Acts 9 and the Adventure of God

Acts 9 (Click to read)

There are few passages of Scripture that display the unpredictability of God as clearly as this one. Paul was the greatest missionary in the history of the Christian church, the embodiment of Christian humility, compassion, and zeal. Indeed, Paul’s ministry is so stunning that we often forget what he never forgot, that Paul was once Saul. Saul was the greatest enemy of the early church. It seems he orchestrated the stoning of Stephen. He ravaged the homes of Jerusalem Christians and drug men and women, fathers and mothers, off to the dungeons for their commitment to Jesus.

We’ve already read of some peculiar divine strategies like sending Philip into desert to meet a eunuch. In fact, the whole book of Acts is an exercise of unpredictability, but this blows everything out of the water. The Pharisaical terrorist, the number one perpetrator of anti-Christian hate crimes in a moment is converted to faith in the Jesus he hated. So outrageous is God’s plan that Ananias can’t believe it, the apostles and Christians in Jerusalem can’t believe it, even Peter who in next few verses has the faith to raise a lady from the dead just can’t believe it. But God is a God without limitations to his power. He can raise dead people, and he can transform evil people. When you work with a God like that, there is no telling what will happen. Standard procedure may be tossed out the door at any given moment.

It’s a scary business working for such a God, for who knows where and to what he will call you. But it is a exciting adventure. It makes me wonder. Is this sense of adventure, this anticipation of the unpredictability of an almighty God often lost on us? I was pondering the other day what would happen if I prayed, like Peter, for a person who just died to come back to life, and it actually happened. Though you could never say until it happened, my guess is that most Christians would not meet the news with grateful joy but with cold skepticism. They’d think I’m nuts or a liar. Of course, I’m not advocating that we throw discernment aside and eagerly accept all claims of supernatural acts. But it seems that we almost presume to know the full agenda of God. We know exactly where he is going and how he is going to get there. There are certain lines that he simply cannot cross. I mean everybody knows that once an auditorium is 80% full people will stop coming, that only 10% of your congregation will ever be evangelistic, that mortally sick people don’t get well, and dead people don’t come back to life. Certainly there does seem to be common patterns, but as co-workers of the Savior of the world maybe we should assume that those lines are pencil not ink. Ink lines are predictable and safe, but when the lines are in pencil a knock on the door, a text message, a trip back home could change your life forever and all the world with it.