What Happened in the Church After Jesus Saved Saul

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CHURCH AFTER JESUS SAVED SAUL

An Exposition of Acts 9:19b-31

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: October 5, 2025

Series: The Book of Acts

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

I invite you to turn to Acts 9, where we will be looking at verses 19b-31. Holy Scripture says:

“For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. ²⁰ And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” ²¹ And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” ²² But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

²³ When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, ²⁴ but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, ²⁵ but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

²⁶ And when 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. ²⁷ But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.²⁸ So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. ²⁹ And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. ³⁰ And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

³¹ So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. (Acts 9:19b-31)

INTRODUCTION

An important theme emerges very early in the Bible: the children of darkness persecute the children of light. Cain murdered Abel. Ishmael persecuted Isaac. Egypt enslaved Israel. Often it was Israelites themselves who scoffed at and mocked God’s prophets (2 Chronicles 36:15-16) and they eventually rejected and betrayed God’s Son.

Old Israel, as with all humanity, failed to attain righteousness in God’s sight. But Old Israel, with its system of priests and elders, temple and synagogues, sacrifices and holy days, rules and regulations, tried to hang on to its status as a special people.  They looked with disdain on this new community that was forming around Jesus the Messiah. And so, true to the story, they persecuted Jesus’ followers.

In Acts 4:3-17, they arrested Peter and John, put them in custody, questioned them, and ordered them to stop preaching.

In Acts 5:17-40, they arrested the apostles, imprisoned them, questioned them, beat them, and again ordered them to stop preaching.

In Acts 7:54-60, they were enraged at another gospel preacher, Stephen, and they stoned him to death. Stephen was the first martyr of the new era. It was Cain against Abel all over again.

That day when Stephen was executed gave birth to “a great persecution against the church” (Acts 8:1). It’s the age-old conflict rearing its head one more time. The children of light are threatened, intimidated, ravaged, and imprisoned. The children of light are scattered, and their light shines wherever they go. Jesus’s followers are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), so when persecution shook them up, they were poured out like salt for the good of the world.

These early followers of Jesus – thousands of them – were scattered about to other places. And the result is that through them the gospel goes to other places and the church grows in other places: Judea, Samaria, Mediterranean coastal towns, and to several places north of Israel: Damascus, Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Antioch.

Now just as the gospel was on the move through the children of light, so the persecution was on the move through the children of darkness – and most specifically through the ringleader, Saul of Tarsus. Saul brought intensity and zeal to the work of persecution. Ponder these Scriptural passages:

• “But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” (Acts 8:3)

• In Saul’s own words: “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.” (Acts 26:9-11) For Saul, persecuting Jesus’s followers was not a side interest; it was a central priority, a driving passion.

• By the time we get to the beginning of Acts 9, Saul had a long track record of rage and fury against the church from Jerusalem to foreign cities. So Acts 9 begins with Saul acting in accord with his standard operating procedure: “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1).

Now one of the great things about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is that it is actually designed to penetrate the depths of children of darkness, until it lights up their darkness and transforms their lives. Everyone who receives the good news of God’s grace must receive it as someone who desperately needs God’s grace. What are Christians? Christians are those who have been “delivered… from the domain of darkness and transferred… to the kingdom of his [God’s] beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)

It’s not just that the obsessively violent persecutor named Saul desperately needed God’s grace; I desperately needed God’s grace. The only way into God’s blessed kingdom is through the door of free grace that I desperately need and don’t deserve. This grace, flowing from the heart of an infinite loving Father and made visible by the Holy One, Jesus the Messiah, when He sacrificed His life on the cross for the sins of His people – this grace is able to reach into the heart of violent persecutors. And so it is that Saul of Tarsus, once driven by raging fury against the name of Jesus, came to realize that this Jesus had actually borne the cross for him, and not only that, but that Jesus had come to fulfill all of God’s promises to bring about a new world, a new creation, a new global community of believers who walk in the light of the Lord. With his fury subsided and his sin forgiven, Saul was reconciled to the Lord and became a faithful and passionate preacher of the gospel message.

