When we first read of Paul in Acts he is described as “ravaging the church,” “dragging off men and women” (8:3) and “breathing threats and murder” (Acts 9:1). Of course, people do all kinds of evil things for all kinds of reasons. It is worth asking why this particular man does these particular evil things? What is there in the Bible that would encourage someone like Paul to violently attack his fellow Jews? Paul himself says only that his behaviour toward the church was the ultimate example of his zeal as a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5-6). There are two Old Testament stories in which zeal plays a prominent role. One is the story of Phinehas and the other is the story of Elijah. The story of Phinehas unfolds roughly as follows.
Israel– once enslaved in Egypt, has been rescued by God’s mighty hand. According to the biblical record of that rescue the Israelites spent most of the time between Egypt and the Promised Land grumbling. There was the lack of meat. There was the over familiar taste of manna. There was Moses’ stumbling leadership. Water was in short supply and death seemed always to be imminent. In the midst of all this grumbling, they miss the fact that the surrounding nations are terrified of them. These nations are terrified that these people of God are many and strong– and their God is on their side. Motivated by this fear, a king decides that something must be done to prevent Israel from taking his land. His plan? He hires a soothsayer to curse the people of Israel for him. Only the soothsayer can’t do it. Every time he tries to speak a curse, a blessing comes out instead. The king is furious. This isn’t what he paid for after all. The soothsayer– perhaps desperate to earn his keep, comes up with another plan. He tells the Moabite king to send his women in and seduce the Israelite men. Then the Israelite men– wrapped foolishly around the little fingers of the Moabite women, can be convinced to worship other gods.
The plan works. Israel spins into rebellion against God and Moses. God punishes the Israelites for their unfaithfulness with a plague. Things are collapsing. Jarringly, in the midst of the turmoil an Israelite man walks into the camp with a Moabite woman and in full view of everyone, the couple slips into his tent. This, of course, is exactly what’s causing the problem, and something must be done! Phinehas– the hero of the story, takes action, and pins them both to the ground with one stroke of his spear (Numbers 25). A Psalm says of him that his actions are credited to him as righteousness from generation to generation (Psalm 106:30). That phrase “credited to him as righteousness” is an important one for Paul. This is what zeal looks like. This is what it looks like to be committed to the law of God. The obedient people must take action– sometimes, even with sword and spear and destroy the disobedient lest all of Israel be punished.
The second story is the story of Elijah. Israel, led by her king and queen have turned away from God and have begun to worship Baal. There is, however, one man who realizes that something must be done. So, he challenges the priests of Baal to a showdown. They will build two altars on a mountain one for the God of Israel and one for Baal. They will sacrifice an animal and lay it on the altars. The prophets of Baal will call on Baal to send fire on his altar and Elijah will call on God to send fire on his altar. Whoever answers is the true God. The Biblical author has fun telling this story. He tells us that the prophets of Baal are shouting and slashing themselves with swords and they are met with silence from heaven. Elijah begins to mock their efforts, suggesting that their god must be either asleep or on the toilet. As you probably have begun to suspect, there is no answer. The offering stays on the altar unburned. Then Elijah turns to his altar he douses it with water and he prays, and… FIRE FROM HEAVEN! The people cry out, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord he is God!” This is where most Sunday school lessons end, but it is not where the story ends.
“Elijah said to them “Seize the prophets of Baal; let none of them escape.” And they seized them and brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there” (1 Kings 18:40). This is what zeal looks like. The obedient people must take action– sometimes, even with sword and spear, and destroy the disobedient from among Israel. To fail to do so is to be disobedient yourself. To fail to do so is to allow the cancer of idolatry to grow.
This is what motivates Paul. He sees the Christians as unfaithful, and he recognizes that their unfaithfulness endangers all of Israel. The only logical response to such a situation is for the zealous to take action. Paul– “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church” (Philippians 3:5-6), is the kind of person to take action when it is needed. It is in the midst of doing this that Paul encounters Jesus and immediately things have to change. By the mere fact of Jesus’ appearance at least three things have to change.
Paul had thought that Jesus was dead and he know knows him to be alive.
Jesus speaks to him from heaven. Jesus, therefore, is not only alive, but also glorified.
Jesus did not reject what was likely to Paul the most offensive claim about him– that he was the Messiah. This opens the possibility that Jesus is the Messiah. So, Paul’s picture of the Messiah needs to change. He can no longer be understood simply as a national hero. A king in the line of David who would rescue Israel from Roman oppression and usher in an era of peace and righteousness.
Paul still reads the same Scriptures, worships in the temple, gathers with fellowJews in the Synagogue, and he– zealous Jew that he is, must figure out how he could have missed the Jewish Messiah. He begins in the only place he can begin. He begins with Scripture. Tying to discern what he had missed that should have pointed him to Jesus. When he recounts his own transformation he moves immediately from meeting Jesus to a sojourn in Arabia (Galatians 1:17). Arabia was a large kingdom to the east of Damascus but, Paul likely has a specific part of it in mind. The only other time in the New Testament that Arabia is mentioned is at the end of Galatians when Paul speaks of Mount Sinai in Arabia (Galatians 4:25). When Paul writes of going away into Arabia in Galatians 1 it is likely that he is writing of going to Sinai. Many significant biblical events took place at Sinai, and it is not surprising to see Paul going there as he tries to discern what is happening and what he has missed. There is a particular event most connected to Paul. Remember that Elijah is one of the examples from which Paul drew inspiration. It was Elijah who had demonstrated what it was to be zealous for God. He had modelled how Paul was to respond to the early church. Zealous for the Lord, he had killed those prophets of Baal. And afterwards Elijah– who is in a world of trouble with the king and queen at this point, flees to Horeb (another name for Sinai).The picture is similar to Paul. A prophet violently zealous for the Lord goes to Sinai. There Elijah encounters God, and God says to him, “Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus” (1 Kings 19:15) Upon his returns Elijah is to anoint kings. Now notice what Paul does after his time at Sinai, “I returned again to Damascus” (Galatians 1:17). Paul is doing more than telling us the geography of where he went. He’s giving us a hint that we should see him as similar to Elijah. In fact, there is one more similarity. Elijah is to anoint kings, Paul is to carry Christ’s name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15). Paul wants us to see him not just as a man who converts from one faith to another, but as a prophet who has been commissioned to bring the word of God before Genitles and kings and the children of Israel. In the next devotional we will examine the content of the message that Paul is to proclaim.