Acts 9:15

Acts 9:15. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way. The Lord here repeats His command, and calms the troubled mind of Ananias, by telling him that the well-known persecutor had been chosen in the counsels of Eternity to advance in a strange way His great cause.

He is a chosen vessel. The idea, though not the word (here used for vessel), is an Old Testament one: the clay in the potter's hand to mould or to mar, as it seemed good to the potter; the clay to be fashioned, as it pleased the potter, into vessels of honour or dishonour, as in Jeremiah 18:4; Isaiah 45:9; Isaiah 45:11.

The words here used by the Lord to Ananias, speaking of Saul as ‘a chosen vessel,' were no doubt repeated by Ananias to Saul, who, in after days, often uses the same imagery (see Romans 9:21-23; 2 Corinthians 4:7; 2 Timothy 2:20-21).

To bear my name before the Gentiles. This especially was to be the chief work of the God-appointed missionary. How clearly ‘Paul' subsequently saw that this was his great and special duty, his whole life-work shows us; his words too, as in Galatians 1:15-16. To this mighty end, viz. the giving light to the Gen - the world hitherto shrouded in clouds and thick darkness, Paul and the martyred Stephen were the first to recognise that the whole Jewish scheme was subservient, was but the preparation for it.

Kings. Saul fulfilled this when he appeared before King Agrippa II. and Queen Bernice at Cæsarea, when he stood before the Emperor Nero at Rome, when he pleaded before the tribunals of the Roman governors Sergius Paulus, Gallio, Felix, and Festus.

The children of Israel. It was Paul's custom first, we know, ever to tell the story of the redemption to the children of Israel in every city where there was a synagogue or congregation of the chosen people.