Image: "Individuals", 2020, Quail Eggs, Severna Park, Md
Acts 8:1 Now Saul was consenting to his (Stephen's) death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Acts 8:4–5 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. 5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.
Acts 8:25 So when they (Peter and John) had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
Acts 8:35–36 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
Acts 9:3–4 As he journeyed he (Saul) came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
Acts 9:15–16 But the Lord said to him (Ananias), “Go, for he (Saul) is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
Acts 9:22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
Acts 9:31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.
____________________________________________________________________
Individually, quail eggs, like the quails themselves, do not constitute much of a meal. They are right tasty but are very small. With a bowl full though they can make a pretty decent omelet. I think there is a bit of a parallel here to what occurred in this earliest stage of the Holy Spirit's work. He was gathering eggs into His bowl in an amazing and surprising manner.
Everything was being caused to work together for good. Even Stephen's martyrdom and intense persecution drove the main body of believers in Jerusalem out into the "suburbs." We must pay careful attention to how unprecedented in Israelite history this took place.
Philip, one of the deacons, goes to Samaria and raises up a congregation there. Samaria! These were a mixed-race people, generally held in contempt by the "orthodox" Jews. (cf. Jesus and the Samaritan woman, John 4:9) Yet the Holy Spirit gathers His eggs from that brood and in no uncertain terms. In doing so it gave an opportunity for Peter and John to preach to other villages along the way.
Philip is also sent by Divine command to intercept a foreign eunuch. Eunuchs were not uncommon in the OT but they were considered defective (Lev. 21:16) and hence subject to restrictions. They were prohibited from a ministry before the Lord even if born a Levite. Here God sends a clear message to the early Church. They were not to consider as unclean any person who God has called "clean". Not only that but he was a Jewish proselyte from Ethiopia. The Holy Spirit was calling people from different races and foreign lands. This was an astonishing development.
The Church was being taught that they had to change their entire way of thinking about God's populating of the "New Israel".
Most amazing of all is the story of "Saul". These chapters begin the transition in Acts from the primacy of Peter to the primacy of Paul. He will continue to be called Saul through chapter 13 and then "Paul" will be commonly used. Here we see Saul being confronted with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and like Isaiah (cf. Isa. 6), he will be horrified at his own sin. He was a religious zealot but his zeal had been entirely misdirected. Jesus confronts him with the truth that in persecuting His Church, he had been persecuting the Christ Himself. (9:3-4) For a man who had been entirely convinced that he had been doing the work of God, this was a mortifying reality. Everything about his previous life, all that he had ever been taught to think and believe, had to be re-examined in the light of this truth.
But, most of all, Saul's conversion and Divine commissioning meant that the Holy Spirit was taking even the vilest of sinners, cleansing them of their sins, and setting them to the task of advancing His Kingdom. Here again, we see something "new". In the Jewish culture of the day, external purity, once lost, was not easily accepted as restored. Like the rich young ruler, the emphasis was on keeping the commandments from youth. If a man was labeled as "no-good", or, in common parlance, a "sinner", he was not even invited to dinner. We saw this attitude expressed about the prostitute who washed Jesus' feet at the table. Here, the Church was being taught that no sin is beyond God's grace to cleanse and Jesus' blood was the common bond of sinners within the Church, no matter how foul their previous life had been. We can see why Paul, in his letters, will make this so much a part of his teachings. He knew it first hand.
The Church was definitely hesitant to embrace Saul at first, and with good reason. We see in the story of Simon the magician that in many cases we have to be careful about new converts, but, once the Holy Spirit has definitely vindicated a person as belonging to Christ, it is our duty to embrace that person no matter from whence they came or what lifestyle they have lived.
Here we see an image of a newly gathered bunch of "eggs", each with its own spots and individuals in their own right. Each had relatively little impact on his own but in total, they represented the power of God to do great things.
There is much for us to ponder here. Perhaps, like the early disciples, we need to examine how we have viewed our own congregations and whether we have embraced our brothers and sisters, not on the basis of how much they look like us, but how they "look" to Christ.
Comments