Baptism and Rebirth

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek, and we are in Acts 8.

I don’t know how much the release schedule has been disrupted lately, but our recording schedule has been kablooey, so we’re coming back to this after a bit of time. I think we left off with Philip being taken in the Spirit to an otherwhere place.

That comes later. This is just where the angel says, “Go there.”

Oh, that’s one way to do it.

The spectacular thing happens at the end. I remember some kid saying, “No, but the really cool thing is…you almost left that out!”

But it is interesting that he’s to the north in Samaria and then travels through Judea and then is going to the south, so he does have a bit of travel to go.

John and Peter have left him and gone back to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans, so the culture barrier is down to some extent, although there will still be issues there.

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.

If we remember the Old Testament, this passage and the following chapters actually contain extensive echoes of the Old Testament. If you ever read it, it’s just city names and place names and you don’t think much about it.

Gaza is one of the five Philistine cities. Going to Samaria – yeah, that was hard. Going to a Philistine city and to that area – but you don’t find Philistine, you’re going to find somebody else.

It’s a mostly empty place so, if you don’t know the geography, both then and particularly now in Israel, the southern part, once you go past about Hebron, you’re in mostly desert. That’s not a place where everybody goes to grow things or anything like that. There’s a reason it says desert, wilderness. We should be thinking both of all the wilderness things of the Old Testament, and all the places of trial and being out alone, but also just the general idea that there’s not a lot around.

If you’re Philip, you’re wandering and not really expecting to see anybody, so these two men coming together is a surprise. Also, as they go along, when they find water it will be out of the ordinary to find water here. It’s not a normal occurrence and likely it’s a very small amount of water compared to what we often might think.

It wouldn’t be a river because it’s wilderness.

If there were a river here there would be civilization along it.

There would be civilization and crops and things, and there’s not.

The only thing you could say is that Gaza itself is out on the coast, but it doesn’t sound like they’re actually in the city of Gaza. It’s more that he’s gone in that direction and is continuing south. So they’re not out at the ocean, they’re not by the Jordan River, which means there’s not much water in-between. It’s a provision of the Lord that they come across water at all.

As it is a provision of the Lord that Philip and the eunuch actually connect. “Go out into the wilderness.” “Okay.”

“Why? There are no people there.”

“I can see for a long distance and there’s absolutely nothing out here Lord except…wait a minute, what’s that? I hear something. I see dust…okay, you know what you’re doing, God. Alright.”

And he arose and went and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning…

Again there’s a lot going on here. This version of Ethiopia, so the books tell me, began at the first cataract of the Nile and extended down south as far as what will one day be Khartoum. It’s not exactly Abyssinia of later years or the modern Ethiopia, but it’s kind of in that direction.

He’s a eunuch. He has been castrated. Why do they do that? To keep their officers single-minded, and since they’re going to be dealing with the king’s household and probably the harem, to keep bloodlines and descent lines really clear, and not allow things to be happening that shouldn’t be happening.

And a side note for gender theory – although he’s a eunuch he is called a man.

There you go. We’ll come back and talk about the place of eunuchs in scripture in a bit once we see what becomes of this man.

“Great authority” – he is basically the treasurer. I’m told that the kings of Ethiopia were considered sons of the Sun, and so divine and spiritual that they weren’t entrusted to do much of anything, which is often the way of royalty in the ancient world, especially with a lot of inter-marrying with other “divine children.” You start getting problems.

Candace was the dynastic name of the king’s mother, so there were a lot of Candaces, apparently. Whoever the queen mother was at the time was Candace. So this guy is really important in Ethiopia.

Now we say the obvious thing, that his skin is what we used to say as black, very dark, bronze. He’s from Africa.

From what I found, the word Ethiopia comes from the Greek and it means burnt skin, so that was there wonderful term for people with dark skin, but it demonstrates that that’s why they’re calling it that, even though it’s probably the kingdom of Nubia. The word is actually Cush that we see mostly in the Bible.

From what I saw, they think they know which Candace this is and they think they can pinpoint her rule from 25-41 AD, so you can have a sense that this still had to be fairly early in the time after Christ has ascended.

