Acts 8:3-5
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
3 Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the church;[a] entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment.(A)
III. The Mission in Judea and Samaria
Philip in Samaria. 4 Now those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.(B) 5 Thus Philip went down to [the] city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them.(C)
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- 8:3 Saul…was trying to destroy the church: like Stephen, Saul was able to perceive that the Christian movement contained the seeds of doctrinal divergence from Judaism. A pupil of Gamaliel, according to Acts 22:3, and totally dedicated to the law as the way of salvation (Gal 1:13–14), Saul accepted the task of crushing the Christian movement, at least insofar as it detracted from the importance of the temple and the law. His vehement opposition to Christianity reveals how difficult it was for a Jew of his time to accept a messianism that differed so greatly from the general expectation.
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