Who Are You?

For me the events chronicled in Acts 9:3-22 are the  most amazing in the New Testament and the most significant for people today. A young man who first came to light as complicit in the stoning of Stephen and who fostered and acted upon a murderous loathing for the followers of Jesus. A young man who we know was an educated Jew destined for greatness and with all the privileges that came with being a Roman citizen. A young man who gave all that up and became one of the most important figures in the Christian Church because of a brief encounter whilst on his way to Damascus to act out his murderous intent. That young man was Saul, later to be known as Paul, and his encounter was with the risen Christ. What greater testament is there to the truth that Jesus is the Son of God than that of Paul? What more unlikely conversion is there than that of this man, it would be like Adolf Hitler himself suddenly ceasing his persecution and systematic murder of the. Jews and converting to Judaism. Why would Saul have become the polar opposite of what he was, what his whole life intended him to be, unless he had been confronted with the incontrovertible truth that Jesus was exactly who he said he was and the salvation that he offered was a reality.

One can pick holes in the New Testament and point to possible inconsistencies, one can point to the 21st century church and its failings, one can try and blame God for all the failings of mankind over the centuries, one can ridicule those of us who believe, but you cannot say that Paul was a liar because unless he was completely and utterly insane he would not have given up a privileged life and gone to his death for that lie. And even if he was a nutter, what about Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon, Jude who all followed Jesus during his life and all died for the truth that he taught and witnessed to them. 

On the road to Damascus Paul asks Jesus, “Who are you?” and gets an answer that would change him and help him change the world. So reader, what do you believe?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pompus?

Reading James the other day I was quite surprised to find the word “religious”. There in the midst of my favourite book of the Bible was a word that frequent readers of my blog will know often raises some comment from myself, if not my hackles, especially in a 21 st  century context. So, when I saw it there, having never noticed it before for some reason, I had to do some digging (vernacular for research) on why this word was used. A quick search revealed that “religious”, or “religion” is not a common word in the Bible, in fact it is only used 6 times, twice in James in quick session, three times in Acts, once in Colossians. Referring to one of the heavy tombs available to me in the form of Strong's Concordance - in fact although I do possess a copy I cheated and enquired of it online - I discovered that in Greek religious was θρησκὸς (thrēskos) and that it “refers probably to a careful observance of religious restrictions” and in a limited sense, it may mean devout. Further enqui...
Read more

Choose the Red Pill!

Image
  What we read in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy is both amazing and terrifying; God knew that in spite of all he had done and was about to do for Israel, that the people would still go ahead and rebel. He knew that they would, they knew that they would, and they knew that he knew they would, but they still did it. For me this speaks volumes about two things:  One is that we have complete and total free will before God, I utterly reject the doctrine of predestination because I believe that no matter how you package it, or what intellectual gymnastics you do with it, this cannot allow for free will. For the Old and New testaments and Gods message therein to be relevant then free will has to stand unadulterated.  Secondly, the wilfulness of the human condition; like Cypher in the matrix movie who, even though he knew that the matrix was an illusion, chose that illusion over the reality of freedom (you can watch it here ). We are presented with an excellent  analog...
Read more

Preaching to the Converted

As I have done myself of numerous occasions along with multitudes of preachers in a church context, I delivered sermons that were just telling people what they know already, telling them how it was. Yes this often involved clarifying points of scripture and encouraging people in their faith, but the messages whilst not falling on deaf ears was generally just going over somewhat familiar ground but in a new way. What we might call 'Preaching to the Converted'. However, in some cases a preacher will actually challenge the converted, assaulting the listeners ears and their faith, and getting them to ask themselves where they actually stand with God. Today I had the pleasure of one such sermon preached by a dear friend of mine at a local Baptist Church.  Speaking on Ezekiel 37 - the Valley of the Dry Bones - the preacher challenged us to reflect on our own situation, our own faith, our own Christianity by asking if we were in fact Dry Bones; did we come to church faithfully every S...
Read more