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Acts 8-9 – “He’s In My Wife’s Seat”
A Pew Moments with Perry – “He’s in My Wife’s Seat”
Paul or Saul had a past. That past included hurting people, “ravaging the church” (8:3), breaking into “house after house” (8:3), “breathing threats and murder” (9:1), and throwing men and women into prison (8:3; 9:2). Then as unbelievable as anything can be, this unbeliever became a believer. He traded being the hunter to becoming the hunted. He began to call on the same name as those who would not deny that name, those who hurt because he hurt them.
I can sense the fear in Ananias who said, “I have heard from many people about this man, how much hard he has done to your saints in Jerusalem” (9:13). And in Jerusalem, “they were all afraid of him, since they did not believe he was a disciple” (9:26).
Then as unbelievable as anything can be, can we be transformed once we see what is really going on in Jerusalem? Have we considered the very real possibility that when Paul tried to join the disciples in Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with people he had personally harmed, and had harmed their loved ones? (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2,13,21). Imagine sitting next to the man who sat where your daughter or wife once sat. Imagine, singing and praying and communing with the man who was responsible for your wife or daughter being ripped from your arms as he legally had papers for her arrest?! Is our ability to forgive that real, that powerful, that transforming?
There were not two churches in Jerusalem: 1) One for those who were hurt by Paul, 2) The other for Paul and those who accepted him on the same basis as Jesus accepts us all.
How many pieces of church property does Jesus “own” because brothers and sisters will not be transformed by forgiveness and their own salvation experience? We all have a past. Let’s have a present and future together.
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