December 4, Acts 22
Suppose you’ve just been rescued from an angry mob trying to kill you. Given an opportunity to address them, what would you say? I fear I might be like James and John, who once wanted to call down fire from heaven to toast some Samaritans who didn’t want Jesus to come through their town. But I’d like to grow enough to be like Paul in such a situation. His speech on the steps of the barracks shows his heart toward his own people who made themselves his enemy. It also displays his bold courage to proclaim Jesus as Lord to unbelievers, and his masterful skills at connecting with his audience.
Did Paul remember being Saul, standing among the angry Jews who murdered Stephen decades earlier? Like Stephen, Paul began by showing respect for and establishing common ground with his hostile audience. He built a bridge to them by explaining how Jewish he was, how he had been zealous for God just as they were, and how he had persecuted disciples of Jesus. He told them the amazing story of his conversion when the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and how he had been blinded by the experience. He
stressed that the man who came to restore his sight and tell him to be baptized was a devout, law-keeping Jew with a good reputation among his fellow Jews. He said it was God who told him to get away from Jerusalem and the unbelieving Jews, and to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
That Paul’s speech lasted as long as it did is testimony to the power of a story well-told. It kept the mob of would-be killers at bay for a while. But when the stinging words about Stephen’s death landed on their conscience, and then when Paul said the “G-word”— talking about the Gentiles, they were done. The riot was on again. The Roman official decided to torture Paul to find out why the Jews were so mad at him. Paul escaped the flogging by showing his passport, his Roman citizenship. As it had done before at Philippi, Paul’s status as a Roman citizen made his captors nervous about how they had already treated him, and helped them rethink their plans for dealing with Paul.
Is there some word that signals the end of your willingness to listen to the word of God? When the preacher gets to a certain subject, or you find a particularly convicting passage in your Bible reading, do you sometimes turn off your attention and turn on your anger? We need to be willing to identify what convicts us and provokes us. Like a doctor pressing to find out where it hurts, the word of God exposes our
weaknesses and guilt. When we hear a word that makes us defensive and want to tell God to mind his own business, that’s precisely where we need to repent and yield to him.
From The Abiding Companion: A Friendly Guide for Your Journey Through the New Testament,
Copyright © 2010 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—December 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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