WWUTT 1067 They Did Not Believe Saul Was A Disciple?

When Saul of Tarsus went from being a persecutor of Christians to a dedicated Christian, there were people who did not believe him. But over time and through persecution, he showed his faith to be genuine when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Saul’s Conversion and Early Witness in Damascus

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of Acts chapter 9, where Luke kind of details the first few years of the ministry of Saul after his conversion, when he became a Christian. So as with yesterday, I'm going to start the midway part of verse 19 and read through verse 31.

For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, He is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?

And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

Saul’s First Visit to Jerusalem and Barnabas’s Defense of Him

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. So yesterday we did a little bit of the timeline of these things, because Luke isn't terribly specific on what happened in what year in Saul's ministry.

We have things like immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, that's in verse 20. So we know that had happened right after his conversion. He goes and he's preaching Christ, now saying in the synagogue, he is the son of God.

Jesus is the son of God. And all the people there are perplexed. Wait a minute. Isn't this the guy who came here to arrest people who were saying that? And now he's standing in the synagogue saying that.

So all of that was immediately after the conversion. But then we get to verse 23, detailed this yesterday, when many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. So somewhere in there, right around verse 23 to verse 24, Saul had gone into Arabia.

He mentions this in Galatians 1 .17, I did not go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. So now he comes back to Damascus and there are people in Damascus who are going to try to put him to death.

They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples, the men who were learning from Paul, took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

And verse 26, when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. So this is verse 18. Now, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days.

So this is all after Saul's conversion. Three years after his conversion was when he went to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, who was Peter, was with him for 15 days, but he saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.

These are some specific details that Paul gives in the sharing of his testimony with the Galatians. But Luke doesn't get that specific here. He doesn't announce like times, dates, length of length of years.

None of that is mentioned. We know that his testifying to Jesus Christ being the son of God was immediately after his conversion there in the synagogue in Damascus. Then verse 23, when many days had passed, this was the three year lapse of time.

He comes back to Damascus after being in Arabia, the Jews plot to kill him. And then he is lowered in a basket. He goes to Jerusalem and attempts to join the disciples. But they're all afraid of him. That's what Luke says here in verse 26.

They did not believe that he was a disciple. Now, at this point, Saul is probably not met Peter yet. People just don't believe that he is who he says he is. He is no longer the guy persecuting Christians.

Rather, he's a guy preaching Christ. They don't believe that yet. So therefore, he hasn't met with Cephas. He has it. He hasn't met with Peter. They're all afraid of him. But then verse 27 says Barnabas took him.

Barnabas, who is the cousin of John Mark Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark Barnabas is his cousin. So Barnabas, who knows the story, the history of this guy named Saul, the things that had gone on in Damascus, that everything that he has said lines up with exactly the apostolic account.

So he brings him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus he preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So it's probably somewhere around there that Paul then visits with Cephas and remains with him for 15 days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And that's simply to talk about that Saul did not spend any significant time with the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother.

And that's according to his testimony there in Galatians chapter one, verse 19. So then verse 28 of Acts nine, he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

This was likely not the same Jewish Hellenists that were talked about, talked about at the start of Acts six, not the same believing Hellenists. A Hellenist was a Jew who was not from Jerusalem. They were from kind of the outside region and they lived in Gentile areas.

In Acts six, they're referred to as being believers. These are those Jews that lived outside Jerusalem, Judea, but were there in Jerusalem at the time. And they were Greek speakers rather than Hebrew speakers.

That was another kind of a specific about the Hellenists. Those who were talked about in Acts six, they were believers. These Hellenists here are not. And so Paul is disputing with them and he is arguing with them in these debates.

He is defending the case that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah that had been promised according to the Jewish scriptures. But they were seeking to kill him. Now they're in the position that Saul was previously in.

Saul used to be that guy who wanted to put to death anybody who was proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ. And now he's defending that very position. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

Now it wasn't like they were trying to get rid of him. It may not have even been so much that they were trying to protect him. They saw that this guy who was previously putting Christians to death is willing to be put to death to now proclaim Christ.

And so he has affirmed. He has shown himself to the apostles his commitment to this faith. And so they sent him off to Tarsus, not merely to save his life, but to preach the gospel there. Tarsus was no insignificant city.

Tarsus, of course, was where Saul was from. He was Saul of Tarsus. We talked about that yesterday. But Tarsus was a very significant city right there on the cusp of the Palestinian area. Judea, Samaria, Galilee, all that kind of area.

And then to into Asia Minor. So Tarsus is kind of right there going from the area of Israel into Asia Minor and was a very influential city. It was a port town. And those port cities usually did have a lot of influence.

I mentioned yesterday one of the largest libraries in the world was located there at Tarsus. There's another thing that Tarsus is known for. Other than being the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, do you know what it is?

What a little bit of trivia here. What is probably the thing that Tarsus is most famous for, except for being the birthplace of the Apostle Paul? What Tarsus is famous for is it's the place where Cleopatra and Mark Antony met.