Yes, we have not gone that far in terms of years from the ascension of Christ. I pick this up, and I don’t know about you, but in reading the Bible or being taught by other people I kind of got the sense that this is taking a long time, years are passing, and Saul comes to Christ late. Not so much. A lot of this takes place in about 3-1/2 years, so we’re still pretty close to Jesus’ ascension, and this man is going to be the first true Gentile convert.

In Chapter 10 the gospel door to the Gentiles is going to be thrown open to the Roman centurion Cornelius, but before that happens this man. He’s not Jewish, and since he’s been castrated he probably isn’t admitted by covenant into God’s people because eunuchs weren’t.

So why has he come to Jerusalem for worship?

He’s a God-fearer. He can’t be integrated into the covenant people, but he can be a Gentile God-fearer and worship, as it were, at a distance, which apparently is what he’s doing. He doesn’t take it as an insult from God. He embraces the opportunity. He’s been there offering sacrifices. That would be allowed. We’re not told if it was during one of the great festivals, but that would certainly make sense.

It also demonstrates the favor that he has with his court that he’s allowed to leave for so long, and they trust him enough to come back. He isn’t running off with the money or anything. He has the funds to make this long trip and he has the trust of his ruler that he can actually go, particularly because as far as we know where he comes from there aren’t many God-fearers there, so it would be in conflict with the religion of where he comes from.

We’re told of him that he was returning and sitting in his chariot. One of the commentaries I saw called it a wagon. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the Greek word is, but the hint is that he’s reading and the chariot or whatever it is is moving. It kind of takes both hands and paying attention to drive a chariot, so he’s not alone. There’s somebody else there, maybe a couple somebody elses, and he’s reading.

He’s reading out loud because in general that’s what reading meant in the ancient and even in the medieval world. Our modern concept of reading in your head is fairly modern. Philip knew he was reading Isaiah because he could hear him reading it out loud, and what he was reading was from the book of Isaiah.

Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot.

He doesn’t give any further explanation, because really Philip has a heart for evangelism. He doesn’t need a whole lot of prompting here. The only restriction was, “But he’s from a different country and culture and people group.”

“Go talk to him.”

“Okay! I did Samaria, I can do this one,” so he runs up. Apparently the chariot is not moving terribly fast, or else it’s moving right toward Philip.

And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

“Do you understand what you’re reading?” And the Ethiopian, with great humility – remember, this is a really important man, this would be almost like the president of the United States saying, “Uh, no, I don’t get this. Can you help me?”

And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me?

He understands that God has put teachers into the world to help explain difficult things in scripture, and this is pretty difficult. “I don’t know what’s going on here.”

And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

Whether it was something in Philip’s speech or his dress or mannerisms or whatever – at least he could tell from his accent (they were probably speaking Koine Greek) that he’s Jewish. The blue fringe on his robe might be a give-away. “Can you come and help me?” and Philip says, “Sure,” and he jumps up and starts preaching, and he preaches Christ.

I’m sorry, Rachel, I just took it all over from you. What did I miss and what else do you want to talk about here.

I think you got most everything of at least that part. I don’t remember what exactly the group is called, but there has been at least one or a couple evangelism groups that are called Isaiah 53 because of this passage. They take that cue to say that it’s one of the best places to start when evangelizing, so there are groups that have been inspired by what Philip does here.

I believe they particularly focused on that with those who accept some form of the Bible, such as Jews or even Muslims, who say that there’s some credence to the Bible because they bring them to Isaiah 53 and say, “How do you explain this?” It is one of those passages that unless you know the answer, it really is confusing.

That’s why I think a lot of Jews today skip Isaiah 53 in their liturgies. They just cut it out.

They don’t want people to be distracted by possible wrong interpretations.

Right, or possible right interpretations.

The passage itself – obviously we know it fairly well as we’re talking about it. We look back at it as one of the clearer revelations of what Jesus would do, but it is interesting all the language in here that still very much requires a knowledge of the Old Testament and of Hebrew culture in terms of sheep and the sacrifice of a sheep.

That was one of the things pointed out recently, maybe in one of my husband’s sermons, that when sheep are slaughtered, the normal meaning is being sacrificed. That was the most common reason that one would be killing a sheep in that culture.

It wasn’t the typical thing of sending it to the butcher for money.

Particularly because they needed it for multiple festivals and things. Unless you’re wealthy, the main reason you’re raising them is for that purpose.

