"He is God's Son"

“He is God’s Son”
Acts 9.19b-31

‘How did you start your great missionary career, Paul?’

‘I was let down through the wall in a basket and ran away!’

Actually, that is more or less what Paul himself wrote, at the end of 2 Corinthians 11, quite deliberately showing the proud Corinthians that the God he was proclaiming is the one who takes delight in standing everything on its head. All human boasting, all human pride, has to be up-ended, so that God’s glory can shine through. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the first chapters in what was, indeed, a great missionary career are full of plots and runnings away. You can almost feel the sigh of relief in verse 30, as the Jerusalem apostles and the rest finally pack Saul off by boat from Caesarea to Tarsus. Phew! That’s one bit of trouble out of the way. Perhaps there is a shade of irony, then, in verse 31: once he was gone, Jesus’ followers could have a bit of peace...

Taken from Acts for Everyone Part 1 by Tom Wright