That story starts there at Tarsus. They actually even have like a museum or something there that's dedicated to the fact that here's where Mark Antony and Cleopatra began their love affair or whatever that was.

Anyway, so that's probably the second thing that Tarsus is most famous for worldwide. I would say that the one thing people would most recognize Tarsus for being is the birthplace of the Apostle Paul.

So that's where he goes back to. And again, it's after he confirms through trial, through testing that what he believes is real. This is not some strategy he's using to maybe woo some Christians closer to him, and then he's going to round them all up and arrest them.

It's not like he's become some sort of a spy into the church or Christian circles. He's now being persecuted for his faith. He is truly being tested by fire, and he's passing the test. He's impressing the disciples and the apostles.

This guy who claims to be a Christian is truly a Christian. So they send him off to Tarsus again, not just to save his life, but even that he might continue to preach the gospel there. Verse 31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

It multiplied. And it is there in Acts 9 .31 that we see more locations are being added to this description of the church growing. We've seen other places in Acts where the church is growing, and that's being talked about, and the numbers are being added to daily.

But here it's not just in Jerusalem, and it's not just in Judea. It's even Galilee and Samaria are added to this as well. So you're starting to see how Christianity is starting to expand. And we're even now going to the Gentiles because Saul has been sent to Tarsus, which was not a Jewish region.

There were certainly a Jewish colony there because there was a synagogue there. Saul had been raised there and was being educated in the ways of Pharisees before he then was moved to Jerusalem and sat at the feet of Gamaliel.

So there was certainly the Jewish religion there. But Christianity is now starting to spread in that area of the Gentiles going beyond Israel. That's what Saul is being sent there to do. But we're not going to see Saul pop back up in the story of the book of Acts again until chapter 11.

So for the rest of chapter 9, chapter 10, and on into chapter 11, we don't see Saul again. We've got another story that we're going to get to, but we won't get to it until next week, the story of Peter and Cornelius.

We're going to try to finish up chapter 9 tomorrow. But again, notice here that when Saul first became a Christian, there were people who didn't believe him. And even for years, he's proclaiming Christ.

But people are skeptical about this. He goes to Jerusalem. People are afraid of him there. It was at Jerusalem where Stephen was stoned and Saul was there. He was the coat check guy. And he sat there approvingly as he's watching Stephen get stoned, probably getting ideas in his head that he's going to go round up more Christians and have the same thing done to them.

So this guy who was a persecutor of Christians and he was known for this is now coming into Jerusalem and proclaiming Christ. Everybody was afraid of him. Nobody believed that he was a disciple, not until somebody stood up and vouched for him.

And that was Barnabas. Somebody who was credible, somebody who was very well known among the apostles and even connected by family to someone who had palled around with Jesus. He wasn't one of the twelve disciples, but he was certainly a disciple.

And that, of course, being John Mark, as some people probably have in their testimonies, a story about how they were just an awful wretch and then they got saved and became a Christian. But when their life changed, there were people that didn't want to believe it.

They didn't want to think that this transformation that happened was truly real persons going through a fad. They got caught up in the latest philosophy or something like that, but they don't really want to believe that this person is truly changed.

Testing the Reality of a New Conversion

I think we're seeing that happen right now in our culture, in our society with Kanye West. If I might use something from current events to tie into this story here of Saul, Kanye West is a new believer, just became a Christian this year, according to his own confession.

Now, this is a guy who claimed to be a Christian before he even claimed to be some kind of a manifestation of Jesus before called himself Jesus. You might even remember Kanye West on the cover of Rolling Stone with a crown of thorns on his head.

So this was a guy who thought of himself as being, if not Christ, some kind of Christ. He blasphemed the name of Christ in his music, in the things that he said. He lived a horrible lifestyle, which you would typically think of of an A-list celebrity, just absorbed in the debauchery of our culture, the kind of lifestyle that they would live.

That was exactly the kind of lifestyle that Kanye lived. I've seen music videos of him. I would never, ever even tell you the name of because I don't want you to go look him up. This guy was incredibly raunchy in the stuff that he sang, the music that he did, the videos that he did, the people that he pout around with all manner of things.

But there's something clearly different about him. I don't know if you remember interviews with him from two years ago, and now you watch an interview with him from just a few days ago, and it's two completely different men.

It's like somebody's put on Kanye West's face, but it's somebody else's. It's like he talks different. Even his voice, his cadence doesn't even sound the same like it did before. And Kanye is a guy whose life has never been a secret.

He's always lived everything brashly and way out front of everybody. So it's clear to see an obvious change between who he was before and who he is now and the things that he's saying. But there's a lot of people that don't believe it.

They don't believe that Kanye truly is a Christian. Now, this guy who's just released this album called Jesus is King. I've not listened to it yet, at least as of the time of this recording. Sometime in the future, I will listen to it.

But as of the time of this episode of the broadcast, I've not listened to Jesus is King. But you're seeing all kinds of Christians that are coming out and supporting him, thinking it's great that Kanye has become a Christian.

