The Way God Wants to Be Seen
The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.
They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?
Acts 13:4-10 (NIV)
Saul has been doing ministry among Jews in Damascus and Jerusalem, then is shipped off to Tarsus. Now, encountering a sorcerer while witnessing to the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus, it signals that the Lord’s invitation is moving beyond the Jews and salvation is being offered to the Gentiles. Saul, named after Israel’s first king from the tribe of Benjamin, also had the Roman name Paul at birth. Luke uses Paul here because it suits evangelism to a Roman official and Gentiles. The Lord needed him to show up in this new space in a way that helped God accomplish His will.
Paul is sharing the gospel with a Roman official, part of that world that connects with his Roman name. God at times needs you to show up in ways that make His presence more inviting and impactful. The challenge is: Can you accept in faith that the Lord is asking you to show up in spaces based not on how you want to be presented, but how He wants to be presented? How you’re seen in one space may differ from another, requiring sensitivity to the Spirit to steward how He expects you to be heard.
Sometimes we want to show our full selves—opinions, brilliance, titles—but feel convicted to limit it, to listen more than talk. It’s all about how you steward yourself so that you won’t frustrate how the Lord wants to be seen.
The gospel sounds the same from Saul as it does from Paul, but it will impact the official’s life when received from a fellow Roman citizen, Paul, rather than Saul. Where the Lord has you and who He has you around is so that He can be seen and heard to make salvation and the kingdom a priority.
We often say, “I’m not changing for anyone,” preferring our own ways. But the text teaches that the Lord expects us to steward our lives to support the gospel’s impact. The principle is: Be your whole self everywhere, but steward your whole self with the Spirit. How you show up aligns with how He wants to be revealed in that space.
The God Who Protects
After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
Acts 9:23-28 (NIV)
There is such disbelief in Saul’s conversion that some of the Jews there in Damascus decide, “We won’t wait for him to prove it; we’re going to kill him.” The opposition is so strong that Saul is held up in the house of one who believes in his life’s mission and ministry. Jews have posted themselves at the gates of the city, hoping that they can catch Saul trying to escape from Damascus and kill him at the city gate. Why? Because he has surrendered to Jesus and surrendered to being shaped for ministry in the Lord’s name.
Following Jesus brings a lot of celebration, but it upsets some people. It confuses and confounds those whose morals and ethics are excessively self-serving. Believing in and living for Jesus causes debate among those who believe differently. It often inflames people who are trying to figure out how you cross so far over compared to who you used to be. And if Saul represents all of us who have said yes to Jesus, it suggests that at times we need to sit in witness protection because all the entrances and exits that invite us to move freely in the Lord are blocked by those who are trying to kill us. But there is good news. The good news is the Lord not only calls, the Lord not only blesses, the Lord not only anoints, the Lord not only prepares, but the Lord also protects.
Saul’s history has to include a day where somebody had to stand up for him, open a door for him, and put their reputation on the line for him. This scripture reminds every one of us to never forget that there are people connected to us that God has assigned to encourage us, to open doors for us, to vouch for us, to put their personality and reputation and capacities on the line so that the Lord can plant you and place you where He divinely intends.
Faith Between the Lines
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.
Acts 9:26-31 (NIV)
The Lord engaged Saul on the road just outside of Damascus. God has changed his heart. God has given him a vision. God has transformed his life. His preaching makes it very easy to discern that the Lord is working in and through his life. Barnabas vouches for Saul: “Brothers, he’s good. He speaks boldly. He speaks Christ-centered truth.” And that was enough—you would think—to create safe space for Saul. Yet Saul discovers that your gifts can make a whole lot of room for you, but some of that room is not welcoming room.
Whatever Saul was preaching to the Hellenistic Jews, it made them feel so offended, so threatened, so challenged that rather than just turn down the volume of his voice, they’re trying to kill him. They want Saul dead. How deflating that must have felt. It almost seems like a strange way to validate that the Lord has laid His hands on him.
