TUESDAY September 27

Saul in Damascus

During Saul’s encounter with Jesus, he was blinded and then instructed to go to the house of a man named Judas and to wait there for another man, Ananias. No doubt Saul’s physical blindness was a powerful reminder of the greater spiritual blindness that led him to persecute the followers of Jesus.

The appearance of Jesus to him on the Damascus road changed everything. Where Saul had thought he had been so right, he had been dead wrong. Rather than working for God, he had been working against Him. Saul entered Damascus a different man than the proud and zealous Pharisee who had left Jerusalem. Instead of eating and drinking, Saul spent his first three days in Damascus in fasting and prayer as he reflected on all that had happened.

Read Acts 9:10–14. Imagine what must have been going on in the mind of Ananias: not only was Saul, the persecutor, now a believer in Jesus, he was also Paul, God’s chosen apostle to take the gospel to the Gentile world (see Acts 26:16–18).

No wonder Ananias was a little confused. If the church in Jerusalem was hesitant to accept Paul some three years after his conversion (Acts 9:26–30), one can imagine what questions and concerns filled the hearts of the believers in Damascus only days after the event!

Notice, too, that Ananias was given a vision by the Lord telling him the surprising and unexpected news about Saul of Tarsus; anything less than a vision might not have convinced him that what he was told about Saul was true—that the enemy of the Jewish believers had now become one of them.

Saul had left Jerusalem with the authority and commission of the chief priests to root out the Christian faith (Acts 26:12); God had, however, a vastly different commission for Saul, one that rested on far greater authority. Saul was to take the gospel to the Gentile world, an idea that must have been even more shocking to Ananias and the other Jewish believers than was the conversion of Saul himself.

Where Saul had sought to curtail the spread of the Christian faith, now God would use him to spread it far beyond anything that Jewish believers ever would have imagined.

Read 1 Samuel 16:7, Matthew 7:1, and 1 Corinthians 4:5. What is the message of these texts in regard to why we must be careful in how we view the spiritual experience of other people? What mistakes have you made in your judgments about others, and what have you learned from those mistakes? Notes

Mathew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

1 Corinthians 4:5
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

1 Samuel 16:7
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

olumisti wrote:Mathew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Adakah menilai tingkah laku seseorang itu termasuk menghakimi?
Adakalanya kita terpaksa menghakimi seseorang terutama mempertimbangkan sama ada orang itu layak (sesuai) untuk menyandang tugas penting dalam gereja. Apa komen anda?

Kristian sering dituduh "menghakimi" setiap kali mereka bersuara menentang perbuatan dosa.

Yohanes 7:24 Jangan menghukumi penampilan, tetapi hakim dengan penilaian yang betul.

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

Apabila Yesus memberitahu kita untuk tidak menghakimi (Matius 7:1), Dia memberitahu kita untuk tidak menghukumi seperti hipokrit.

Jika orang yang beriman melihat seseorang berdosa, adalah kewajipannya bersemuka dengan dosa dengan penuh kasih sayang dan hormat (Matius 18:15-17). Ini bukanlah menghakimi, tetapi sebaliknya menunjukkan kebenaran dengan harapan dan matlamat untuk membawa orang lain bertaubat (Yakobus 5:20)

Kita hanyalah menyampaikan apa yang Firman Tuhan katakan tentang dosa. 2 Timotius 4:02 mengarahkan kita, "mengajar Firman disediakan pada musim dan luar musim; memperbetulkan, menegur . . ."

Oleh kerana hanya Allah sahaja yang tahu hati seseorang, kita tidak boleh menilai sama ada "orang yang beriman" adalah benar-benar diselamatkan = bertobat atau tidak. Dalam konteks ini, kita tidak boleh menghakimi dan menghukumi.