Acts 9 Study Notes

9:1 The narrative returns to Saul (see 8:3), or Paul. His anger with Jesus’s followers continued unabated, to the point that he was threatening to murder them. Paul later acknowledged his zeal in persecuting Christians (Php 3:6), and this is how he was known by others (e.g., Ananias, Ac 9:13).

9:2 That Saul was authorized to travel to Damascus with warrants from the high priest to imprison people of the Way (a common name for early Christians; 19:9,23; 22:4) indicates his high standing among Jewish religious leaders. He planned to bring them back to Jerusalem since this city was the center of Judaism.

9:3-4 Nearing Damascus and no doubt thinking that his acts there would help halt the spread of Christianity, Saul instead saw a light from heaven that changed his life and, eventually, world history.

9:5 It is doubtful that Saul immediately recognized the voice as that of Jesus. His use of Lord was probably honorific (equivalent to “sir”) rather than recognition of divinity. Hence the voice said, I am Jesus.

9:6 Saul was not told at this point what his mission or purpose was. That was reserved for when he encountered Ananias later in the city of Damascus. This stepwise introduction to his future kept him from being overwhelmed all at once with the changes Jesus had initiated in his life, and it also allowed the Christians in Damascus to meet and accept the one whom they feared.

9:7 This is the first of three accounts of Saul’s conversion that appear in the book of Acts (22:6-11; 26:12-18). Here it appears that Saul’s traveling companions heard a noise but did not recognize the words that were spoken. The comments, it seems, were intended only for Saul.

9:8-9 This must have been a humiliating experience for proud Saul.

9:10 We are not told how Ananias came to be a Christian. A possible scenario is that he or someone he knew had been in Jerusalem at Pentecost. There they would have seen and heard wondrous signs as God sent the Holy Spirit, and possibly they accepted the message preached by the apostles. The pilgrims would then have taken their newfound faith back to Damascus, establishing the church that Saul now came to persecute.

9:11-14 Ananias’s fear of Saul was such that he dared to question God’s judgment. Saul’s reputation as an enemy of the church was well earned, built as it was on the testimony of many people.

9:15-16 God revealed his purpose for Saul to Ananias first. This ensured that Saul would have a support network in place once he learned of his new purpose in life. Otherwise, imagine Saul coming to Ananias and delivering the news. Ananias would have scoffed, assuming he let Saul close enough to speak.

9:17-18 The ordering of events in Saul’s conversion may have been altered from the standard pattern so that baptism rather than the filling of the Holy Spirit was the final event. The process may have been extended over several days rather than occurring all at once. But the result was the same: Saul became a follower of Jesus Christ.

9:19-20 Saul stayed in Damascus for some time, likely becoming oriented to basic Christianity even as he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues. He gave priority to the synagogues throughout his ministry, starting there before being forced to take the message elsewhere.

9:21-22 Understandably, the initial response to Saul was skeptical amazement, but as he grew stronger he was able to confound unbelieving Jews, proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Apparently, he was able to explain the messianic connections between the OT and Jesus so clearly that the Jews in Damascus could not refute him.

9:23-25 After many days pictures Saul dutifully preaching Jesus as Messiah for long enough to become the uppermost enemy of unbelieving Jews in Damascus. He had come to help their struggle against the growing Christian movement, but now he had become the chief cause of its growth. Thus they conspired to kill him. Unable to leave via the city gates, Saul escaped in a most undignified but effective manner: he was placed in a large basket and shoved through an opening in the wall.

9:26 Among believers in Jerusalem, Saul’s reputation as a persecutor of the church was unchanged. Either news had not come from Damascus, or else the disciples in Jerusalem took a “wait and see” attitude. Perhaps they even suspected his conversion was just a ruse to infiltrate the fledgling Christian movement and destroy it from within. See note at 22:17-21.

9:27 Barnabas was convinced of the genuineness of Saul’s conversion.

9:28-30 Saul . . . conversed and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, some of whom may have been involved with him in Stephen’s stoning (7:57-60). A Hellenistic Jew himself, Paul had been born in Tarsus and spoke Greek as his primary language. Seeing one of their own, a former persecutor of the church no less, argue on behalf of Christianity was more than they could bear. They tried to kill Saul, with the result that he was whisked away to his hometown.

9:31 This verse marks a significant point in the development of the early church (see note at 1:8). The church, having been forced by persecution to scatter outward from Jerusalem, was at peace in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. This set the church up for a second stage of growth, which would see the gospel boldly taken outside Israel.

9:32 The saints at Lydda may have been there since Pentecost and the time of persecution that had scattered believers throughout Judea (8:1). It is also possible that they traced their origins to Philip’s ministry (8:40).

9:33-35 Again we see that the apostles never hesitated to give all credit for healing miracles to Jesus Christ (3:6). Indirect evidence for this is found in the fact that the people in Lydda and Sharon turned in faith to the Lord rather than his apostolic messengers when they witnessed the healing of Aeneas.

9:36 Tabitha (Gk Dorcas, lit gazelle) is called a disciple. She was not one of the twelve apostles, but she was clearly an active follower of Jesus.

9:37-38 So powerfully had God worked wonders through Peter and the other apostles that even when Dorcas died and had been ceremonially washed and placed . . . in a room upstairs for viewing, Christians in Joppa did not give up hope but instead sent for Peter.

9:39-42 Peter’s words to the dead woman were almost identical to the words Jesus spoke to Jairus’s daughter, Talitha koum (Mk 5:41).

9:43 Tanners were often considered impure because of their contact with dead animals. This indicates that either Jewish law on this practice had relaxed by this era, or else that Peter was already enjoying freedom from the Jewish law because of his liberty in Christ (10:6,32).