For some days he was with the disciples in Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

Acts 9:19-20

On the heels of his conversion and baptism, Paul immediately proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God. Whereas his previous mission would have led him to the synagogues to root out any confession of Jesus as Messiah, Paul has become an ambassador of Christ’s lordship. No half-measures, no waiting around. Paul immediately gets to work to set the record straight regarding Jesus.

This is a telling snapshot. It reveals much about Paul’s character. In his excellent work, Paul: A Biography, N.T. Wright highlights the esteemed Hebrew virtue of zeal as perhaps Paul’s most essential characteristic. In the tradition of Phinehas from Numbers 25, Paul possessed zeal for God’s righteousness. And much like Phinehas before him, he was willing to shed blood in the name of God. And although his life was radically reoriented on the road to Damascus, his zeal for the Lord remains, channelled now toward announcing the Good News of God’s grace.

Paul’s zeal drives him to preach Jesus immediately. And this same zeal seems to have rubbed some people the wrong way.

And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

Acts 9:21-25

Paul confounds and confuses his opponents by “proving that Jesus was the Christ” — a term that carries the meaning of “join” or “put together.” As scholar John Polhill writes, this word “seems to picture his assembling Old Testament texts to demonstrate how Christ fulfilled them.” This zealous work prompts some Jews in Damascus to plot against Paul. I wonder if some of Paul’s former cronies are a part of the plan to murder him.

But the plan comes to light and Paul is delivered to safety, per the Lord’s plan. But verse 25 has another revealing detail: “but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.” It’s not just that Paul immediately begins preaching in the name of Jesus. This verse makes it clear that he also began immediately discipling people in the way of Jesus, teaching at an individual level, encouraging the believers, praying with and for the believers, helping them grow in “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God” so that they might be mature, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph. 4:13).

Zealous for proclaiming the name of the Lord.

Zealous for discipling others in the name of the Lord.

The picture of Paul that emerges here is one of power, conviction, and boldness. In a word, Paul is a man of great zeal.