Now\u00a0Saul, still\u00a0breathing\u00a0threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,<\/span>\u00a02\u00a0<\/sup>and asked for\u00a0letters from him to\u00a0the synagogues at\u00a0Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to\u00a0the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.<\/span>3\u00a0<\/sup>As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and\u00a0suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him;<\/span><\/p>\n Observations and Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n Saul was first introduced previously when Stephen was stoned.<\/a> He was not well described but we can tell by his role in the stoning that he was respected in the Jewish community. His second mention depicts a man who is on a mission to round up the Christians.<\/p>\n At first read it might seem as though Saul was sent by the Sanhedrin to go round the Christians up but a closer reading shows a slightly different picture. In verse 2 Luke says that Saul “asked for\u00a0letters from him to\u00a0the synagogues at\u00a0Damascus<\/span>“. It would seem as though Paul approached the Sanhedrin to get permission for his task. As part of his task he requested that the Sanhedrin send letters to the synagogues in Damascus to alert them to his activities. However, Luke never tells us why Saul was going to Damascus.<\/p>\n Another question that we actually know the answer to is: how was it legal for Paul to travel into Gentile lands and round people up?<\/p>\n Damascus was not technically part of the Judean territory and was outside of the normal legal jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin. Damascus was quite a ways north of the Sea of Galilee and considered Syrian. However, the Roman government, by decrees of Julius Caesar and Augustus, gave the high priest and Sanhedrin jurisdi<\/span>ction over Jews resident in foreign cities.[1]<\/sup><\/a> Thus, the Sanhedrin could punish Jews even if they lived in foreign cities and have them extradited. This is why Paul needed the Sanhedrin to send letters for him. He was acting as bounty hunter for the Sanhedrin. A letter from the Sanhedrin would be adequate to charge any foreign Jew, however, it would not supersede the Roman government.<\/p>\n If the citizen was Jewish and Roman then they would have the right to appeal to the Roman official and escape charges by the Sanhedrin. This was the case with Paul, when he was arrested in Acts 22-25.<\/p>\n But when they stretched him out\u00a0with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, \u201cIs it\u00a0lawful for you to scourge\u00a0a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?\u201d<\/span>\u00a026\u00a0<\/sup>When the centurion heard\u00a0this<\/i>, he went to the\u00a0commander and told him, saying, \u201cWhat are you about to do? For this man is a Roman.\u201d<\/span>\u00a027\u00a0<\/sup>The\u00a0commander came and said to him, \u201cTell me, are you a Roman?\u201d And he said, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/span>\u00a028\u00a0<\/sup>The\u00a0commander answered, \u201cI acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money.\u201d And Paul said, \u201cBut I was actually born\u00a0a citizen<\/i>.\u201d<\/span>\u00a029\u00a0<\/sup>Therefore those who were about to\u00a0examine him immediately\u00a0let go of him; and the\u00a0commander also\u00a0was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had\u00a0put him in chains.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Although Saul’s trip to Damascus was sanctioned by the Romans and the Sanhedrin, it was clearly not sanctioned by the Lord. It is near the final leg of the journey that Jesus saw fit to appear to Saul. In a flash from the heavens Saul is shocked by the appearance. He will not be the same after. Likewise, we should never be the same after we meet the Lord. We are new creatures in Christ.<\/p>\n “Therefore If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n [1]\u00a0Biscoe, Richard<\/a><\/strong>, “The History of the Acts of the Holy Apostles confirmed from other Authors; and considered as full evidence of the truth of Christianity: with a prefatory discourse upon the nature of that evidence, etc. With a map<\/em><\/a>“, (c. 6, pt. 2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saul’s Conversion On The Way To Damascus Acts 9:1-3 Now\u00a0Saul, still\u00a0breathing\u00a0threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,\u00a02\u00a0and asked for\u00a0letters from him to\u00a0the synagogues at\u00a0Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to\u00a0the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.3\u00a0As he was traveling, it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2280,7611],"tags":[7721,7614,7722],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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