Acts 9:1-22

Main Lessons from Acts 9:1-22
~ Unless God reveals Jesus Christ to us as our Lord, we will not recognise Him. (See also 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6.)
~ Paul's gospel of the crucified and resurrected Christ was given to him by God. Paul was appointed by God to be an apostle. (See also Galatians 1:1;11-17.)

Damascus

Damascus is “the oldest continually-inhabited city in the world and capital of Syria, located northeast of the Sea of Galilee.
“Damascus was situated on the border of the desert at the intersection of some of the most important highways in the ancient Near Eastern world. Three major caravan routes passed through Damascus. Major roads extended from the city to the southwest into Canaan and Egypt, straight south to Edom and the Red Sea, and east to Babylonia. Because of this ideal location, the city became a trade centre. Its major exports included a patterned cloth called ‘damask’. Egypt, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, as well as Canaan, were some of the trade neighbours that made Damascus the ‘heart of Syria’. Damascus owed its prosperity to two rivers, the Abana and the Pharpar. These rivers provided an abundant source of water for agriculture. …

“In 64BC, the Romans invaded Syria, making it a province with Damascus as the seat of government. … During [the time of Saul’s conversion and ministry], the city was part of the kingdom of Aretas, an Arabian prince who held his kingdom under the Romans.”

[From Youngblood, R.F. (ed) (1986) “Damascus” Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary.]

While Damascus is generally considered part of Syria, when Paul spoke of his three years in Arabia and Damascus before he went to Jerusalem and met with Peter (Galatians 1:17-18), this may have meant that he was in the region close to Damascus for the entire time, because Damascus was at the time part of a Roman-controlled Arabian principality.

Straight Street in Damascus, in modern times:[Image from Youngblood, R.F. (ed) (1986) Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary p323.]

Map of the Near East in the First Century AD

This map shows many of the places mentioned in Acts. Click on the image to see it enlarged.
[Map source: Marshall, I.H. (1980) Acts pg 16.]

Significance of Ethiopia

"The Jews regarded Ethiopia as “the extreme boundary of the habitable world in the hot south”. … The Ethiopia of those days corresponded to what we call “the Upper Nile”, reaching approximately from Aswan to Khartoum. … Candace is known to have been not a personal name but a dynastic title for the Queen Mother who performed certain functions on behalf of the king. The Ethiopian eunuch to whom Philip was sent was her treasurer or chancellor of the exchequer, presumably a black African. [It is likely] that he was actually Jewish, either by birth or by conversion (cf the promise of Isaiah 56:3-7 with the prohibition of Deuteronomy 23:1), for the Jewish dispersion had penetrated at least into Egypt and probably beyond.”

[From Stott, J.R.W. (1991) The Message of Acts pg 160.]

Significance of the Samaritans

“The Jews regarded the Samaritans as heretical outsiders. … The hostility between Jews and Samaritans had lasted a thousand years. It began with the break-up of the monarchy in the tenth century BC when ten tribes defected, making Samaria their capital, and only two tribes remained loyal to Jerusalem. It began steadily worse when Samaria was captured by Assyria in 722 BC, thousands of its inhabitants were deported, and the country was re-populated by foreigners. In the sixth century BC, when the Jews returned to their land, they refused the help of the Samaritans in the rebuilding of the temple. Not till the fourth century BC, however, did the Samaritan schism harden, with the rebuilding of their rival temple on Mount Gerizim and their repudiation of all Old Testament Scripture except the Pentateuch. The Samaritans were despised by the Jews as hybrids in both race and religion, as both heretics and schismatics. John summed up the situation in his simple statement that “Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (John 4:9). Jesus’ sympathy for them, however, is already apparent in Luke’s Gospel (eg Luke 9:52-56; 10:30-37; 17:11-19).

[From Stott, J.R.W. (1991) The Message of Acts pp 144, 147-8.]