But when this sort of thing happens, when a violent gospel enemy becomes a valiant gospel friend, you know what is likely to happen, right? When you change teams in this manner, you become the number one public enemy of your former team. Which is exactly what we see unfold when Saul was in Damascus (in v. 23-25) and when Saul was in Jerusalem (in v. 29-30). The children of darkness were now committed to bringing about the demise of their former colleague.

With all that in mind, I’d like us to think about Acts 9:19-31 and the surrounding context through the lens of five key words: destabilization, transformation, participation, stabilization, and multiplication.

Destabilization

The first key word is destabilization. What I mean is this: From Acts 8:1 to 9:30, the early church was destabilized by actual and threatened persecution.

It is important to be honest about the fact that these early believers experienced disorientation and fear during this season of great persecution. The fact that persecution is normative in the experience of God’s people and the fact that it is also a true blessing to share in the Lord’s sufferings, doesn’t mean that it’s not destabilizing. Just imagine the anxiety of knowing that a meeting of Christians in this house could end up in some of us getting arrested. Just imagine the heartache of having people you love dragged off to prison, put on trial, and condemned to death, all because they follow Jesus. Many believers experienced the loss of loved ones. Stephen probably wasn’t the only preacher or leader who had been put to death. Just imagine the heartache of having the friendship and ministry of some of your church leaders cut short. Churches without some of their leaders. Families without some of the Dads and Moms. Children without one or both parents. On top of all that, they were dislocated: they fled from Jerusalem, they had to leave their homes, they had to leave their place of livelihood, they were refugees.

Yes, there is joy to be found in the Lord when all these things are taken away from us. Yes, the gospel advances to new places through Christian refugees who take the message wherever they go. The spiritual joy, the advance of the mission, and learning to lean on each other and support each other at deeper levels, are precious realities and genuinely good things. But we shouldn’t romanticize the experience of being socially and economically destabilized and distressed. The destabilization in and of itself isn’t good, which our text makes clear when it says in verse 31, after the persecution had subsided: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace” (Acts 9:31). This outward peace and quiet came as a true blessing and welcome relief after many days of distress.

In Acts 8:1-3, and in Acts 9:1-2, and as Saul testified in other places in Scripture, the destabilizing experience of the church in those days was originally caused by persecution against the church in general. But after Saul became a Christian and started boldly proclaiming the gospel, the persecution eventually took a different shape: instead of attempting to capture and condemn Christians in general, certain persecutors were focused on killing one man, namely, Saul. Before Saul met Jesus, you can imagine how difficult it would be knowing that a certain persecutor named Saul was on his way to our town in order to round up all the Jesus-followers and send them in chains to Jerusalem to face trial. That would be difficult. But after Saul met Jesus, as we see in Acts 9:23-25 and Acts 9:29-30, it would also be difficult in knowing that there was a conspiracy to kill one of the preachers in your midst. ‘Yes, we’re so glad that Saul is part of our fellowship now, but it’s unnerving that some hotheads are plotting to kill him.” Imagine how unsettling it would be to know that some influential people in Augusta were conspiring with some local hotheads to kill me. That is so far from our actual experience in a place where freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion are deeply cherished and constitutionally protected activities. But try to imagine it: you would probably be on edge, if there were real conspiracies to take me out. Would you want to be present with me in the same place? Would you want me to preach on Sunday morning? Would you want me to emphasize unpopular truths from the pulpit? Would you bring your children to the worship service? Would you invite me to speak at a Youth Group event? Would you want to meet me for lunch? Is it even worth it to have me hang around? Other people can preach and teach. Other people can do disciple-making work. Of course, in addition to navigating your own anxieties, you would be genuinely concerned for my welfare. ‘Get out of here, Brian! Save your life! We’ll be fine! God will lead you to some other field of service in due time!’