And as long as you keep the sheep alive you can keep getting wool year after year. If you kill the thing, that was one great meal and you better have charged a lot because what you charge has to equal the price of its wool for the next couple years.

You want to go ahead and read 32 and 33? I don’t think we did that yet.

Yes, I will read it.

The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.

So we get the question that makes perfect sense, if you aren’t sure what’s going on.

And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?

It’s what I think Greg would call it a plant question. “Let me hand it to you. Tell me who this is about,” but it is one of the many questions we have when we look at the Old Testament. Who are they talking about? Are they talking about themselves? Are they talking about Jesus? Are they talking about somebody else entirely? Even we have that question.

I have a story to tell on our good friend David Farschman. He was still my student so he was about 16. For some reason I read Isaiah 53 out loud to him, and I think we were the only ones in the classroom at the time, but he did not immediately recognize it. He said, “Wow, where is that from? John?”

I said, “No, Isaiah,” and his mouth goes open wide and he says, “And they didn’t recognize him?”

The passage is self-testifying, but unbelief can block out anything. It blocks out general revelation every day and can block out special revelation, and will, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. But this man’s heart God has prepared.

The heart of Isaiah 53 of course is substitutionary atonement. Here is a man who is suffering for sins that are not his. “For the transgression of my people was he stricken.” This affords a wonderful opportunity for Philip to preach the gospel.

Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.

I’ve noticed a subtle thing in the way that the gospel preachers in the beginning were talking. Peter uses Jesus and Christ separately at first on the day of the sermon at Pentecost, because Christ means the Messiah, so he’s talking about the Messiah. First he talks about, “You know about this man Jesus,” then he begins talking about the Messiah. It comes to really the end of the sermon when he finally says, “So Jesus is the Messiah. God has made him both Lord and Messiah.”

Here Philip doesn’t get bothered by that. He preaches Jesus. “You want to know who this is? Let me tell you about Jesus,” and he does. We don’t have the full extent of what all he said. The passage that he quotes actually begins in Isaiah 52.

While you look for that I would also say that this verse is a very good summary of what a sermon should be, from a scripture he began at the scripture. That doesn’t mean he just stayed at the scripture, but he begins from scripture and in all things preaches Jesus. I’ve always found this to be a very good summary for that.

I think you’re very right there. The passage we generally think of, “Lord, who has believed our report,” it actually begins three verses earlier in the previous chapter, which again – chapter breaks, gotta love ‘em, gotta hate ‘em sometimes –

Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

So Philip has all of that to work with, and of course more of scripture as he finds necessary. The Ethiopian has a scroll of Isaiah. You know how much that was worth?

I imagine he potentially bought it while he was in Jerusalem, so he’s opening it up to read it as he’s going home, like when you got a new book and you’re looking at it.

That’s very likely, given the circumstances. This is an expensive thing. He wouldn’t probably take it with him on that long journey and then take it back and he’s now getting to read it. That fits perfectly with the circumstances we’re told about. Somehow in there he brings up the subject of baptism.

“Sprinkle many nations – is that me, sir?”

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Yes, I’m aware of some textual issues here. We’re going to ignore them and assume that the Bible we hold is God’s inspired Word. Notice the brevity. You believe with your heart. That does not mean that there is no doubt that remains, that there’s no misunderstanding, that it’s in that sense perfect, but it means that all of you is in on this. It’s not just your intellect but your will and emotions are going to go another direction. It’s not just your intuition and instinct but your rational mind is left out. All that you are is in this.

It’s the greatest command – love God with all of who you are.

And his response is quick and to the point – “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” Jesus the Messiah is the Son of God. Nothing more is asked of him.

We don’t know how long Philip was with him – an hour? Two? Three or four? There’s going to come a point where, “Wow, it’s hot. Can we just sit down and not talk for a little bit?” Anyway, they speak as long as God wanted them to. Then as they’re coming upon this body of water in the middle of a desert…

Presumably therefore very small.

Yes, and in some ways the Ethiopian eunuch’s education has been very small. Assuming he’s a God-fearer, as he’s been in Jerusalem, he does know something of the Old Testament. He may never have read Isaiah before, and there may not be a synagogue back in Ethiopia where he can go regularly and hear it read. Maybe every time he goes he buys some manuscript.

