why was ananias afraid of helping saul

A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 2 What was the decision of Ananias and Sapphira? And notice one more detail about the way in which Ananias did this. He is trying to inform God of whats going on. He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus, He spoke of salvation as dying to the old manner of living and as rising from the dead in order to live an entirely new life (Romans 6). 144 Was Ananias the one who told him what he must do? All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. This conclusion could be based upon Pauls argument in Galatians 1 and 2, along with the expression, when many days had elapsed in Acts 9:23. 12And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight., 13Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, (C)how much [a]harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. WebActs 9:1. Those whose lives Saul would gladly have taken in his unsaved days now sought to save his life by sending him away. To Him be the glory forever. What is wrong with Ananias response to the Lord? 15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. This is a miracle, a miracle which is all of God, and all of grace. Ananias and Saul. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. For you are our glory and joy (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20). In 2 Corinthians 11:32 Paul speaks of an ethnarch of Aretas, the king of the Nabataean Arabs, who guarded the city to prevent him escaping from it. On various occasions in his epistles, Paul made either direct or indirect references to his former life of opposition and his radical conversion.132 Pauls theology, his lifestyle, his ministry, and his methodology, all are rooted in his conversion. WebThe Good Ananias: A Lesson for Believers. Also, It was an act of faith and Introduction: suppose you heard someone was coming to arrest you, or even worse. 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Saul is welcomed into the church. There is surely a connection between Saul and persecution, and Saul and peace. Sauls conversion was also his call to ministry, and this conversion experience is strikingly similar to that of one of his predecessors, Ezekiel: 1:4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the northan immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. There he was transfigured before them. (5) There is a good deal of emphasis on the results of Sauls conversion. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness (John 12:46). After this incident with Paul we hear no more of him. Saul, like Israel, had been blinded as to the meaning of the law because of his rejection of Christ (cf. 18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due. It is not just in the Book of Acts that the importance of Sauls conversion is evident. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bible Gateway, a division of The Zondervan Corporation, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 USA, including commercial communications and messages from partners of Bible Gateway. They wanted to keep Gods blessings to themselves. Think about what happened as a result of this man overcoming his fear and obeying God. Thus, he did not use the method of many others, which was man-centered, not Christ-centered: For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands onq him to restore his sight.. Stat two things God told Anaias concerning Saul Briefly describe what happened during Anaias' meeting with Saul. But Elymas the magician (for thus his name is translated) was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. God chose Saul and had his destiny planned, before He saved him. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple (vs. 26). Ananias had not only heard of how Saul had been systematically destroying the church in Jerusalem, hunting down men and women and turning them over to the authorities, but also knew that he was on the march to Damascus, ready to destroy that church as well. It does not store any personal data. ACTS 9:10-14 10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, The LORD identified Himself as the Jesus, whom he had been persecuting. Ananias found 2 Cor. I. Howard Marshall summarizes the problem in these words: Nevertheless, we obtain a different impression of things from Galatians 1:16-24, according to which (1) Paul did not confer with men after his conversion nor go to the apostles in Jerusalem, but (2) departed to Arabia and then returned to Damascus; then (3) three years later he went to Jerusalem for a visit lasting a fortnight during which he saw only Peter and James, and at this time he was unknown by sight to the churches of Judea; thereafter (4) he went to Syria and Cilicia. In Galatians 1, Saul wrote that God had called him while he was still in his mothers womb (Galatians 1:15). Let us be careful to discern what changes the gospel requires and what changes it does not. He should not become uncircumcised. 22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lords freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christs slave. . They are private Christians, living like islands rather than as a part of His body. 2:22, Acts 13:2; 22:21; Rom. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you (Isaiah 60:1). Acts does not tell us that he goes on to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles, found churches in urban centers across the Roman Empire, stand true to the gospel while on trial for his faith over and again, and end up under house arrest in Rome awaiting a trial before Caesar. Ananias son of Nebedeus (or Nedebeus) was a high priest who, according to the Acts of the Apostles, presided during the trials of the apostle Paul at Jerusalem (Acts 23:2) and Caesarea (Acts 24:1). Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. As I look at the problem, I believe several conclusions must be drawn. