Acts 26:9-11<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0<\/i>\u201cI too was convinced\u00a0that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose\u00a0the name of Jesus of Nazareth.\u00a010\u00a0And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord\u2019s people\u00a0in prison,\u00a0and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.\u00a011\u00a0Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished,\u00a0and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c<\/span>I too was convinced\u00a0that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose\u00a0the name of Jesus of Nazareth.\u00a0\u00a010\u00a0And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord\u2019s people\u00a0in prison,\u00a0and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cI too\u201d we can take to understand as referring back to his statements immediately preceding.\u00a0\u00a0The NKJV translates it as \u201cIndeed.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This shows that Paul is continuing with what he had previously said.\u00a0\u00a0He had recounted his faithful and loyal service as a Pharisee.\u00a0\u00a0He was saying something like \u201cSo, building upon that.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Paul had been a loyal Pharisee, he had formerly thought as they had thought, and that was that they had opposed Jesus and they opposed the Gospel message that the disciples of Jesus promoted.\u00a0\u00a0Yet he was more zealous than most of them.\u00a0\u00a0He not only opposed them from the pulpit or in teachings, but he, being zealous as to the things that he thought were blasphemous to God, would take put action to his beliefs.\u00a0\u00a0He would bring those of The Way to stand before the Sanhedrin.\u00a0\u00a0And Paul did not do this as a crazed fanatic who operated outside the authority of the leaders, but he had their favor and had written authority from them to carry out the campaign against the Way.\u00a0\u00a0Family and Friends, Paul was sincere.\u00a0\u00a0Yes, sincerely wrong, but sincere.\u00a0\u00a0He truly thought that he was serving God in persecuting the Christians.\u00a0\u00a0So as amazing as it seems that the Lord would call Paul to be his chosen instrument to promote the Gospel to gentiles, we must remember that men look at outside appearances, but God knows and judges the heart (1 Samuel 16:7, Psalm 44:21<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0It is comforting for us to know that when we mean right, but do wrong, we are forgiven through Jesus and God knows how to bring us back to where we belong.<\/p>\n Although not conclusive, when Paul states that he cast votes against Christians, who would not renounce Jesus, to be put to death, it is thought that the conclusion can be made that he was a member of the Sanhedrin.\u00a0\u00a0Now there were many different Sanhedrin\u2019s for the different synagogue locations, but of course the highest was the one in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n \u201cMany a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished,\u00a0and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Paul did not stop with persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem, but, as he said, he was obsessed with stamping the belief out of existence wherever they were.\u00a0\u00a0And again, he did this with the authority of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n Paul was convinced that He was pleasing God in hunting down, and if necessary, to have the early believers killed.\u00a0\u00a0It is easy to judge Paul harshly.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, while not having people imprisoned or killed, don\u2019t we do the same thing.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t we sometimes think we are doing right and later regret what we thought or have done?\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t we sometimes think that we should be the one to \u201cset a person right\u201d by telling them what it is we think they did wrong (not here referring to sin)?\u00a0\u00a0Then later we recognize that we went about it all wrong.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps we were zealous for \u201cright\u201d but we did it without love.\u00a0\u00a0Oh we say we did it for love, but truly the love was lacking.\u00a0\u00a0Yes we do that.\u00a0\u00a0Yes we have done that.\u00a0\u00a0Family, let us not rely on our own understanding, but walk in the understanding and the love of God. (Proverbs 3:5-8<\/b>) It is how Jesus lived, and it is how we ought to live.\u00a0\u00a0In doing so we bring honor and praise to Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0How great an honor to be called to this most noble of causes!\u00a0\u00a0And yet, not to do this out of duty, but from a heart transformed by God! (Romans 12:2<\/b>)\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n P<\/b><\/span>salm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.<\/p>\n Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; and what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Your God.<\/p>\n Numbers 6:24-26<\/b>\u00a0\u201cThe\u00a0Lord\u00a0bless you and keep you; 25\u00a0the\u00a0Lord\u00a0make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26\u00a0the\u00a0Lord\u00a0turn His face\u00a0toward you and give you peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acts 26:9-11\u00a0–\u00a0\u201cI too was convinced\u00a0that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose\u00a0the name of Jesus of Nazareth.\u00a010\u00a0And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord\u2019s people\u00a0in prison,\u00a0and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.\u00a011\u00a0Many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,94,1874,88,17,10],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-micah","tag-numbers","tag-proverbs","tag-psalm","tag-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}