Scripture Reading: Acts 7:54-60, 8:1-3
If you were asked to name the man in the Bible who is the most familiar to you, who would you name? Probably some would name Daniel, or David. Some may say Moses or Noah. These are familiar and real men of God that we can read about in the Scriptures. In these lessons we are going to study about a man named Paul. Perhaps some of you have studied about Paul. All Scripture is important for us to study. It is God’s Word, and is Truth. However, the man named Paul is very important for us to study about, because Paul was a man that God used to give us a special message for today.
If you have read the Scripture verses given above, you may say that you didn’t find a man named Paul in this Scripture. You would be right. We see a man named Stephen, and a man named Saul. This man named Saul, is the same man that we are studying about. His name was Saul, but after he was saved and called by God for a special work, he is called by the name of Paul. Let’s notice something about Stephen. If you would take time to read the entire 7th chapter of Acts, you would see that Stephen was a man that truly loved the Lord and was trying to tell others about Him. He went through a long message to these Jewish people to tell them what all the Lord Jesus had done for them. Then he told them how wrong they were to reject God’s plans. This angered the people, and we find in verse 58, that they stoned Stephen to death. He died praying for them. This is a true account of a beautiful life. Stephen died proclaiming the love of God to the people.
However, in this same verse 54, we find the first mention of Paul (or Saul, as he was called here). Notice what he was doing, he was standing watching this terrible thing that was being done to a man of God. He even kept their coats for them while they stoned poor Stephen. In verse 1 of chapter 8, we see that Saul was consenting to this crime being done to Stephen. This means he was in favor, or would even help them to stone Stephen to death. He, like the others, was angered at any one who would tell about Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world. In verse 3, we see that Paul went around committing to prison anyone who would preach about Jesus as the Son of God.
This, then, is the first we learn about this man named Paul. He was a strict Jewish religious man, but not a Christian. He was not a believer in the Lord Jesus, at this time. He was even fighting the people who did believe.
Stephen was willing to give his life to tell others about Jesus’ dying for them. Others have done the same. Today, we don’t have to die in telling others about the Lord. We have this freedom and privilege to give out the story of our Lord Jesus who died on the cross for the sins of the whole world. Do you have Him as your Saviour? You can be saved just by believing in your heart that He died for you. In our next lesson ,we will see that Paul did accept Jesus as Saviour, and what a change it made in his life!
