Acts 22:17-22 (NIV)
“When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. ‘Quick!’ he said to me. ‘Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’
“‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’
“Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'”
The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
Up to this point in his defense/testimony, Paul had dealt with his conversion experience, the most significant moment in his life, as it is for everyone who receives new life from God through faith in Jesus. The next logical step was to talk about his call to ministry.
Paul had already ministered in Damascus and Arabia up to that point in his life and then he had gone down to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James through the intercession of Barnabas (Galatians 1:18-19, Acts 9:26-30). But his preaching in the city riled the Jews, and they had plotted against his life. He resisted the call by the Church leaders to leave the area until Jesus spoke to him specifically at the temple, telling him that he needed to go, because his testimony about Jesus was not going to be accepted.
Paul initially pushed back, even against Jesus. He believed that his transformation from the fierce opponent of the Church to one who now believed wholeheartedly in Jesus should have been its own confirmation of the reality of what he was testifying to. But Jesus knew that, just as they had refused to accept the reality of who He was and had killed Him, they would do the same to Paul.
So, the next word of Jesus was a simple command that was not open to discussion: Go! But the command was immediately followed by a commission. The job Jesus had in store for Paul was that he should go to the gentiles, preach the gospel to them, and draw them into the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus. That commission took a while to come to fruition, but ultimately it was this specific calling of Jesus Himself that had launched Paul into the ministry that he was wholeheartedly following.
Unsurprisingly, Paul’s explanation did nothing to quell the uprising. The people had listened in rapt silence as he told his story. But as soon as he mentioned Jesus was sending him to bring the gentiles into the kingdom, they lost it. Their hidebound and legalistic theology would not allow them to even consider for a moment that God would want to reach out to the gentiles, or that He would ever accept them as His people. In their minds, this confirmed Paul’s heresy from his own lips, and the noise of their cries for his execution rose to a deafening level.
Father, it is so strange to me on the one hand that those people’s minds and hearts were so hard, so closed off to the truth. But on the other hand, I remember how hard and resistant to Your truth my own heart was until You broke through with the blinding light of Your love and grace. Even Paul would have understood this hatred of the gospel himself, since it echoed his own story before You transformed him. Still, in view of his passionate desire for the salvation of his own people (Romans 9:1-5), it must have been terribly disheartening to see them so rebellious, so rejecting of Your good news that had been delivered so clearly. Help me, like Paul, to keep proclaiming my own testimony of Your good news, even when I encounter rejection and hostility. Amen.
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