Hi John,
I had always thought the reason Saul persecuted the Jews after they received the Holy Ghost was because they stopped keeping the law. Since the Jews were required by God to keep Moses’ law after they received the Holy Ghost, why did Saul persecute them?
Thank you,
Randell
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That is a very thoughtful question, Randell. It is one that I should have asked myself a long tome ago. Thank you for asking it.
One would think that Jewish believers would have been highly respected by their fellow Jews since believing Jews were devoted to the law (Acts 21:20). But Paul told the Thessalonians that believing Jews had suffered many things at the hands of other Jews (1Thess. 2:15). When you asked me this question, I realized for the first time that the Bible provides us with no clear answer for it.
Leaders of unbelieving Jews hated Jesus because they envied his popularity with the people. Even Pontius Pilate saw that they envied Jesus (Mt. 27:18). They invented a rule that forbade the sick to be healed on a Sabbath in order to condemn him, for they saw that he healed people every day. And they condemned him for claiming to be their Messiah. Maybe that is why Paul as a young man joined others in persecuting their fellow Jews who believed in Jesus. Maybe it was just a case of Jesus’ reproach falling on those who believed in him. They were certainly not hated because of immoral conduct.
It is fascinating to me that I had never considered that the Bible never tells us why believing Jews were so hated by their fellow Jews. They arrested Peter and John because they preached the resurrection from the dead, and many people believed them (Acts 4:1–4). They stoned Stephen because he told them that they were resisting the holy Ghost, and that he saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand (Acts 7:51–60). When Paul was a young Pharisee, he was commissioned to travel to Damascus to bind believers and return them to Jerusalem simply because they believed the gospel (Acts 9:1–2). Later, the Jews plotted to kill Saul because he had found out Jesus was the Messiah and was telling it in the synagogue (Acts 9:20–23).
In no case that I have found was there any justifiable reason given for the hatred and persecution. They were always hated for doing something that was actually good, or for testifying about Jesus. We are seeing more and more of this irrational hatred in our time. But let us continue in doing good in the sight of God anyway. The reward for doing that will far outweigh anything this world can throw at us, as Paul said, “I consider the sufferings of this present time to be unworthy of comparison with the glory that shall be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18).
Thank you for a great question!
Pastor John
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