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped (Isaiah 35:5). In the end, God Himself will provide the illumination so that the sun and the stars will not be needed for this function: The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted (Isaiah 30:26). Web The children will describe Ananias as a man who helped Saul even though he was afraid. Jesus words, Why are you persecuting Me?, clearly implied that Sauls persecution of the church was a persecution of the Lord. It is a miraculous, dramatic reversal, first of ones beliefs, and then of ones behavior. They too rebelled against God and forsook His word and persecuted His prophets. Upon hearing Peters words, Ananias fell to the ground and died. 7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. Third, these discrepancies may well have been evident to the writers, who did not see fit to remove or explain every problem. If Luke had any ax to grind on this issue, here would have been a great place to stress this matter, but he did not do so. Damascus, a city some 150 miles to the northeast of Jerusalem, was one such city. The election of Saul to salvation was specific and thus, personal. Like Stephen, the enemies of the gospel attempted to kill Saul when they could not silence him by means of debate. The Church at Peace. Hebrew Baby Names Meaning: In Hebrew Baby Names the meaning of the name Sapphira is: Sapphire (gem); beautiful. Elsewhere in Acts, such as with the apostles, Stephen and Philip, the message of the gospel was underscored by signs and wonders which accompanied the message. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. a disciple from Damascus who received a phophetic dream telling him Webb Ananias was successful because he trusted Jesus and he viewed Saul as his brother. Who was Ananias that help Saul in the Bible to regain his sight. get answers to your Bible questions from 50+ resources ($2,400+ value! WebAs Donald Davis notes, In case God has overlooked Sauls atrocities, [Ananias] takes occasion to issue a brief reminder. Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way,137 both men and women,138 he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. How much better to petition God to save those whom we are concerned about, a God who desires all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). 39So Peter got up and went with them. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. In spite of this, we are not told here that Saul did receive the Holy Spirit or what happened when he did. Saul seems to have been the instigator of the persecution of the church, which began at the death of Stephen in Jerusalem and worked outward from there. But beyond this, his conversion totally changed the remainder of his life. There are two primary options for preaching from this text. 9For three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank. At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. In different contexts, preachers might want to draw specific analogies concerning those for whom the congregation should be praying even though it cuts against our grain to do so. How does Ananias ability to rise above his own feelings of hatred toward Saul encourage Saul to move Indeed, this seems to be the rule. (6) Little emphasis is placed on Sauls reception of the Holy Spirit, and nothing is said about what happened as Saul received the Spirit. For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.. Saul was the bad guy. They, too, were afraid of Saul and did not believe he really was a follower of Jesus Christ. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. When Paul spoke of his conversion here in Galatians 1, he did not speak of the light which shone without, but rather of the light which shone within. While Saul in solitude at the house of Judas continued in prayer and supplication, the Lord appeared in a vision to a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias, telling him that Saul of Tarsus was praying and in need of help. A devout Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, Saul was a member of the Pharisees and was taught by none other than Gamaliel, whom we have already met (Acts 5:34-40). It may well be a call to live transformed lives in the same circumstances in which we were found. Shape us into children who rejoice in knowing and proclaiming you to the world. Luke is emphatic in his representation of mans salvation as having been ordained and orchestrated by God, as a manifestation of His sovereign grace: And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48). Paul would make much more of this point in the first chapter of Galatians. Some were amazed, taking note of the dramatic turn-about in Sauls faith and practice (9:21). Their story is rarely shown in art, but is the subject of one of the Raphael Cartoons, and a panel on the Brescia Casket, both illustrated here. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 2 Corinthians 4:14; cf. What a shock these words must have been to Saul, who up to this point, seems to have prided himself for his faithfulness to Judaism! 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul,why are you persecuting Me? 5 And he said, Who are You, Lord? Then the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Ananias not only Who has saved us and called us to a holy lifenot because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. As he himself understood the heavenly voice which said to him at his baptism, You are my Son (Mark 1:11 par. But there is a greater discrepancy between the accounts of Sauls conversion in Acts and that which Paul gave in Galatians 1. And be thankful (Colossians 3:15). Ananias was afraid because he knew Sauls reputation as a merciless persecutor of the church. also Psalm 50:15; Joel 2:32; Jeremiah 29:12; 33:3-8). Sapphira). The pastor advised him to pray for the person every day for two weeks pray for the person not about the person. WebAnd Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, (9) Finally, I believe that Lukes portrayal of Sauls salvation is typical of that of the nation Israel, which is still future. The Book of Galatians is but one example of this. 21 Were you a slave when you were called? 12 It teaches us to say No to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hopethe glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Nevertheless, conversion has certain elements which are vital and which are to be present in any salvation experience. (12) The same Saul who played a role in Stephens execution was to become, in large measure, his replacement. And yet, even in opposing God, he furthered Gods purposes; he was instrumental in the evangelization of the Gentiles (Acts 8:1, 4; 11:19-21). helpful to the Lord. Ananias Get up and go to the street called Straight, to the house of Judas, and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, since he is praying there. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Why do you think the street was named "Straight" Ananias was a disciple of Jesus who lived in Damascus and was The story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 is difficult. Then a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?, Saul asked the voice, Who are you, sir?, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. The answer to both questions is no. We dont know why Ananias is only mentioned once after Acts chapter nine. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. I can believe the saints who gathered to pray would have prayed for the protection of the church in Damascus and for the safety of individual saints, especially the leaders and the most visible Christians. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. And thus, in Gods time, Saul was dramatically converted, seeing the Christ whom he had been persecuting, risen from the dead and in His heavenly glory. Both are call stories. Later it was the seat of administration of an Assyrian province. The words, Brother Saul must not have come easily to Ananias. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. WebThe Lord called to him in a vision, o Ananias!. 1:4). F. F. Bruce, p. 190. here - view only). Charles Spurgeon once wrote: Prayer is the autograph of the Holy Spirit upon the renewed heart. God was sealing Saul to Himself. 16For (I)I will show him how many things he must suffer for My (J)names sake.. They could not prove him wrong from the Scriptures. This is very evident in the conversion of Saul. Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight,. Why do you think the street was named "Straight" It was surely fear (reverence), among other things, which prompted this. As persecution was no longer needed to disperse the church and the gospel, peace was restored to the land. What was the decision of Ananias and Sapphira? When the plot became known to Saul, he made a successful, albeit undignified, escape from the city of Damascus. 1:2; 2 Tim. The splendid deliberateness with which God forged His human tool is the great lesson of these years. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). 20 The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares the Lord. There are all too many autonomous Christians, those who feel that coming to faith in Christ does not necessitate identifying with His body, the church. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11). Here, Saul was only told that it was Jesus whom he saw, who was speaking to him, and whom he was persecuting. With the conversion of Saul, persecution of the church did not stop, for now some of the Hellenistic Jews were opposing his preaching (and no doubt, the church at large as well). Saul was not seeking God. Saul was saved in spite of himself. by the sin of Adam. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. >zZ0y^C{tg He sent me so that you can see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 18 Immediately, something that looked like fish scales fell from Sauls eyes. 5 Why did Ananias and Sapphira lie to God? ACTS 9:27 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard (Isaiah 58:8). Why did Ananias have to overcome his fear? Paul was no ordinary followerhe became the most visible and active pillar of the new Christian church. And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And immediately a mist and a darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. (Acts 9:17) and that Saul was to "be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 9:17). But the gospel is good news for sinners. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.. When he found him, he "laid his hands on Saul and said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.'" When Ananias (6) Sauls salvation was a conversion, a radical change. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). 1:29, 30, NKJV, Abide Bible, Red Letter Edition, Comfort Print: Holy Bible, New King James Version. Did they think their task would be a simple one? He summed up life in this one word: For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Verse 18 tells us that, "straightway there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight, and he arose and was baptized." He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7). He was a man of great respect and influence, and thus he realized that his actions would have broad ramifications. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead (Isaiah 59:10). Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Ananias was afraid because he knew Sauls reputation as a merciless persecutor of the church. Sauls conversion was a miracle, short and simple, but not so much the result of the external miracle of the bright light and the voice of the Lord as the internal transformation and illumination which God wrought: 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man (Galatians 1:15-16). WebSauls Baptism. How do you calculate working capital for a construction company? The conversion of Saul is important in another way. Enough revelation for the moment. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life (1 Thessalonians 4:7). Israel was also blind, and Pauls blindness was but a specific example of this blindness: The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. If you have any questions, please review our Privacy Policy or email us at privacy@biblegateway.com. 136 E. M. Blaiklock, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Wm. Saul sought them out to persecute, even kill them, as an unbeliever; but he sought them out to worship and fellowship with them as a Christian. In His coming as the light, those who come to the light become lights to the world themselves: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned (Isaiah 9:2). When God spoke to Ananias commanding him to go to the house where Saul was staying, he was to receive him as a brother; and he was told that he was called to suffer as Gods chosen vessel to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles, kings, and to his fellow-Israelites. . Unexpected and mysterious ELW 258 All are welcome ELW 641, Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Paul was no ordinary followerhe became the most visible and active pillar of the new Christian church. That is because our Lord always confronts, convicts, and converts men and women individually, in the light of their own actions and beliefs. 152 I do not mean to criticize the four laws of Campus Crusade, which have been used of God to bring many to faith in Christ. After he put his hands on Saul, the Bible only records that Saul received his sight. a conversion of will, intellect, and emotion, which dictated the abiding purpose and direction of his subsequent life and activity.

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