We don’t know the guy’s history, but he knows enough that within the time they have – an hour, two hours, three hours, whatever it is – Philip has told him enough and explained enough of the faith that Philip is comfortable baptizing him.

He doesn’t say, “You know that would be great, except our new members class doesn’t begin until August and it takes about 12 weeks. Then we see how you’re doing and we may send you through it a second time for another 12.” There’s none of that, and there isn’t in the book of Acts. In each case that we see a baptism, the instruction period has been relatively short. Here we can assume some background knowledge.

When we get to the Philippian jailer it’s hard to assume much of anything. He has maybe an hour with Paul. We understand why churches want to – there’s a word for looking carefully at who you let through the door – for one thing if you become a member of a church you automatically have voting power, but that’s not a concern here.

The command from the beginning was “repent and be baptized.” It’s not “repent and we’ll talk to you about your baptism at some future date, and then you can have some kind of assurance that you’re actually a child of God.” It comes very quickly and there’s enough time within an hour or two to say what they need to know.

Now, if you’re going to throw them out to the wolves after that, that might be a problem, and in some fashion this man is being thrown out to the wolves, except he’s a grown man who has been searching after God on his own and he has part of the Bible and he’s interested in it, and there really is not another option.

Philip could send him on his way and say, “Well, the next time you’re in Jerusalem…” or “Here’s this new members’ course we just developed. Let me hand it to you and you can read it, and next time you’re in Jerusalem look up this guy named Simon Peter and you can get baptized.”

We see here the effect that the Old Testament scriptures were intended to have. The soil has been plowed, has been turned over, has been made ready for the seed of the gospel. It’s almost hard to say that this guy wasn’t already a believer before he heard about Jesus, but then when he hears about Jesus it’s like, “Oh, of course, yes.”

Yes, and that brings me to a couple Old Testament passages I’d like to point out. One is from Zephaniah. Zephaniah is describing the age that’s coming and he says -

For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.

Then he goes on and talks more directly to Israel.

“Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia” – so Ethiopia is still on God’s radar as the Old Testament is coming to a close, but the eunuch’s thing also was on God’s radar. Once he leaves Philip – in fact, maybe Philip strayed into there because he’s really close, it’s only a couple chapters in-between – Isaiah 56:3-7 says –

Neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant, even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar, for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

This is a verse we know because Jesus quotes it – “Mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” The context is Gentiles, strangers, and particularly eunuchs, so here we see Isaiah again being fulfilled, as well as Zephaniah.

What a blessing to someone who is a eunuch who cannot be brought into the Old Testament covenant and receive that sign, that he is now told of a new covenant where he can be included in that way.

And what blessing does he have? He gets to go back to Ethiopia and tell everybody about Jesus. Given this guy’s spirit and personality, I have an idea that’s exactly what he did.

He’s called the founder of the African church.

Irenaeus mentions him and says that’s more or less what happened.

So they both go down into the water and then Philip performs baptism, they come out of the water, and the Spirit of the Lord catches Philip away – translocation – and the eunuch sees him no more. “Wow, where did he go? Ooo, cool.”

The miracle comes afterwards. God did not use the miracle to convince the man, not even to convince him of Philip’s authority. The Word of God was sufficient for that. But it’s nice to say, “And then the Spirit of God just took the guy away and I never saw him again,” but in a verse that’s well-known to most Christians, “He went on his way rejoicing,” not because he saw a miracle but because now he knew Jesus.

Philip was found at Azotus, which is the Old Testament Ashdod, so Philistine territory again, and passing through along the coast, through what had been Philistine territory up past Joppa until he comes to Caesarea, which was an important Roman port city on the coast, and apparently stops there.

Later on in the book of Acts when Paul is coming to Jerusalem, he and his friends stop at Caesarea and they meet Philip the Evangelist who was one of the seven, that is of the seven deacons chosen, and he has four daughters who prophesy. That’s the last we hear of Philip, but apparently he went on to be a good daddy and raise good Bible-teaching daughters.

Stopped there, got married, had some kids, cool.

It’s interesting if you think about this last chapter, in Jesus’ mission to the church before his ascension, Philip ends up in some way fulfilling two levels of that – Judea, Samaria, the outermost parts of the earth. He is not an apostle, but he’s still honored by the Lord as a deacon to go to both of these places first.