There are others who are skeptical. Now, I want to say this. I don't fault them for that. I don't fault someone who's being skeptical over Kanye West conversion for being skeptical. I'm not going to fault him for that because he has pulled so many things in the past and all of the different things that he's done.

And the guy's a brilliant marketer. He is a marketing genius. He knows how to market himself. So who's to say that this isn't something that he's just doing to try to sell an album? I wouldn't be able to say that.

We don't know that for sure. I think there is a reason for a healthy amount of skepticism, not so much to the point that you're saying, I don't believe that he's a Christian, but it's OK for you to be cautious about this whole thing, given his past, given the things that he said, specifically blaspheming the name of Christ.

I mean, what Kanye West did in the past is way different than what Paul did. Paul was not claiming to be a Christian, but then wasn't a Christian. Kanye did claim to be a Christian and wasn't a Christian.

So there are some things to kind of weigh and measure in the whole deal. The Apostle Paul gave up his rock star status as a Pharisee. Kanye is still holding on to his rock star status. So I think we can be a little skeptical, but do that with grace, not totally writing the guy off, but at the same time, just kind of looking at it, going, OK, this is interesting and watching and seeing how things are going.

In the meantime, my understanding of the album, Jesus is King, is that it is thoroughly gospel and biblical. I'm not giving an endorsement behind it because I haven't listened to it yet. But at least that's what I've read and from friends that I very dearly trust.

So the skepticism can be to a healthy measure. And I don't think there's anything wrong with anyone being skeptical about that, but doing so graciously. At the same time, those that are listening to Kanye and they're truly convinced that this guy's a Christian now, I think that they can be right, too.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a person just accepting at face value Kanye's claim to be a Christian. They've listened to the music, they've heard him in interviews, and they believe that this guy is truly a Christian now.

But even folks in that camp, even folks in the in the Kanye is Christian camp, you still need to be careful. You still need to have a measure of restraint in how you want to platform the guy, because if you do too much too quick, you could actually cause the guy to stumble.

There's a reason why in first Timothy three and the qualifications for overseer in the church. There's a reason why it says in verse six, he must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into the snare of the devil. There's all kinds of caution that's being placed here so that the devil doesn't have his way with the vulnerability of a new convert.

So even those who want to believe that Kanye is a Christian, you need to be careful with how much you want to elevate the guy to that status, lest he becomes puffed up with conceit. And we've seen that in the past with Kanye.

That is definitely a struggle that he's had in his flesh with his pride. And his pride could just be rechanneled now from the pagan way in which he lived into Christian rhetoric and Christian ease. It could still be the same kind of pride, just redirected.

So we must be very, very careful in the ways that we respond to these things and to his benefit and to the benefit of others as well. There are many who could be led to Christ because of this transformation that has happened in Kanye.

We need to take that into account, but not be irresponsible. We need to be wise. We need to execute these things with right judgment. So both the person who's skeptical about that needs to be skeptical with grace.

And the person who wants to say, no, Kanye is a Christian needs to have some amount of restraint added to them as well. Here with the apostle Paul, he's not even meeting the apostles themselves until three years after his conversion.

All of this stuff that's happening with Kanye is going really, really fast. So we need to have a little bit of self-control with that. And I think that can be a very healthy thing. Even when it comes to a person that you might know who is a new believer, who is a new convert, don't give them too much too fast.

I've known many preachers who believe that when they get a new convert or somebody has just been baptized or some new believer in their church, they think that in order to keep them there and to help grow them, we need to give them a job to do.

And sometimes that ends up being leading in a ministry somewhere. No, a new believer should never do that. There needs to be a time of growth before they have the maturity to even be able to handle something like that, let alone have the spiritual knowledge to be able to lead something like that, because they may become puffed up with pride.

They may see, hey, this Christian thing is sure is getting me a lot of attention, sure is giving me some opportunities. And then they lose the focus that the focus is entirely on Christ. I was a sinner headed for hell.

Christ is my savior who has lifted me up and has given me salvation in his name. May God be glorified in all things. Even when it comes to somebody like Kanye West, we're not praising Kanye for what he has done.

We're praising God for what he has done through a man like Kanye or through the friend that you have who has gone from being unbeliever to believer. We need to handle them as babes in the faith because that is what they are.

And it's not ungracious or ungodly of us to expect a little bit of growth there before they're given too much responsibility. Let's conclude with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for the conversion that we have received in Christ, a work of the Holy Spirit and the power of God only that is transform our heart from wretched, rebellious sinner to one who loves God and desires to please you.

I pray for Kanye and the stuff that he's going through right now. No doubt there are even people who hate him for the things that he is saying and doing, but that he holds fast and that this conversion of his is real.

It's not just something that he's doing, putting on a front to sell an album, but he is truly doing what he is doing out of a love for God and a desire to spread his name. May we all be as bold as this guy.

He's got a lot to lose. This is an A-list celebrity who's on top of the world, but may we not be afraid to lose anything for the cause of Christ, for we know we are receiving that much more in your eternal kingdom, enduring to the end.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

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