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Context No. 1548 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 22:1-5: in context

1“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense which I now make to you.” 2When they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they were even more quiet. He said, 3“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are today. 4I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, 5as also the high priest and all the council of the elders testify, from whom also I received letters to the brothers, and traveled to Damascus to bring them also who were there to Jerusalem in bonds to be punished.

Arrested in Jerusalem, Paul asks leave to address the hostile crowd, and speaks to them in Hebrew, which quiets them. He tells his story: born in Tarsus, brought up in Jerusalem, educated at the feet of Gamaliel in the strict tradition of the law, and, he says, zealous for God, just as all of you are today. So zealous was he that he persecuted the followers of Jesus to the death, binding men and women and throwing them in prison, carrying letters of authority to hunt down believers as far as Damascus.

The striking thing in Paul's testimony is his description of his old self: zealous for God, just as you are today. Paul was not a lukewarm or indifferent man before his conversion; he was intensely, sincerely zealous for God, and it was precisely that zeal that drove him to persecute the church, to imprison and kill the followers of Jesus, convinced he was serving God by doing so. His zeal was genuine, and it was catastrophically misdirected. This is a sobering truth: zeal, sincerity, and fervor are not proof that we are right. Paul was as sincere and zealous as anyone could be, and he was persecuting the very Lord he thought he served. Sincerity is not the same as truth; one can be wholeheartedly, fervently devoted to a cause and be wholly wrong, doing harm in God's name with a clear conscience. There is a warning in this against trusting our zeal as if it guaranteed our rightness. Fervor can drive us to do great harm when it is not governed by truth; the persecutor's conscience can be perfectly clear. Paul's zeal needed to be redirected, not merely intensified, brought under the truth of who Christ really was. It is worth examining not only whether we are zealous but whether our zeal is rightly aimed, governed by truth and not merely by the strength of our conviction. The zealous can be badly wrong; Paul was, until the risen Christ met him and turned his zeal in the right direction.

Do I trust my own zeal and sincerity as proof that I am right, when Paul was sincerely and fervently zealous for God while persecuting Christ, and do I let my convictions be governed by truth rather than by the mere strength of my fervor?

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