Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

 

A Sudden and Remarkable Reversal

So suddenly, out of the blue, he takes the key player in the persecution of his people and turns him totally around on the Damascus road. The Saul who was breathing out threats and murders against Christians doesn’t just drop dead—which would have been a big enough reversal for the enemy—he gets converted to Christianity. And not just converted, but wildly converted, beyond anybody’s imagination. So converted that he turns totally around—from being the worst enemy of Christianity to the strongest advocate and most powerful missionary for Christianity.

Luke drives this home by showing the persecutor becoming the persecuted. First, in verse 23 Luke tells us that the Jews in Damascus plotted to kill him. The hunter becomes the hunted. And he escapes (v. 25) in a basket through the wall. Second, in verse 29 Luke tells us that the Hellenists in Jerusalem were seeking to kill Saul. The hunter becomes the hunted. And he escapes by taking a ship to Tarsus.

And the upshot of this amazing turn around? Verse 31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up.”

Nobody would have dreamed it could happen—and happen so suddenly. Persecution, violence, conspiracy, suspicion, scattering—and then suddenly, out of the blue, Jesus turns things around. That’s the way he is and that is the way we should think about life….

…What then should we do? Rest in the eye of his love and care, tremble at the wind of his holy power, and be on the alert in your life and in the world for utterly amazing inbreakings of his might to turn things around. Let there be in your life an open-ended expectancy that Jesus is going to act. He is going to turn things around. And when he does prepare to reap.

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