The apostles will follow. They do come to Samaria and they legitimize or kind of give their yes to that. Then obviously Peter is going to have the primary role in bringing the Gentiles in. But it’s interesting to note that it’s a deacon and not an apostle that is preaching. In our time we would consider that unusual for that office now, but then that was more common. He is given this opportunity and I think he’s the first who’s given the title “The Evangelist.” That becomes a role in the church itself.

A traveling missionary.

There’s a good chapter break because now we come to chapter 9 and Saul. We were introduced to him briefly. He was the young man standing by holding people’s clothes while Stephen was being stoned, and he’s kind of passed out of the picture. I think we’re told in the chapter after that that he was causing havoc to the churches in Jerusalem. That’s what caused the dispersion of so many believers initially, including Philip ending up in Samaria, so God is already using Saul to accomplish things that Saul doesn’t even know about. But we’re going to go back and look at it.

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest…

Do you see the dragon imagery there? We’re going to see it again when the scales fall from his eyes.

It’s also that sense that it’s almost like it’s his life and breath is to kill, basically. “Those who hate me love death.” That very much is that sense here.

He’s breathing out slaughtering against the disciples of the Lord. The word Christian hasn’t been revealed yet so they’re called disciples, Nazarenes, followers of the Way. Disciple is probably the most common thing at this point.

…he went unto the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way [there’s that expression for Christianity], whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Interesting that women were included, because often women were ignored in ancient and classical society. You didn’t care about the women, you just had to get the men. But Saul having a slightly more, if twisted, biblical worldview…

Recognizing that this is spreading through women.

Yes, it is. Besides, they have children who grow up and come after you, in this case with the gospel.

The children are not listed. They’re not going after the children.

Showing the restraint that Herod and Pharaoh did not.

Or the synagogue will then take over the children’s education, which has happened many times in church history.

“We will take your children, thank you very much.”

The political setting of this is something that’s been in the back of my mind for a long time, so I finally looked it up. Apparently the letters are going to pass at some point to the authorities of Damascus, which was not under Jewish control obviously. It’s a city of what the Old Testament calls Syria, what we in our mistranslations call Syria, Aram.

They would be letters of extradition, so the people he’s coming for are probably not just any believers but particularly those who had fled from Jerusalem and Judea, and thus the high priest would have some claim on them. If they were simply people who grew up in Damascus it would be kind of hard to push. “You want my citizens? What?” “No, we want our refugees back.”

“Here are their names.”

“And here’s the Roman stamp on it,” so it gets pushed through.

Again this is a time to look back at the Old Testament. In the books of Kings, the power to the north of Israel, the northern kingdom, was what we translate as Syria. We call it Syria because when Alexander conquered the world he didn’t care about naming people correctly. He called Asher Assyria, and the nation next to it he said, “Oh, you’re kind of like them. We’ll just call you Syria.”

Their proper name is Aram. We get the word Aramaic for the language that they spread throughout that part of the world. It became the trade tongue and probably the language that Jesus usually spoke in day-to-day life. But in the Old Testament, Damascus and the Syrians (Aramians) were the enemies of Israel.

Here it’s a reverse image. Rather than Israelite armies going into Damascus to attack it and claim it and subdue it, we have collaboration. We have a lieutenant of the Jewish ecclesiastical government going to sidle up to the authorities there and attack God’s sheep. It’s a very odd kind of backward thing. And it’s while he’s doing this that his life pattern is disrupted rather permanently.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus…

It wasn’t just somewhere on the road. He’s getting close to the city, so he’s in Syrian territory. He’s into Damascene territory.

…and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord?

I’m always reminded of Jill in The Silver Chair when she meets Aslan and has to answer a question. I believe it’s, “What happened to the boy?”

“He went over the edge, sir.” She called him sir because it seemed cheek to call him nothing.

Does Paul understand who he’s talking to? The “Who are you, Lord?” is kind of weird on any level.

Wasn’t lord a more common title in those days, like we look back at Sarah calling Abraham “lord.” Obviously that’s several hundred years removed.

But he’s not using the covenant name. It’s a term of respect.

Sometimes kyrios is translated as sir or something like that, depending on who you’re talking to and the circumstances.