The entire passage from Acts 8:1-9:30 is set in the context of a destabilized church. And in that context, nothing is more welcome than the conversion of the chief destabilizer!

Transformation

The second key word is transformation. Here I am specifically referring to Saul’s transformation. He had embarked on the journey to Damascus as an enemy of the Lord, but the Lord intervened and made Saul a friend. Once filled with raging fury, Saul was now “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17). Once determined to oppose the name of Jesus, he had been baptized into the name of Jesus (Acts 9:18) and was now “[preaching] boldly in the name of Jesus” (Acts 9:27).

What I would like to observe is that the inward heart transformation that takes place when we meet Jesus must become visible in our actual conduct, our actual speech, our actual priorities. In terms of Acts 9:20-29, what is emphasized is Saul’s resolute preaching. It’s not just that Saul stopped opposing the name of Jesus. It’s not just that Saul stopped trying to destroy the Christian faith and stopped trying to destroy the Christian church (see Galatians 1:13, 21). The children of darkness are, by nature, destroyers of that which is good and true and beautiful. When Jesus finds you and draws you to Himself, His goal isn’t merely to make you a non-destroyer. It is good for a destroyer to become a non-destroyer. That is progress. But Jesus actually wants destroyers to become builders; He wants wrecking balls to become planters, gardeners, cultivators; He wants agents of ruin to become ambassadors of redemption who use their gifts to grow and strengthen the church. Do you see?

As for Saul, “he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”” (Acts 9:20) He showed from the Old Testament Scriptures “that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 9:22). Jesus wasn’t some random spiritual teacher who met an untimely and gruesome death. He is the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the King greater than David, the Teacher greater than Solomon, the Prophet greater than Moses, the Conqueror greater than Joshua, the Shepherd of Israel, the Servant of the Lord, the Lamb of God, the One who stands in unique relationship to the Father, the Word who reveals the Father, the great High Priest who offers Himself as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of His people, the Suffering Servant who justifies many through His death and resurrection, the true Light of the world. Jesus is the One spoken of in Isaiah 49:6, when Yahweh says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

If you are yoked to the law, you preach law. If you are yoked to religion, you preach religion. If you are yoked to moralism, you preach moralism. If you are yoked to cultural renewal, you preach cultural renewal. If you are yoked to politics, you preach politics. If you are yoked to nothing in particular, you preach nothing in particular. But if you are yoked to Jesus, you preach Jesus – you preach His person and worth, you preach His life and teaching, you preach His death and resurrection, you preach His present rule and future return, you preach Him as the apex of divine revelation, you preach Him as the one and only source of salvation and eternal life and fellowship with God. On the Damascus Road, Saul got yoked to Jesus. Now yoked to Jesus and strengthened in Him (e.g., Acts 9:22), Saul proclaimed Jesus wherever he went.

Saul’s transformation was noticeable, impactful, consequential. In verse 21, those who heard him preach “were amazed” that he was now proclaiming the very message that he had just recently sought to destroy. In verse 22, the Jews were confounded and confused by his clear and convincing arguments that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah. And after Saul had spent some time preaching the gospel in Damascus, there were some Jews – no doubt Jewish religious leaders – who “plotted to kill him [Saul]” (v. 23). The conspirators “were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him” (v. 24). When it comes to persecution or the threat of persecution, it is not required that you stay put. Some believers may sense in their conscience that the Lord wants them to stay put, even at the risk of their life. Other believers may sense that it is right to escape, to flee to another location and set up shop somewhere else. Let each believer be convinced in his own mind what is the wise course of action. Here, the plot against Saul’s life became known to Saul (v. 24). And Saul’s disciples – that is an interesting phrase, pointing to the fact that Saul the Christian teacher had a group of students who were seeking to learn from him – Saul’s disciples carried out a secret rescue operation, “[letting] him [Saul] down through an opening in the wall” under the cover of night (v. 25).

As is evident in verse 25, Saul was not a stand-alone figure. In becoming a disciple of Jesus, he had become a member of the church. And this brings us to our next key word.