It’s so energy-draining to love the Lord enough to own Him yet be treated so badly because of it. It can be confusing that God begins with such powerful demonstrations of might and strength, only to seemingly leave holes and openings in what ought to be an impenetrable hedge of protection. This allows us to draw closer to God by watching how He strongly exercises His sovereignty in one season, and then, in another season, it looks like God leaves us out to dry.
Why is spiritual growth so hard? Why can’t it be easy to accept the invitation to accept Christ and have everybody around you celebrate that you found Jesus? This can make you become so deflated. That is until you learn that faith is not just the sum total of the content that makes up the sentences, but faith is also how God moves in between the lines. Even if we don’t like the way the sentences are written, we can thank Him for moving in between the lines so that we can end up saying, “What the enemy meant for evil, God has turned for my good.”
Trusting Your Change
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
Acts 9:19-22 (NIV)
Saul spent several days with the Damascus disciples and eventually started preaching. What a change from wreaking havoc on the movement that spread a gospel message about Jesus all the way over to preaching about this same Jesus Himself! From leading the charge and exercising the authority to have followers of the Way arrested—now he’s going around inviting people to experience a personal relationship with Jesus for themselves! What a change! Saul has had some kind of experience, hasn’t he?
Some of us, if we had been there in Damascus that day, would have, by default, asked the question: But has he really changed? And if he has, how do we know he has truly changed? We know he’s been through some things that should have changed him, but how do we know for sure? Is it because he’s preaching now about Jesus? That may result in change, but it doesn’t guarantee it. It’s the theological tension that each of us is trying to manage.
Sometimes you may react in ways that speak more to who you were before than who you are now in Christ. Sometimes you may still become the prisoner of your doubts. You haven’t broken all your habits. You can’t always tell whether your prayers are getting through. You may really wonder what it all means, or if you want to live the rest of your life like this. You may love what the Lord has brought you, but you may not like all of it because He’s made you give up a lot.
So have you really changed, and is it really worth it to have surrendered to the change in the first place? We all wrestle with this when facing the pushback of life.
You need to trust the change and know that your faith is inviting you to press forward. It’s clear that whatever was a part of the several days Saul spent with the disciples in Damascus, it served to deeply root the change Saul experienced. It defined the ministry and the mission of his life, and just like that, Saul went from antagonist to preaching.
The Lord has changed you and the change is real. Faith starts with belief in Jesus, but it is fueled by believing that you’ve been changed in order to live your life in fellowship with Him and to live your life sharing Him with others. Faith is fueled by your belief that your change is real.
Why Do We Pray?
Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 4:26 (NIV)
Charles Spurgeon would describe it this way: true prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a mere vocal performance. It is far deeper than these. Prayer is a spiritual transaction.
The function of prayer is never to influence God; the purpose of prayer is to change the one who is praying. Everybody is looking for ways to live past pain and human loss. And they find that the best option is to pray, not to change the outcome of terrible events, but to change their own thinking with regard to them. They pray to change their emotions in response to it all, to change how they view life, how to process pain and make healthy choices after traumatic things have happened. In order to change, they need to pray.
It is a transaction between the Creator of Heaven and those on earth. Whoever Enosh and Seth are, what we are told about them is that they apparently saw value in the transactional benefit of prayer, the transactional benefit of calling on the name of the Lord. They engaged in prayer as a transaction with God. They express pain and praise, detachment and emergence, loss and replenishment, death and life. They exchanged what was stagnating their lives for what God gave them to keep on living.
We too have surrendered to a similar kind of exchange when we say: God, I’ll give You my weakness. I know You’re going to give me Your strength. I will give You my insufficiency because I know You’ll give me what has the capacity to make me more than sufficient.
Maybe you have asked yourself, when did prayer become so convoluted? If you look at it originally, it is simple. It’s transactional. It’s an exchange: our human weakness and the decline of our human interaction for the sovereignty, grace, mercy, and power of our God.
