Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
Ananias sent to the man he has heard about
Acts 9:10-19
10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias!” He said, “Behold, it’s me, Lord.” · WEB
A disciple is told to go and heal the man who came to arrest him, and objects — and the answer he receives is not reassurance but a job description.
The conversion is not completed on the road. It is completed in a house, by a man the book introduces and dismisses in ten verses and never mentions again. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. No office, no standing, no further history.
His answer to the call is the standard answer of Scripture — Behold, it's me, Lord — the same words Abraham, Moses and Samuel gave. The instructions that follow are unusually specific: a street called Straight, a house belonging to Judah, a man of Tarsus named Saul. Then two details that only God could supply. He is praying, and he has already seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in to lay hands on him. The two visions are being coordinated from one side.
Ananias' objection is not disobedience and the text does not treat it as such. Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he did to your saints at Jerusalem. The information is accurate and the fear is proportionate. He also knows the current warrants: Here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name — and Ananias is about to walk into a room and call on that name over the man holding them.
The reply does not address the danger. Go your way, for he is my chosen vessel to bear my name before the nations and kings, and the children of Israel. The word is a container, an instrument; the emphasis falls on what is carried rather than on the one carrying it. Three audiences are named, and the order is striking — the nations first, kings second, Israel last. The mission that will occupy the second half of this book is announced before its agent can see.
Then a second sentence that is not consolation at all: I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. Saul had been inflicting suffering for the sake of suppressing that name. The correspondence is exact, and it is presented as part of the commission rather than as a consequence of it.
What Ananias does with all this is the quiet heroism of the chapter. He departed and entered into the house, laid hands on him, and spoke two words before anything else: Brother Saul. The man who a week ago was a threat is addressed as family before he has been baptized, by someone who had every reason to keep a distance. Nothing in the commission required that word.
The healing and the filling are announced together, and the ordering of the account is worth marking: something like scales fell, he received his sight, he arose and was baptized. Only afterward does he take food and regain strength. Three days of blindness and fasting end with baptism first and breakfast second.
He then stays several days with the disciples who were at Damascus — the very people he had come to arrest, who now take him in on the word of one man's obedience.
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