Reception

The third key word is reception. What I mean is reception by the church community. Jesus had received Saul into fellowship with Himself. But the implication is that Jesus’s people, the church, must receive into their fellowship anyone whom the Lord receives into His fellowship, for our fellowship is fellowship with Jesus. But it isn’t always easy to receive people into fellowship.

The way that Saul was received into fellowship by the disciples in Damascus is similar to the way that he was received into fellowship by the disciples in Jerusalem.

We are told in the second half of Acts 9:19, “For some days he [Saul] was with the disciples at Damascus.” Reading between the lines, we assume that the path for Saul’s fellowship with disciples in Damascus was made level by Ananias. Ananias was naturally disposed to be fearful and suspicious of Saul, because it was known that Saul was a persecutor of the saints who had journeyed to Damascus to persecute the saints (Acts 9:13-14). But the Lord made it clear to Ananias that Saul was “a chosen instrument” (Acts 9:15) who would henceforth live as a Spirit-filled follower of Jesus. Thus Ananias received Saul into fellowship, and we may assume that through Ananias, Saul was received into fellowship by all the disciples in Damascus.

But things got dicey when Saul finally made his way to Jerusalem. We are told that “he attempted to join the disciples” (Acts 9:26). There is in all true disciples a normal and healthy desire to link up with other disciples. We are made for community, for fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, for mutual edification and collaboration with other members of the body of Christ. But the disciples in Jerusalem “were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.”

What do you do when you don’t believe that a professing disciple is a true disciple? What do you do when you are afraid of someone who presents himself as a new convert? What do you when someone attempts to join the church but you don’t think that he or she is a safe person? The answer is not to blow off your anxieties. There are false brethren. There are enemies who pretend to be friends. There are “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:13) There are servants of Satan who “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:15) It is not unspiritual or wrongheaded to have a concern about whether it is wise to extend the right hand of fellowship to a new professing disciple, for we may have legitimate reasons to question their profession. Sure, we don’t want to be cynics who throw cold water on the Lord’s gracious work. But we also don’t want to be naïve and fail to exercise sound judgment. To draw a long line from Acts 9:26 to our Sunday morning bulletin, we plan to present a number of people for church membership a couple of weeks from now. We have had these names before you for a few months. If anyone has any concern about whether it is wise to receive any of these individuals into membership, we urge you to speak to an Elder or Deacon as soon as possible. Don’t blow off your anxiety. Don’t stuff away your concern. And don’t wait until the awkward moment of the business meeting itself. Let us know, so that we can work through your concern, so that the whole body can be in a healthy place to receive new members. Maybe we need to be alerted to a legitimate concern on your part. Maybe you need to give us an opportunity to alleviate your concern. Either way, it is beneficial to address the anxieties that one may have.

The way that this anxiety and suspicion gets resolved in Acts 9:26-27 is through the advocacy of a trusted church member. In due course, Barnabas will become a pastor and missionary. But he had already established himself as a trusted and respected member of the early church. We met him in Acts 4:36-37. Barnabas was a generous man, “[selling] a field that belonged to him” and giving the money to the church in order to care for the needy among them (Acts 4:37). His name was Joseph, but the apostles called him “Barnabas (which means son of encouragement)” (Acts 4:36). Barnabas was the sort of man who would come alongside others and have a beneficial impact. We will see him doing that later in Acts 11, but we also see him doing that right here in Acts 9. It is a beautiful picture of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ may be understood as Jesus, the perfect Man, leveraging His position with the Father, to go to bat for us, advocating for us, interceding for us. Of course, in the case of the gospel, Jesus doesn’t go to bat for us because we deserve it, but because He chooses to lavish His grace upon us. Echoing these gospel realities, Barnabas, a good man who had been made good by the Holy Spirit, went to bat for Saul, upon whom Jesus had lavished His grace. Barnabas knew that Saul “had seen the Lord” on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:27). Barnabas knew that Jesus had spoken to Saul, had called Saul, had revealed Himself to Saul (Acts 9:27). And Barnabas knew that “at Damascus he [Saul] had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 9:27) Barnabas knew that Saul was chosen and transformed, a true disciple who was truly safe to have among us. And so, Barnabas went to bat for Saul, “took him and brought him to the apostles” (Acts 9:27), and testified on Saul’s behalf. The apostles were evidently satisfied: “So he [Saul] went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.” (Acts 9:28)

