"Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem." Acts 9:1-2 (NIV)
Sometimes when we read something familiar in the Scriptures, it's good to just stop and think about it for a minute before moving on.
Saul was rounding up Christians and executing them. That meant men and women. Picture some of the brothers and sisters you know, now picture a man coming in and taking them away to their death simply for believing in Jesus.
That man was Saul. There is no way to gloss over it. He was a murderer of innocent people. In his own words he described himself as, "the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. " 1 Cor 15:9 (NIV)
I'm sure in the eyes of the Christians he was a man who needed to be stopped in anyway possible. Perhaps some of them even reacted the way many of us do when we hear of the very same acts being committed today, with anger and fear.
Many of us, had we lived back then, would want Saul executed.
But God had other plans for Saul. Jesus interrupted Saul's path and he was never the same. For Jesus saw him as, "my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." (Acts 9:15) Saul would become Paul and be used in the salvation of many, the forming of the early church and to write roughly 1/3 of the New Testament. He would eventually die for the faith he tried to destroy.
God knew all that when Saul was still killing Christians.
Perhaps it's best, before reacting in anger and fear, to simply pray for the eyes to see people as God does, to love our enemies as Jesus commanded us to do, and to pray for their salvation.
