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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Zeal for God and the law
Zeal meant burning loyalty to God and his law, and its heroes, Phinehas, Elijah and the Maccabees, had used force against those who betrayed it. Saul the persecutor saw himself in that line.
Arguing with people who betrayed the cause was not enough for him; he would stop them, whatever it took. In Jewish memory, zeal was the passion of heroes who defended God's honor by action. Phinehas speared an Israelite who brought idolatry into the camp. Elijah killed the prophets of Baal. The Maccabees took up arms against a pagan king. In Paul's day, to be zealous for the law could mean being ready to use force against Jews who seemed to betray it. Later, some Jewish rebels against Rome called themselves Zealots.
Wright traces the tradition. Phinehas's spear in Numbers 25 was the defining moment of zeal, and Psalm 106 says it was reckoned to him as righteousness. In Wright's words, "Zeal was the outward badge of the unbreakable relationship." Elijah was the other great model, and 1 Maccabees 2 couples him with Phinehas. The feast of Hanukkah kept the zeal of Judas Maccabaeus fresh. The Palestinian picture of zeal was rooted in Phinehas and the Maccabees, who were willing to kill for God. In Josephus, Mattathias kills a Jew who sacrificed at the king's command. Then he cries out, "If," said he, "any one be zealous for the laws of his country, and for the worship of God, let him follow me." Some models of zeal for the law used violence. By AD 66 some nationalists called themselves zealous after Phinehas and the Maccabees, and one faction in the Judean revolt was known as the Zealots. Saul arrested women as well as men, which shows him more zealous than most of his contemporaries thought necessary. Wright describes Saul as prepared to go further than the high priest had envisaged. He calls the Pharisees a populist pressure group without official power. Paul later acknowledged his zeal, and others knew him by it. The men who stoned Stephen thought they were cleansing the city (Wright). By the late 50s Agrippa I's reign had fanned Judean nationalism, and many believers in Jerusalem were zealous for the law. Sicarii were then murdering aristocrats suspected of collaborating with Gentiles.
An analogy: a vigilante who thinks the authorities are too soft on traitors and takes the matter into his own hands. He sees himself as the most loyal citizen of all.
Saul's raids on believers, as in Acts 8:3, are zeal in the old sense, loyalty to God shown by force. Paul looks back on it in Galatians 1:13-14 and lists his zeal in persecuting the church among his former credentials in Philippians 3:6.
Not an outlaw. A vigilante defies the law, but zeal had Scripture on its side: Phinehas's spear was reckoned to him as righteousness, and Elijah and the Maccabees were national heroes. Zeal meant defending God's honor, often by force, against fellow Jews who seemed to compromise it.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-7-54-8-3\/","n":"Acts 7:54-8:3, The stoning of Stephen","s":"Stephen sees the Son of Man standing at God's right hand, and his hearers drag him out and stone him while a young man named Saul looks after their coats. Persecution scatters the church.","r":"Acts 7:54-8:3"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-9-1-31\/","n":"Acts 9:1-31, Saul on the Damascus road","s":"Carrying the high priest's letters to the synagogues of Damascus, Saul is stopped by a light and a voice. Blinded, healed and baptized, the persecutor begins to proclaim Jesus and has to escape over the city wall.","r":"Acts 9:1-31"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/acts-21-17-26\/","n":"Acts 21:17-26, James, the rumors and the vow","s":"In Jerusalem James and the elders welcome Paul but warn him that thousands of believers zealous for the law have heard he teaches Jews abroad to abandon Moses. They ask him to pay for four men completing a vow and to purify himself with them in the temple.","r":"Acts 21:17-26"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/romans-10-1-21\/","n":"Romans 10:1-21, How beautiful are the feet","s":"Paul prays for Israel, whose zeal for God lacks knowledge, and argues from Scripture that the word of faith is near, that whoever calls on the Lord will be saved, and that heralds must be sent.","r":"Romans 10:1-21"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/galatians-1-11-24\/","n":"Galatians 1:11-24, Saul the zealot, Arabia, and fifteen days with Cephas","s":"Paul insists that his gospel came by revelation and not from human teachers, and tells of his zeal as a persecutor, his call, his time in Arabia and Damascus, and a short first visit to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas.","r":"Galatians 1:11-24"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/philippians-3-1-11\/","n":"Philippians 3:1-11, Dogs, mutilators, and a pedigree counted as loss","s":"Paul warns against teachers who press circumcision, calling them dogs and mutilators, lists his own credentials as a born Jew, a Pharisee and a zealous persecutor, and counts them all loss for the sake of knowing Christ.","r":"Philippians 3:1-11"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/titus-2-11-3-8\/","n":"Titus 2:11-3:8, Grace has appeared, be subject to rulers, and the washing of rebirth","s":"God's grace has appeared, training believers to live with self-control now while they wait for Christ's glorious appearing; they are to respect rulers and be gentle to all, because God saved them by his mercy, giving them new birth and new life by the Holy Spirit.","r":"Titus 2:11-3:8"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/james-1-19-27\/","n":"James 1:19-27, Slow to anger, and the widows and orphans","s":"James tells his readers to be quick to listen and slow to speak and to anger, to do the word and not merely hear it, and names the religion God accepts: care for orphans and widows in their distress and a life kept unstained by the world.","r":"James 1:19-27"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/james-3-1-4-10\/","n":"James 3:1-4:10, The tongue on fire, zeal and wars","s":"James warns would-be teachers that the tongue is a small fire set alight by hell, contrasts bitter envy and selfish ambition with the peaceable wisdom from above, traces fights and quarrels to desires at war within, calls friendship with the world enmity with God, and tells his readers to resist the devil.","r":"James 3:1-4:10"}
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 1, Zeal
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 21:20, 22:3 and Philippians 3:6
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 8:3 and 21:20-22
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One, comment on Acts 9:10-19a
- CSB Study Bible, note on Acts 9:1
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Galatians 1:13-14
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.6.2, trans. William Whiston
