Acts 9:20-31
Who do people say you look like? Why?
- God is ... What do we learn about God in this passage?
- We are ... What do we learn about people in this passage?
- What would others have expected Saul to say when he came to the synagogue? When he proceeds to preach about Christ, how do they react in Acts 9:23? Why?
- Why were Christians at Jerusalem hesitant about accepting Saul? Why would the Jerusalem disciples still fear Saul? What risk is Barnabas taking?
- How would you have reacted to the report of Saul’s conversion? Does a church have the right to expect the “fruit of repentance” from a convert? Relate this idea to Saul’s experience.
- How did Paul gain acceptance among the Jerusalem Christians?
- What motivates someone to do what Barnabas did?
- What roles did Stephen, Ananias, and Barnabas have in Saul’s reconciliation with God and His people?
- People in Damascus and Jerusalem wanted to kill Saul. What does that say about Him?
- How is the story of Saul related to Acts 1:8?
- I will ... What has the Holy Spirit revealed to us in this passage? How can I apply it to my life this week?
- What changes did people notice when you began following Jesus? How did they react?
- Who has been a Barnabas to you? How? Whom have you served as a Barnabas?
- What does "living in the fear of the Lord" in Acts 9:31 mean to you?
- You can ... Who do you know who needs to hear this? Feel free to share with others by social media links at the bottom of this.
Making Disciples
A Sunday School teacher, a Mr. Kimball, in 1858, led a Boston shoe clerk to give his life to Christ.
The clerk, Dwight L. Moody, became an evangelist. In England in 1879, he awakened evangelistic zeal in the heart of Fredrick B. Meyer, pastor of a small church.
F. B. Meyer, preaching to an American college campus, brought to Christ a student named J. Wilbur Chapman.
Chapman, engaged in YMCA work, employed a former baseball player, Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work.
Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, N.C. A group of local men were so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another evangelistic campaign, bringing Mordecai Hamm to town to preach.
During Hamm's revival, a young man named Billy Graham heard the gospel and yielded his life to Christ.
Only eternity will reveal the tremendous impact of that one Sunday School teacher, Mr. Kimball, who invested his life in the lives of others.
See: Acts 4:36; Acts 9:27; 2 Tim 2:2
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MY HEART'S DESIRE AND PRAYER TO GOD
by Richard Kirkland
"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved" (Romans 10:1).
Perhaps no man, other than Jesus Christ, has ever lived and preached with as much fervent desire to see others saved as did the apostle Paul. He began to preach almost from the very moment of his conversion, "Immediately he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). It did not matter where he was, nor what circumstances surrounded him, as he preached. He preached both in Jerusalem and foreign cities. He preached both in the synagogues and in prison. He preached on the river bank as well as in the midst of the Areopagus. For him, the important thing was to preach the salvation that is Christ Jesus.
He preached to both the rich and the poor. He preached to the mighty as well as to the weak. He preached to women, prisoners, government officials, philosophers and kings. He was busy, "testifying to Jews, and also to the Greeks" (Acts 20:21). He felt a duty to preach the gospel to all men. He said, "I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome also" (Romans 1:14-15).
But Paul's preaching did not always result in a favorable response from people. His own people (the Jews) often opposed him, causing him to turn to the Gentiles with the gospel of Christ (Acts 13:45-48). They even followed him from city to city instigating trouble and stirring up the people against him. They did not hesitate for a minute to stone Paul and drag him out of the city, leaving him for dead (Acts 14:19). Some forty Jewish men even took a vow not to eat or drink until they had killed him (Acts 23:12). When Paul recorded the things he had suffered for the cause of Christ he included: "From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one" (2 Corinthians 11:24).
Yet, Paul records, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved" (Romans 10:1). The depth of his desire for their salvation is discerned by his words in Romans 9:1-5:
"I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are the Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen."
Paul must have truly loved his people. Nothing else can account for him continuing, in the depths of his heart, to desire their salvation. He knew that they were lost without the gospel of Christ and if it cost him his life at their hands he was going to continue to preach to them, hoping that some would be saved.
Do we have the same heart's desire that Paul had? Do we really want our families and friends and nation to be saved? Do we even believe that they are truly lost if they do not obey the gospel of Christ? Does our record of service indicate that it is really our heart's desire to see them saved? May God help us to prove the sincerity of our desire, as Paul did, by preaching the gospel of Christ, without fear or favor, at every opportunity.
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PETER AND PAUL
The Bible tells the story of God’s mission to heal the world through Jesus. Through the book of Acts, the focus of God’s advancing of this mission narrows to the lives of two people in the early church: Peter and Paul. In these two men we find many similarities, but also some deep contrasts.
Peter was one of Jesus’ original disciples. He followed Jesus through his entire ministry and experienced Jesus’ miracles and teachings firsthand. Yet Peter also struggled with his belief in and loyalty to Jesus. As such, Peter is a comforting character for many Christians today. One might expect Peter to have had a clear picture of Jesus as the Messiah, as he professed (Mt 16:16). And yet, like the other disciples, he struggled with Jesus’ teachings (John 16:17–18); Jesus even had to rebuke him several times during their ministry together (Mt 26:31–35; Mk 8:32–33; 14:37). Peter is an example of someone who took a long time to “get it.” Nevertheless, Jesus was faithful to Peter even when Peter struggled to be faithful to him.
Paul was an opponent of the church and an enemy of God—by all human accounts, he was the last kind of person one would expect to become a Christian. Paul was caught up in his own way of life, in his own way of practicing religion. But Jesus broke through to Paul, rocked his world to its foundations and saved him. Paul’s life changed dramatically. He went from being a great opponent of Jesus to a great leader in the church within a few years. Unlike Peter, Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ identity and mission seemed instantaneous.
The author of Acts records many parallel events involving Peter and Paul to show that they were both effective servants of God. They both had direct encounters with Jesus (Peter, Mt 14:22–34; Paul, Ac 9:1–19), and they repented of their sins and trusted in him. Each man pronounced judgment against a sorcerer (Peter, Ac 8:20–23; Paul, Ac 13:9–11), healed men who had been disabled from birth (Peter, Ac 3:6; Paul, Ac 14:8–10) and exhibited amazing Spirit-empowered healing (Peter, Ac 5:15; Paul, Ac 19:12).
Peter and Paul represent different extremes of the same process. Peter’s path to ministry was one of following Jesus up close for a season and then becoming a builder of the church after Jesus’ ascension. Paul, on the other hand, took a different path. But both men’s lives were transformed by Jesus, and their ministries were Spirit empowered. No matter what one’s spiritual heritage is, Jesus can transform any life, and the Spirit is available to empower a life of ministry.
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