Saul approved of Stephen’s stoning and began to persecute the Church (7.58-8.3). Stephen was a ‘Hellenist’, a Greek-speaking Jew from overseas, rather than a ‘Hebrew’, an Aramaic-speaking Jew from Palestine. Stephen’s acceptance of Jesus and rejection of the Temple offended other Hellenists, who denounced him to the Council (6.8-15). Saul, ‘a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia’ (21.39) who wrote in Greek, is also a ‘Hellenist’. When he returns from Damascus to Jerusalem, ‘speaking boldly in the name of the Lord’, he too offends some of his fellow Hellenists, who seek to kill him as they killed Stephen (9.28-29).
Greek-speaking Jewish Christians played a crucial part in preaching the gospel to Gentiles. The persecution following Stephen’s death was directed not against the ‘Hebrew’ apostles, who remained in Jerusalem, but against ‘Hellenist’ disciples such as Philip (8.1-5), who preached from place to place and baptised the Ethiopian eunuch (8.38), the first non-Jewish Christian in Acts.
Saul pursues the Hellenist disciples of Jesus, who have taken the faith as far as Damascus in Syria. Belonging to ‘the Way’ (9.2), they understood their acceptance of Jesus as the right way of understanding their Jewish Scriptures, just as the Dead Sea Sect at Qumran argued that in their interpretation of Scripture they were ‘those who have chosen the Way’ (CD 9.18).
Paul’s letters (Galatians 1.13-17; 1 Corinthians 9.1-2; 15.8-10) and Acts link the appearance of the risen Jesus to Saul with his commission to preach the gospel to Jews and Gentiles. The blinding light and regained sight recall Simeon’s description of the infant Jesus as ‘a light for revelation to the Gentiles’ (Luke 2.32), itself drawn from the prophetic vision of Israel as the servant given by God ‘as a light to the nations’ (Isaiah 49.6). The persecutor Saul now shares the vision of the persecuted Stephen (Acts 7.56; 22.20). The risen Jesus is the suffering servant of his people (9.5), whose sufferings Saul will share (9.16) as God works in him to fulfil Israel’s calling. Paul later recalled that the Lord had said, ‘I am sending you to [the Gentiles] to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light’ (26.17-18).
Gospel John 21.1-19
At the Last Supper Peter said he would lay down his life for Jesus, but instead he three times denied knowing him, as Jesus had anticipated (13.36-38; 18.15-27). Now Peter is back at his nets, and the risen Jesus restores their relationship with his renewed invitation to a meal, and his reiterated call, ‘Follow me’.
Andrew recognised Jesus as the Messiah and brought his brother Simon to him (1.40-42). Now the beloved disciple recognises Jesus and says to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’. But Peter still wants to outdo the others, leaping into the water to reach Jesus first, but ashamed enough to take time to cover his nakedness, like Adam in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3.10). It is therefore best to understand Jesus’ first question as, ‘Do you love me more than these other disciples love me?’ Wisely, Simon no longer makes that claim, and three times answers only, ‘You know that I love you’. Forgiven his threefold denial, Simon will be Peter the Rock, knowing that we love because God first loved us. Now he is ready to feed Jesus’ sheep, following him to the end.
The road to Damascus
Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary Week 3
As Jesus’ apostle, Paul served Israel’s God, and it is better to speak of his ‘call’ rather than his ‘conversion’. However, he returned from Damascus no longer as one of the powerful, one of the religious police zealous to impose the law by violence, but as one of the powerless, transformed by the compassion of the suffering Christ. Saul had been ‘far more zealous’ than his fellow Pharisees (see Galatians 1.13-14; Philippians 3.5-6), just as Simon had tried to outdo his fellow disciples. But as Paul and Peter they preached only that Christ died and rose for all.
Q Do we ever find ourselves tempted to act as religious police?
Q How has God spoken to us when we have felt at our most powerless?