The Questor The Wild Gospel..… …..Back to Saul A couple of months ago we thought about the conversion of Saul, on the road to Damascus, from being the chief persecutor of the new church to being called by Jesus to follow him. And we left him in the Arabian Desert, where he went to think things through. Things such as what Jesus as The Messiah or The Special One meant; and how he would fulfil his commission of taking the Message of Jesus to the Gentiles and the Jews. Remember, Saul had been brought up as an ultra orthodox Jew with very clear ideas about what the Messiah would be like – and it wasn’t like Jesus. So part of what he had to do was to completely re-orientate his ideas. Not easy when they’re so ingrained. At this point Saul’s only contact with Jesus had been in the vision on the road. He hadn’t been party to his teaching as the apostles had. They had spent three years in close contact with him and had heard him speak and teach countless times; and they’d seen the miracles he’d performed. They’d also been present at critical times such as the Last Supper and after the resurrection when Jesus had explained everything about himself to them. The only thing Saul knew about Jesus was what he’d heard and seen of him in Jerusalem. Then, he’d been on the other side of the fence. He was a rapidly rising star in the Pharisee community and saw Jesus through their lens. He may even have been present at his trial by the chief priest on the night he was arrested. To unlearn all that and get himself to the point where he understood The Message as well as the apostles did was a big task. Years later, in a letter to the churches in Galatia (present day Turkey) Saul explains that, after his conversion, he didn’t 8
immediately rush off to Jerusalem to learn from the apostles. Instead he learned directly from Jesus during his three years in Arabia. The implication is that Jesus appeared to him and taught him all he needed to know – rather like he did with the apostles after his resurrection. In his view that gave him the right to be called an apostle because he received the Message directly from Jesus. At the end of his time in Arabia, Saul returned to Damascus where he stayed for three years, teaching and preaching the Message of Jesus. Towards the end of this time, the Jews in Damascus began to plot against him – just as he had plotted against the new church before his conversion and for the same reason. Saul became aware of the mood in the synagogues and decided it was time to move on. But by now, the Jews had posted people at the city gates to prevent him leaving. They wanted to catch him and kill him. So he took some pretty risky evasive action. His followers knew of a safe house that was built into the city walls. They took Saul there in the dead of night and lowered him down from the wall in a basket. It was then that Saul returned to Jerusalem – for the first time since he had left to persecute the church in Damascus. When he got there he was regarded with great suspicion and the disciples and apostles didn’t want to meet with him. That’s hardly surprising since the last time they saw him he was dragging their people off to prison. But help was at hand. There was a good guy named Barnabas amongst the believers. He was a native of Cyprus who had heard the Message and become a disciple. He knew The Dever January 2021
