Acts 9:10-12
Behold, I am here, Lord
The instructions are precise to the street and the house. Saul is already praying and has already seen Ananias coming in a vision of his own.
People of the Bible
Ananias of Damascus
Argued with the vision, went anyway, and called the man who had come to arrest him brother.
He is a certain disciple at Damascus, described elsewhere as a devout man according to the law with a good report of all the Jews there. He has heard of Saul, and what he has heard is accurate: how much evil he has done to the saints at Jerusalem, and that he has authority from the chief priests to bind everyone here who calls on the name. So when the Lord calls him in a vision and tells him the street, the house and the man, he does the reasonable thing and objects.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Ananias of Damascus
- 01
- 02
Acts 9:13-14
Lord, I have heard by many of this man
He states the case against going, and every word of it is true. The record of the objection is left in the text rather than tidied away.
- 03
Acts 9:15-16
He is a chosen vessel unto me
The answer does not deny the danger, it adds to it. The chosen vessel is told in advance how much he will suffer.
- 04
Acts 9:17-19
Brother Saul
The first word spoken to the church’s worst enemy by the church is a family word. Sight comes back, he is baptized, and he eats.
Why it matters
The objection is answered rather than overruled, which is worth noticing. Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me, and I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake. Then Ananias walks into the house where the most dangerous man in Judea is sitting blind, puts his hands on him, and opens with a word: brother Saul. Scales fall, sight returns, and the man who would write half the New Testament is baptized by someone the book never mentions again.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
