Thursday, November 10, 2011

Saul Knew Where to Look

"But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison."  Acts 8:3

In Acts chapter 8, immediately after the stoning of Stephen, a great persecution arose against the church. As this occurred, Saul (later Paul) was taking out his angry zeal and frustration against the brethren. Saul's plan was to detain followers of Christ and take them to prison. The fascinating thing is that Saul knew where to look. We're told by Luke that Saul entered "house after house."

Saul knew that he could find Christians in homes. This was, apparently, the natural place for them to be. Note that this is the only place where we are told that Saul looked. For example, he did not look in the temple.

Luke does not tell us here that church gatherings were going on in homes (we see that in multiple other places in scripture). However, it makes sense that Saul would go where relatively large numbers of Christians were together to imprison as many as possible. The only place he went was homes.

We need to be careful in drawing too many conclusions from a narrative passage that focuses mostly on the persecution itself as opposed to the specific location of the persecution. However, one thing is clear: Saul knew where to look. He could find Christians in homes.

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