And the Lord said…

Now Luke is clarifying it for us. He was right more than he knew.

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

Jesus is in heaven. How is he persecuting him? By persecuting his body, the Church, and Jesus takes it personally.

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Americans say, “What’s that?” The image is goading on an ox with a long pointy stick. “They treat oxen that way?” They did. I don’t know how you move oxen these days, but it was called an ox goad. If the ox doesn’t like it he might do something wholly rational like kick at it to try to make it go away. That’s the image here. “You’re a stubborn ox going your own way, and God has been surrounding you with pricks of various sorts.”

From Romans 7 we know that chief among these was his own conscience. He had run into the commandment that says, “Thou shall not covet,” and it wrought in him all manner of concupiscence. He’s struggling with his own sin nature. He finally gets it that he’s a sinner, and then he runs into Jesus.

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?

It’s Jesus and he just called him Lord.

Can we also pause and qualify the context, going back to the light? We should be thinking of the Shekinah glory. It’s not just any light that’s shining on him, it is the light of the Old Testament that burned as a cloud, as a pillar, that was the presence of the Lord with his people. It was also a terror to his enemies.

I think often because we just get the pictures for Sunday School and such of this light shining from somewhere, just this random light that God just sent down. We should be thinking of the particular theophany of the Old Testament here, where he is coming to Mount Sinai and seeing the Shekinah glory and all of that and going, “Uhhhh, who are you? Wait, you seem to be in charge.”

This might be the last of the goads. He cannot deny this one. He knows about this one. He’s studied it all his life and here it is.

That’s the other thing. As a great student of the Old Testament he should have immediately said, “Oh, I know what this is,” but he’s going, “I hope this isn’t what that is because I don’t seem to be on the same side.”

It is one of the examples in the New Testament where we’re still seeing God shining light in a very particular way. He’s also shining light into the darkness of Paul’s heart, so there’s lots of that wonderful imagery going on here, too.

And in the middle of the Shekinah glory is Jesus, not just the Christ spirit or the Logos or other valid titles for him. It’s Jesus in all his humanity glorified, which is not what he was counting on.

Which is also why certainly here, if not elsewhere, Paul can say, “I saw the risen Christ.” This is what qualifies him to be an apostle. I know some have come up with other places where he’s had visions or things like that, but this is the primary place that we have recorded that he sees Jesus.

And every time he gives his testimony – and he does at least two more times before rulers – he fills in a few details, but essentially it’s the same thing. He saw Jesus. One of the rulers would say, “You’re insane.”

“No, I’m not. And your friend over there knows I’m not, too.”

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

The Lord sends him into the city, which they were already near, but does not give him any further instructions so this is a time of waiting for Paul. We know that they could hear Jesus, but only Paul saw Jesus, because it says –

The men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

In fact, later on Paul in his summaries said that they did not hear the voice, meaning that, as happened a number of times, they heard the “wa-wa-wa-wa” but they didn’t discern it as human speech and they didn’t actually see Jesus. That was reserved for Paul.

In the Greek, noise/sound/voice kind of all go together, so they could have heard the sound of a voice without discerning words. That would fit with the language.

That also fits with the scriptural idea that we can hear and not hear. We can hear the voice of Jesus and not hear the voice of Jesus, like in the parables.

It also adds to the eyewitness effect that, “Yes, we heard something.” It used to be popular back at the turn of the previous century – in fact, I picked up a commentary by F. F. Bruce, of all people, where he actually condescends to, “Now, what exactly was the experience he had? Some say epilepsy.”

That is so old. That is so early 20th century that anyone had said that, but people try to find an explanation because even critics have to recognize, if they’re going to admit Saul’s existence as a historical character, that he goes from being a persecutor to being the chief evangelist of Christianity, so what happened?

They start looking for weird, bizarre explanations like he had an epileptic fit in which he mistook his dreams for reality in this trance-like state. He sees something he thinks is Christ, carries it back into reality, and that changed his life.

I don’t think any epileptic would ever believe that story.

I don’t think so either, but in the early 20th century we didn’t know much about epilepsy. It was considered more weird than anything, and even medicine was still trying to figure it out. In fact, a lot of the passages that speak of demon possession were written off as epileptic fits.

