Once Saul is suitably subdued God goes about getting the man some instruction.  As an enemy of the faith Saul has heard plenty of defenses for the beliefs of Christians and could probably cite those arguments and recall the passages of scripture they used rather easily.  God sends Saul a man named Ananias.  His message is that God will send Saul, now renamed Paul, to the Gentiles.  Ananias, however believes God is mistaken.  He reminds the Lord that this Saul is a persecutor not a promoter of Christ.  Just in case God has forgotten, Ananias reminds God of the papers with which Saul entered the city and the women and men he has already imprisoned.  The good news is that Ananias obeyed and Saul was baptized as a Christian.  The good news for us is that God did not hold Ananias’ doubts against him or become impatient with his fears.  God gave him a good answer as to what He was doing and reassured the man that Saul would neither capture nor drag him off.  God frequently asks us to do things that seem a little ridiculous or even potentially troublesome, but if we are sure it is His voice we can know that He knows what he is doing.

Without Wax,

Dr. Dwight
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Phillip was the great preacher of Samaria enjoying popularity, safety, and a quickly growing church.  Then God send him elsewhere.  First Phillip is commanded to stand by a stretch of road.  We are not told how long he cooled his heels waiting for the right chariot to drive by.  When it arrives and the man inside is reading the Bible Phillip knows this is his chance to tell the man of Jesus.  The meeting went exactly as we all hope such meetings will go.  Phillip explained, answered a few questions, and the man put his trust in Jesus to save him.  The new convert initiated his own baptism, asking Phillip about it.  Then the weird stuff started.  First Phillip is snatched away so that the Ethiopian no longer sees him, then he shows up in Azotus and starts a walking preaching tour.  He is removed from the site of some great ministry to partake of another aspect of serving God.  It is a much less comfortable and amenable act of service than living and ministering in one town.   As far as we know Phillip took the little teleportation in stride and just figured God wanted him to be preaching other places.  God has never done anything this drastic in my life, but I wonder how ready any of us are to change our life for Jesus.  If God told us would we leave our jobs to work for Him full time?  If He gave us an opportunity for ministry that took us away from our hobbies would we make the change?  If He called us to more time with our family and less time away would we stay home?  I don’t know what the answer is in my life, but I know what I want it to be.

Without Wax,

Dr. Dwight
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Stephen is one of the deacons or servants appointed by the church to oversee the distribution of charity to the widows.  He starts preaching and many are brought to Jesus through his work, so, of course, the powers that be want him stopped.  After his arrest Stephen preaches a very long sermon detailing god’s history with Israel around Moses and Abraham, and even Solomon.  He then accuses them of being just like their forefathers in persecuting those sent from God and disobeying God even as Israel did by worshipping the golden calf in the desert when God has told them not to worship statues anymore.  At his accusation the rulers drag him out of the city and they all throw rocks at him until he is dead and buried under a mound of rocks.  People who think they are working for God do not like being told they are working against Him.  Yet that is the truth of this situation.  Jesus had proven Himself as God by rising from the dead.  He had proven Himself to be sent from God by His miracles and His teaching.  Nevertheless, the religious establishment refused to recognize Him and focused not on the healing He did, but whether He did it on the Sabbath, because no servant of God would ever violate the additions to God’s law they had made about the Sabbath.  Whatever God does or says there is always a way to deny it, a fault to find.  But let us not fall prey to believing that because I cannot explain how God did something or why God did something then He must not have done it.

Without Wax,

As the assembly gets ready to kill Peter and John for their refusal to quit preaching about Jesus a lone voice rises up.  A respected teacher of the law has been observing events and leads the chief priests off their desired path.  He notes that other pretenders to Messiahship have arisen in the last years and each has died within a few weeks of the death of their founders.  If this is just another one of those, they need do nothing and soon it will all be an old story.  But I do not believe the miracles involved this time escape his notice.  Gamaliel wonders if these men did miraculously get out of prison, he wonders if they might be telling the truth.  He understands what everyone else is forgetting in the heat of the moment, opposing God is the best way to get yourself destroyed.  If these two men are from God it is not they who will be killed, but the council will be diminished in some way until they can no longer try to kill Peter and John.  Gamaliel suggests setting the men free and the council does so.  Peter and John are whipped for what they had done and left praising God that they got to suffer for the name of Jesus.  I’m not too keen on suffering, but I can understand their joy.  God just used them to outface the very men whom had Jesus killed.  God can use you, even do miracles in your life as you follow Him.  He never promises He will keep you from all harm as the whipping of Peter and john testifies, but He will do all He promises.

Without Wax,
Dr. Dwight
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Some parts of scripture are difficult for me.  They question God’s justice in ordering Israel to wipe out the Canaanites.  Some scriptures are not quick enough to condemn wrong behavior in the men of God described.  Usually these difficulties stem from my sense of fairness.  The passages that bother me seem unfair or unjust in what happens.  Here that it not the case.  Annanias and Sapphira knew exactly what they were doing.  He told her he was holding back some of the money and pretending that they gave it all.  Each was questioned individually about the price of the land, so neither died because of the other’s sin.  And Peter says there was no compulsion to give all the money from the sale.  They could have easily given nothing or given a portion or even given the amount they gave and it would have been no problem.  The problem is that they lied to God.  They told the church that they were giving the entire proceeds of the sale of their land to the church (giant red flag number one, the need to announce it).  God punishes them for their lie with death, perhaps a little extreme, though it just meant an express ticket to heaven rather than suffering through the coming persecution in Jerusalem.  Well, OK, death for lying is really extreme, but one can see how very important it was to convince the church very early that no one should lie to God.  Anyway this scares me, in that perhaps my wrongdoing is more significant than I had supposed, but it does not shake my faith through some sense of unfairness.

Without Wax,

Dr. Dwight
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