Saul continued to do at Jerusalem what he had previously done at Damascus: he proclaimed Jesus boldly. There was an edginess to Saul’s evangelism. In Damascus, he had “confounded the Jews… by proving that Jesus was the Christ.” (Acts 9:22) In Jerusalem, “he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists.” (Acts 9:29) Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews, and Saul was on their case, seeking to persuade them to turn to Jesus. But they were not having it, and “they were seeking to kill him.” (Acts 9:29)

This must have been quite an experience for the disciples in Jerusalem: the guy that they had been afraid of due to his past violence against the church, but had recently been received as a brother in the Lord, was now the intended victim of a murder plot by the people that he was evangelizing. Talk about an intense emotional rollercoaster! The brothers in the Jerusalem church acted expeditiously to dispatch Saul to another place: “And when the brothers learned this [i.e., the plot against Saul’s life], they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.” (Acts 9:30)

It is interesting how Saul is retracing his steps and returning to his roots, long before the well-known missionary journeys commence in Acts 13. Saul was born in Tarsus (Acts 22:3), was educated in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), and journeyed to Damascus to persecute the saints in that city (Acts 22:5). But he met the Lord on the way to Damascus. Thereafter he settled in with the disciples in Damascus for a period of time (Acts 9:19-25), made a brief return to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-29), and finally returned to Tarsus (Acts 9:30). Saul will now spend the next several years of his life in Tarsus. We know very little about these several years that Saul spent in Tarsus. I’m sure that they were fruitful years of growing closer to the Lord and ministering the gospel to the people around him. But the biblical text is largely silent about them. In terms of the narrative, Saul’s presence, first as a violent persecutor and then as a passionate and edgy evangelist, was electric, intense, disruptive, and (whether for others or for himself) life-threatening. So it is no accident that only after Saul is shuttled off to Tarsus do we read that the church got some peace and quiet. Only after Saul got far away did the great persecution finally subside.

Stabilization

So we come to the fourth key word: stabilization. Seasons of persecution do come to an end, and after the long stretch of Acts 8:1-9:30, we finally come to Acts 9:31 – “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.” They could catch their breath, enjoy their environment, plant themselves in a local community without the fear of dislocation, not look over their shoulder quite so much, and get on with the work of mutual edification.

It is important to note that the condition of outward peace is not promised to us in this present life. Outward peace is good when we have it. But we must follow the Lord whether we have it or not. As Christians, we have peace with God, and peace with our fellow believers, and the ability to live peaceably in the world, even amid persecution. But outward peace is clearly in view in Acts 9:31, and we’ll certainly take that blessing as often as the Lord gives it. And if we have outward peace, we have all the more reason to use that freedom to support one another, strengthen believers, and establish strong communities of disciples.

Of course, we don’t get to choose whether and when we live in a season of persecution or a season of peace, a destabilizing period or a period of relative stability. At our Elders and Deacons and Wives Retreat yesterday morning, Tom McGarvey encouraged us to have this mindset: Do the best you can with what you have in the circumstances you find yourself in.

All the constitutional liberties that we enjoy under God’s providential hand have given the church throughout all America an unprecedented and long measure of peace. Let’s be good stewards of it: preach and teach, evangelize and disciple, worship and witness, practice hospitality and show mercy, work together and strengthen each other in the Lord.