But here we see Paul make his first step in obedience. He rises as he was told to. He cannot see, though, and has to be led by others to be able to obey, but they do. He does tell them what he needs, presumably, and he has to wait for three days.

Yes, three days, and dare we add in three nights. He’s living out the experience of our Lord. Saul is dying and someone new is being born again.

I think we should probably stop it there. This is a good spot. We’ll leave Saul in his blindness and we’ll come back to his re-birth. We will all wait with him. Shall we sign off with some recommendations?

Sure, Emily. You go first.

Okay. Mostly I just don’t recommend getting the stomach flu four times in six months. It’s been not fun, but here I am again recommending sparkling water. I don’t know if we’ve actually mentioned on the podcast yet that I’m expecting another child. It seems like a tradition that every time I’m expecting a child I recommend sparkling water on the podcast.

You do seem to like it extra when you’re pregnant.

Do you anti-recommend things like scrambled eggs?

I anti-recommend scrambled eggs not because of the eggs but because they are really hard to clean out of my pan, specifically. They are the perfect breakfast, and the pan is perfect for everything else. It’s like black magic, a brilliant pan for everything except scrambled eggs, and I don’t know what to do about that.

You get a second pan. You can actually have two of them, you know.

I’m trying to get things out of my kitchen right now. My kitchen is scaring me and it’s making me spend money.

You’re trying to get unnecessary things out. There’s a difference here.

That is true.

You can add necessary things as long as you take away two unnecessary things. Rachel?

What’s really funny is I’m going to recommend the pan that Emily was just talking about, without knowing she was going to talk about it.

It’s an amazing pan, is it not?

Yes. I was actually talking to your husband about it this past weekend. So the pan I’m going to recommend is from a company called Our Place, and it’s basically the best and only true fully-titanium pan out there that’s actually non-stick. It has no coating on it so there’s nothing that can start to get scratched and scraped and all of that.

It’s titanium that’s been etched with a design that, as long as you in theory use enough butter or oil or something, it keeps it all non-stick. We finally decided to invest and found one of their particular colors was on sale, so we got that, and we do indeed love it.

It’s super great. We had this titanium set before that was not actually titanium – well, it was titanium with Teflon. The whole point of looking for titanium was to not have Teflon for us. That’s something we value, is not having Teflon, so we felt a little hoodwinked for the seven years we were using these Teflon pans.

As those who have done a lot of research and discovered, most of them are gimmicks and not actually what they claim to be. As I’m learning, it’s important in your kitchen to invest in certain things that will last a long time.

Have the right tool for the right job. Life will be easier and you’ll find yourself complaining less, which is always a good thing.

I’ll complete the cycle by recommending that you grown-ups out there teach your children how to fry eggs and scramble eggs in a skillet, along with bacon, so that they’re not afraid of popping grease, and they can make breakfast for their mom. And teach them to use a toaster while you’re at it, or whatever you use for toasting bread.

Get your kids used to making breakfast. It will be great now. You can say, “We’re sleeping in tomorrow, and at exactly 9:00 you will bring in a full breakfast for us because we’ve taught you how. And you’re going to clean it up afterwards too to give your mother a day off.” Mom will like it.

I’ll say I never learned to fry eggs properly, so I never make fried eggs. I never was taught the skills.

Come visit us someday. I will teach you.

There’s also a great book, and I’m going to double up my recommendation, because I had more dis-recommendations than recommendations today, so I’m going to claim an extra one. It’s a cookbook, “How to Cook Everything: The Basics” by Mark Bittman. That’s how I learned to fry an egg. It’s not like my mom didn’t show me, but I didn’t have to cook for so long.

We never ate fried eggs. I didn’t know what an over-easy egg was until I was an adult. We just had scrambled eggs so I didn’t know they existed.

The things you learn…say good night, Emily.

Thank you both so much for this conversation. As always, it has been a pleasure. Thank you also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband who edits the podcast and makes it happen. He is the wizard behind the curtain.

Also a big thank you to our financial supporters who keep the show rolling in that way. We very much appreciate you.

Dear listener, if you would like to join their number you can visit patreon.com/haltingtowardzion, and you are always free to send us an email with any comments, questions, insults, rabbit trails, anything at all. Send those to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you. We look forward to seeing you next week.