A Reading From the Book of Acts
When Saul meets the resurrected Jesus on the route to Damascus, he is struck blind (9:8). While this blindness might exist explained as the result of the theophany (he looked into a bright low-cal and was physically damaged as a issue, Acts 22:xi more than or less unsaid this). Only it is likely the original readers of the volume of Acts would have thought this blindness was a judgment.
Both Greek and Jewish oft associated "being struck blind" with offending the gods/God. Keener (2:1640-2) offers a wide range of examples of this sort of judicial blindness. For case, Tiresias's blindness was cause by Saturnia, although he is given the gift of prophecy to compensate for his incomprehension (Ovid, Metanm.3.335). In the Hebrew Bible, the men of Sodom who endeavor to attack the angels are struck with blindness (Gen 19:11).
Perhaps the incomprehension is the event of the revelation Saul received. At the very to the lowest degree he learned Jesus is the messiah and he actually was raised from the expressionless. As a teacher trained in reading the Hebrew Bible, Saul would have interpreted the glorious calorie-free he saw every bit a theophany. This would immediately acquaintance Jesus with God in some very existent style. This revelation alone would take been shocking to Saul, but if more than revelation than this was given, then Saul experiences an encounter on a par with Moses at the burning bush-league in Exodus 3.
Luke may intentionally dissimilarity two blind men in the middle of the book of Acts. In Acts nine, Paul was persecuting the church and he is temporarily struck blind. Over 3 days he comes to fully realize what God has done through Jesus and he is chosen to be the "light to the Gentiles." When the three days are over he is free from his blindness, but in a sense he had been blind all along as he attacked those who were claiming Jesus was the messiah.
In chapter thirteen Luke introduces some other Jew who seeks to hinder the preaching of the Gospel, Elymas. I programme on returning to this story afterward, merely observe how this homo is blinded and has to be led away past the manus, very similar to Saul in Acts 9. The difference is Elymas does not recover, equally far as we know, and go a believer. He remains in his blind state, unable to see the truth of the Gospel.
Spiritual blindness is a well-known theme from the Hebrew Bible. In fact, Isaiah 6:9-x is the well-nigh important context for spiritual blindness since Isaiah describes the disability of Judah to respond properly to God in the eighth century B.C. While in that location is a remnant of believers, the nation equally a whole volition turn down the preaching of Isaiah. Jesus applies this verse in a very similar way to Pharisees in Matthew 13 as an explanation for teaching in parables, and later Paul will quote the poesy and apply information technology a third fourth dimension to the Jewish rejection of the gospel (Acts 28:25-28).
Saul was spiritually blind when he "saw the light" on the road to Damascus. Being healed from his physical blindness highlights his spiritual awakening. For the first time, Saul sees Jesus for what he really is, and his spiritual blindness is healed.
Source: https://readingacts.com/2015/02/13/acts-9-pauls-blindness/
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