Acts 9:23-31

Welcomed as a Brother

Acts 9:23-31

He who feeds on Scripture must wax strong. The new convert started at once to testify of the Savior. We have no right to keep to ourselves the great treasures that we have discovered, but must copy the lepers of 2 Kings 7:9. He probably showed from a comparison between the predictions of the Old Testament and the facts of our Lord's life, that the key exactly fitted the wards of the ancient lock, and so proved its genuineness.

Those many days in Acts 9:23 probably include the three years spent in Arabia, Galatians 1:17. It was as though Paul wanted time and solitude for quiet thought. We may suppose that he went to Sinai, and there amid the silences of the school where Moses had studied before him, he received of the Lord Jesus that which also he was commissioned to pass on to the Church.

From Arabia, he returned to Damascus; then happened Acts 9:24-25. Finally he came to Jerusalem, where he had the opportunity of comparing his teaching with that of the Apostles, Galatians 1:18-24. A vision led him to leave Jerusalem, Acts 22:17-21.

While at Tarsus, he probably founded the churches in Cilicia, Acts 15:23; Acts 15:41.