Acts 9:31a “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.”

Peace, what is peace? Where does it come from? How is it made? The Romans enforced a common peace, a common law, and a common language. It was a peace that was brutally enforced. The Pax Romana held because of the quick enforcement of any who dared to break it. The blood of anyone who even hinted at non-peaceable ideas flowed easily and freely. Ironically, the Pax Christos was also carved out of blood, but instead of the blood of perpetrators and miscreants it was the blood of the instituter – a simple carpenter with royal and divine roots, Jesus.

In the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, the first 31 verses all deal with the conversion of Saul, the persecutor of any who would dare follow the teachings of a simple carpenter. Saul made his reputation chasing down and killing anyone who even hinted at devoting themselves to that teacher from Galilee, that infamous Nazarene. Saul tried to maintain the traditions, the teachings, the peace of his fellow Jews by doing the same thing the Romans did to any “troublemakers” and then Christ showed up, shocking Saul, carving and tenderizing the stone heart Saul had with the atoning blood shed by our Lord Jesus. The words Jesus spoke went right to the heart of Saul, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul's single-minded pursuit of protecting his beloved Judaism was not merely the persecution and traumatizing of people, but instead was hurting the Lord. Its the same with all Christians. Anytime any believer is hurt, Jesus hurts more. Anytime a single Christian is persecuted, Jesus is persecuted. The peace of Christ is founded on His blood, not ours. It is focused on His suffering, not ours. It is proclaimed by His words, not ours. We are blessed because we have a peace that was given to us and is shared by each and every one of us because of Christ. We as believers need to realize that our actions have no effect on Christ's gift towards us, and because of His sacrifice we need to look at each and every believer and act towards them how Jesus acted for and towards us. We are called to live by the peace that Christ maintains.

When Saul converted, his behavior changed, his attitude changed, and he went boldly forth preaching to the very same men he had turned other Christ-Followers to before. For his boldness, he received death threats, which he counted as only his due. His opinion, as was the same as all the other believers was that it was an honor to be reviled, to be persecuted, and to be hated because of Jesus. He shared in experiencing the same treatment as all the other believers of His time, and it brought them together. They shared in Christ's suffering, His persecution, His deliverance, His joy, and His peace.

We as believers now can learn from Saul and the early church. They always went straight back to the very words of Christ when any argument started up. They did not squabble over doctrinal ideology or various interpretations by whatever various preachers they had around. They had no time for such foolishness because it was their blood being shed for the Pax Romana; it was their families being sold on the slave blocks, and it was their faith that led them marching and singing and praising God to the very teeth of the lions and the gladiators in the Coliseum. They lived in the peace of Christ, no matter what storms of life blew through their world. The least we can do is the same. Their example shows us what true faith, what true trust, and what true sacrifice is.

Sing; my tongue, the glorious battle,
sing the ending of the fray;
now above the cross, the trophy,
sound the loud triumphant lay:
tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
as a victim won the day.