images that he broke with his usual practice of preaching only in the synagogues and started preaching openly in the marketplace. He didn’t want to just speak to Jews; he wanted to reach these Athenian Greeks. More
Nov 21 2013
I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting
An imaginative but possible rendering of Saul’s conversion in Acts 9
Arrests were followed up with executions, and they were not pretty. Many were by stoning and had been cruel and bloody. But this was the intension, the community was to heed the warning, the authorities were not playing games.
House raids were indiscriminate. It did not matter if those arrested were male or female, or if they had children, the guilty had to be exterminated at all costs. They had perverted the ways of God and their doctrine was spreading like a disease.
But the executions were beginning to have a positive effect; in fact most of the cult members had fled Jerusalem and were now hiding in cities further afield. And no one was more aware of this than Saul. He was ready to hunt these Jesus followers wherever they went. Even now his eyes scanned the horizon for his next target. “Ah, there she is!” More