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Acts 8:1–3

“Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (v. 3).

The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem may have rejected Jesus based in part on their misunderstanding of the scope of the history of redemption and the nature of the Messiah’s work. One thing was clear to them, however, as one commentator notes. They well understood that the gospel that Jesus and His followers such as Stephen preached would institute significant changes to the covenant community if it were to take hold. The passing away of the temple would reshape worship and piety, and the Sanhedrin could not abide this. So they sought to stop the gospel by crucifying Jesus first and then by killing faithful followers such as Stephen (see Luke 23; Acts 7).

Up until the stoning of Stephen, the early Jewish persecution of the Christian church was directed mainly at individuals such as Stephen, Peter, and John (see Acts 3–7). This persecution had failed to put an end to the nascent Christian movement, so the authorities began extending the scope of their attack. As we see in today’s passage, a more general persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem after Stephen’s death. The believers in Jerusalem scattered, leaving few in the city besides the Apostles (8:1–2).

Luke identifies Saul of Tarsus as the key figure in this growing persecution (v. 3; see 9:11). Although he did not cast any of the stones, Saul approved of Stephen’s death (8:1). He willingly held on to the clothes of those who did throw the stones, enabling them to cast off their outer garments to carry out the execution of Stephen unencumbered (7:58). Saul, better known to us as Paul the Apostle, would later write that his persecuting actions were driven by his misguided zeal for a Judaism based more on extrabiblical traditions than on the Scriptures (Gal. 1:13–14; Phil. 3:2–6).

Plainly, Saul took his work in persecuting the church seriously. He had a desire to thoroughly rid Jerusalem of the Christian movement, as seen in his willingness to go house to house to root out all the believers (Acts 8:3). His conversion would thus make Saul a noteworthy display of God’s grace, a testimony of the goodness of the Lord and the excellence of His work of regeneration, as John Calvin notes. Dr. R.C. Sproul exhorts us, “Let us never forget [Paul’s] starting place, the kind of man he was before the Lord of glory touched his soul and transformed him into the greatest Christian the church has ever known.”

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

Saul’s rabid hatred of the church and his later conversion show us that no one is so far gone that God’s grace cannot transform him. We should not give up hope that the Lord may yet convert those whom we know that seem the least likely to ever believe. We must continue to pray for them and share the gospel with them. The Lord may yet turn their hearts to Him.


For further study
  • 2 Chronicles 33:1–20
  • Luke 23:39–43
The bible in a year
  • Judges 1–2
  • Luke 7:1–35
  • Judges 3–7
  • Luke 7:36–8:39