This passage describes what happened to Paul after he was converted.
The boy was energetic. He started preaching Christ. But no one believed him. He had a track record. In the end, he went to Tarsus — accepted. But it took time, and the church was at peace.
But peace can be dangerous. In this period the church grew (praise God).
19bFor several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” 22Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.
23After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him; 25but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
26When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. 28So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 29He spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting to kill him. 30When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
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Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.
We want the church to be at peace. We don’t want to live through a time of trouble. We want the church to grow. to be effective. to be heard and cause reform, and our society to be saved. So did the Jerusalem Christians. But they faced persecution — this was a lull between periods of oppression, and the very state of Israel was destroyed by Titus.
The church has generally survived times of oppression. It is the peace that is dangerous. It is when we have power that careerists and heretics infest us. (In times of oppression the careerists, historically, have become good imperialists, fascists, and communists. They currently become good feminists and queer theologians). Suffering purifies the church. But no one likes it: the mob is violent, and the current fascists are aligned with the Islamists (who are very effective shock troops) in their hope that they will be able to silence any opposition.
I pray that the church will be left in peace. I pray that we will be spared, that we will reform ourselves, and that the church will grow. Even in Europe, even in America. For it is growing in areas of oppression and poverty. It is growing in the collapsing theological Caliphate of North Africa and the middle east (unofficially and underground).
I even pray that it will grow in the elite and those who have been deceived by Islam will revert to Christianity.
And I pray this because it will take the intervention of the Almighty to keep the Church at peace. The path our society is treading is one that, historically, leads to rejection of the church, the development of perverse laws and habits, the shunning of those of Christ, and then the active persecution of the church as the society enters a death spiral.
Which is something I hope and pray does not come to pass: I like my country and I like my culture. I pray that we will be reformed in peace, for we sorely need it. And if we do not reform ourselves, we will be reformed.