Multiplication

Last but not least, we come to the fifth key word: multiplication. Luke, the author of Acts, is fond of telling us about the numerical growth of the church. 120 at the start in Acts 1:15. 3,000 added in Acts 2:41. More added on a daily basis in Acts 2:47. A total of 5,000 men by the time we get to Acts 4:4. In Acts 5: “multitudes of both men and women” were added (Acts 5:14). In Acts 6: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” (Acts 6:7) Now Acts 9:31 concludes with another indicator of growth, not limited to the church in Jerusalem but including the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria: “And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”

Healthy churches grow. Healthy churches evangelize, make new disciples, and receive those disciples into their fellowship. The salt and light must be scattered to more and more people in more and more places. We are ‘good news’ people, and we must share the good news of God’s kingdom wherever we go. This multiplication impulse could be explored from many angles, but the only angle we need to consider right now is the angle mentioned in our text.

As far as the text is concerned, what matters is not a program, not a formula, not a strategy, not an event, not a method. I’m not saying that those things are wrong. I’m simply saying that they are irrelevant with respect to the emphasis of verse 31.

The emphasis of verse 31 is that the environment in which multiplication took place was a spiritual environment in which believers lived in a dynamic personal relationship with the living God. They were “walking in the fear of the Lord”. They were gripped by the greatness of Jesus. They were overwhelmed by His goodness. They were awestruck by His mercy. They were stunned that the raging fury of Saul of Tarsus, who had been present and who had approved the execution of their brother Stephen, had come around and embraced the very same Jesus that Stephen had seen “standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56) before he was ushered into glory. That Jesus, who stood forth as Stephen’s Advocate and Friend, soon reached down to capture the heart of Saul. And as Saul tells it in Galatians 1: “[The] churches of Judea… were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.” (Galatians 1:24) Do you want to be part of a movement that captures more and more people for Jesus? It’s a “fear of the Lord” movement. It’s a “Jesus is totally awesome” movement. “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” (2 Corinthians 5:11) Peter and John had it. Stephen had it. Phillip had it. Saul had it. The whole church had it. And having it, they grew.

Luke mentions one other characteristic of their spiritual environment: they were also “walking… in the comfort of the Holy Spirit”. Whereas “the fear of the Lord” means that we are looking up with awestruck wonder at the Lord of glory, “the comfort of the Holy Spirit” means that the Holy Spirit is filling us with all the spiritual resources that we need. The Holy Spirit takes the riches of the Lord’s grace and makes them real to us in our actual experience. The word translated “comfort” is paraklesis – it can denote “comfort, encouragement, exhortation, consolation”.[1] The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete who comes alongside of us in order to minister the grace of Christ to our hearts – to minister the comfort of God’s presence, to minister the encouragement of God’s Word, to minister the exhortation of God’s way, to minister the consolation of God’s promise. And though the Holy Spirit does minister these things directly to the hearts of His people, we must remember that in verse 31, it is the entire church community that is living in this reality. And so we do well to remember that the Holy Spirit often ministers to these realities to our hearts through other believers. Remember how Ananias was a healing balm to Saul in Acts 9:17. Remember how Barnabas was a gracious support to Saul in Acts 9:27. The Holy Spirit equips and empowers us especially for the purpose of serving and strengthening one another.

Let me ask you again: Do you want to be part of a movement that captures more and more people for Jesus? Well, it’s a “comfort of the Holy Spirit” movement. It’s not a movement of politically disgruntled people who are trying to get more market share for their version of politics. It’s not a cultural movement of restless, frustrated, or angry people who are trying to get people on their side. What is it? It's a spiritual movement of comforted, encouraged, and hopeful people who have found the fountain of living water, and from that place of rest and joy they invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good. They embodied the joy of the message that they proclaimed. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and as they were carried along by the Spirit of Jesus, they multiplied. 

May it be so among us.

ENDNOTES

[1] See the entry “3874. paraklésis” at Bible Hub. Available online: https://biblehub.com/greek/3874.htm

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.

Patrick Schreiner, Acts (Christian Standard Commentary). Holman Reference, 2022.

Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

2018. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography. New York: HarperOne, 2018.