Acts 8:3

‘But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house, and, dragging men and women, committed them to prison.'

There is a deliberate contrast here. While ‘devout men' were burying the fiery Stephen, Saul, the equally fiery disciple of Gamaliel, was determined to bury the whole church. Not one to wait around he had followed up his actions at the stoning by seeking authority from the High Priest to act against the new church (Acts 26:10; compare Acts 9:2 which confirms that he also later obtained the sanction of the High Priest to go to Damascus). Then taking with him a band of men, possibly temple police, he began to enter the houses of the new people of God and drag men and women to prison. He also arranged for many of them to be examined and beaten in synagogues (Acts 22:19) and sought to get them to blaspheme, possibly by cleverly making the simpler Christians say things which they did not understand, but which were seen as blasphemy, or possibly by making them renounce Christ (Acts 26:11). It appears that at this stage a number were put to death for blasphemy (Acts 26:10). He was a man driven by an awareness that,, with all that he was, it was not good enough for God. He had not done enough to deserve His favour. He must do more.

‘Laid waste, treated shamefully.' A strong word used of savaging by wild beasts. He was behaving like a wild beast himself. Here was religious zeal in its most twisted form. And yet it was the same zeal that would shortly make him the church's champion. His behaviour may well have denoted the wrestlings of his own conscience. Men often fight their own doubts by trying violently to prove to themselves that they are right.