Acts 9:26 English Standard Version

Saul in Jerusalem

26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

This Saul was known to them as a prosecutor of Christians. This is the same man that became loved by many who knew him as Paul. His experience is unusual in history but we all have been changed by the love of God. My story isn’t that dramatic, but more so than some others.

There are two people we witness our conversion to these days. The first is the ones that knew us before we placed our faith in Christ. The second are those who we have met for the first time.

My first encounter with God was when I was a troubled teen. He changed me in a powerful and dramatic way. Within myself I knew God to be God but the concept of making Jesus the Lord of my life was lost on me.

I accepted His Lordship after the death of my father. That was when repentance of a life lived in sin came to the altar of redemption. Those that I worked with saw the change in me. The closer to me they were the more they understood how it was that I changed. They lost the disrespect I had earned and began to respect who I had become.

At my 30th anniversary celenration at work my division director gave a rather glowing speech about my service to the company. Afterwards a woman that I did not work closely with came up to me and said, “I didn’t recognize who Dewey was talking about. I was surprised to see it was you.”

She knew the old me but never got to know the new me. She was not one to give people second chances. I only worked there for another year but during that time, she discovered I had changed and why.

I am sure Saul didn’t convince everyone of his conversion only because there were some that I hurt so deeply they would not accept that I had changed. One said to me, “I don’t have that much forgiveness in me.”

That is a tale of being known before and after. What do you say to a complete stranger?

Here is a little secret that is often overlooked in witnessing those that we have just met.

Let them know who you are before telling them what you were.

Build trust before showing your rust.

1 Corinthians 8:1-2 English Standard Version

Food Offered to Idols

1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

We all have knowledge but what makes anyone an academic?

As a noun it is a teacher or scholar in a college or institute of higher education. It is the institution that defines the academic.

The adjective is the pursuit of knowledge and its secondary definition explains its rhetorical irrelevance. “It’s largely academic.” That is knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Here we must come to terms with knowing Christ Himself rather than the literary work of the bible.

A man of letters knows letters but does he know Christ? He can but it will not be seen in his academic achievements, it will be seen in how he loves.

Academically there is much to be learned from the bible but it has no value if it does not answer the question “What am I to do with so great a love?”

1 John 4:7-12 English Standard Version

God Is Love

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

It is not a question of “if” God loves us, He has proven that to us. His love in us is transformative and we are not what we were.

That is our witness.