Читать книгу The Glad Tidings онлайн

31 страница из 51

“Concerning Zeal, Persecuting the Church.”

This is what Paul said of himself, in his Epistle to the Philippians. Phil. 3:6. How great his zeal was he himself tells. He says that he persecuted the church of God “beyond measure,” and “wasted it,” or, as in the Revision, “made havoc of it.” See also Acts 8:3. Before Agrippa he said: “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.” Acts 26:9-11. In an address to the Jews in Jerusalem, who knew his life, he said, “I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.” Acts 22:4. This he did because, as the previous verse says, he was “zealous toward God.” So full of this sort of zeal was he that he breathed nothing but “threatenings and slaughter.” Acts 9:1.