C2 9:17-19. The ministry of Ananias. Sight restored. Fasting ended.

A3 9:20-22. The believers' amazement at Saul's preaching. Reference to his destructive work at Jerusalem, and

intention to bind believers.

B3 9:23-25. Persecution of Saul. Escape to Jerusalem.

C3 9:26-28. Ministry of Barnabas.

B3 9:29-30. Persecution of Saul.

A3 9:31.

Cessation of persecution in all Judæa, Galilee and Samaria.

Again, we remark that the above is not intended to be a complete literary structure. When dealing with the

epistles, where every word is of doctrinal importance, such an analysis would be insufficient, but in the narrative

books of the Bible, where the endeavour is to obtain a general idea of the contents of a passage, we may be

permitted to be a little less severe both on ourselves and our readers.

It is evident that just as the `persecution and scattering' of the whole section contributed to the purpose of the

Lord, so the thrice-mentioned persecution of the saints at Damascus plays a similar part. So far as Paul himself is

concerned, we believe that the excess of energy evidenced by this thrust out as far as Damascus was but the

endeavour to stifle an awakening conscience:

`If his own blameless scrupulosity in all that affected legal righteousness was beginning to be secretly tainted

with heretical uncertainties, he would feel it all the more incumbent on him to wash out those doubts in blood.

Like Cardinal Pole, when Paul IV. began to impugn his orthodoxy, he must have felt himself half driven to

persecution, in order to prove his soundness in the faith' (Farrar).

We shall not adequately appreciate Paul's state of mind at this time if we underestimate the intensity of his

animosity to the new faith. No less than eight times do we find pointed allusion to his persecuting zeal. He `made

havock' of the church, or more literally, he `ravaged' it (Acts 8:3). When we learn that the apostle here uses a word

found in the LXX. to describe the uprooting by wild boars of a vineyard (Psa. 80:13) we may perceive something of

the horrid intensity of Paul's hatred. In Acts 9:21 Paul is described as: `He that destroyed (or devastated) them

which called on this name in Jerusalem'. Here Luke uses a word suitable for describing the sacking of a city. The

apostle himself refers to his persecuting zeal, in four of his epistles:

`Ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the

church of God, and wasted it' (Gal. 1:13).

`I ... am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God' (1 Cor. 15:9).

`As touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church' (Phil. 3:5,6).

`He counted me faithful ... who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious' (1 Tim. 1:12,13).

In his speeches, recorded in the Acts, we find him confessing to deeds of blood and savagery, and his epistles

make evident how bitter were the memories of those early days:

`I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women' (Acts 22:4).

`Many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were

put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to

blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities' (Acts

With this record before us we can perhaps understand the reference to `suffering' that accompanied his

commission (Acts 9:16). He, as well as those whom he made to suffer, was beaten with stripes in the synagogues;

he, too, was stoned, was imprisoned, and many times devoted to death:

`But I doubt whether any one of these sufferings, or all of them put together, ever wrung his soul with the same

degree of anguish as that which lay in the thought that he had used all the force of his character and all the