NBC’s A.D. Episode 9 review “Saul’s Return”

A.D. — the Bible Continues. Episode 9 — Saul’s Return

OK, Episode 9…here we go…

I liked the struggle that Peter and the others have with accepting Saul. Just imagine it! Last week some guy was trying to have you arrested and beaten, this week you are to look at him as a brother?! That’s the offense of grace. God really does extend it to everyone. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he used the word enemies to describe what we once were. (Romans 5:10)

I thought the exchange between Saul and Peter was a bit overdramatized, but to be honest, I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t record every possible conversation Peter and Paul could have had.

But Matthew running off to join the zealots: That’s wrong. That didn’t happen but it’ll make for some Sunday night drama in these last episodes.

Caligula planning to put a statue of himself in the temple: That didn’t happen either. Caligula was that much of an egomaniac but in the mid-to-late 30s A.D., he had little to do with Israel.

On the other hand, the Prophet Daniel does speak about an abomination being placed in the temple, and a subsequent desolation. (Daniel 9, 11 & 12) Jesus does quote from Daniel when asked about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, (Matthew 24) but…there was no “Caligula” statue to incite their reaction. What happened was that in the 60s A.D. a faction of the Jews rebelled against Rome. Rome responded decisively by surrounding the city and sacking it in 70 A.D.

Most, if not all, Christians escaped the fall of Jerusalem. They had already fled. Why? Some suggest it was in response to an idol shrine the Roman Antiochus Epiphanes had erected near the temple’s altar. Others suggest that it was the massive presence of Roman standards (another idol?) outside the city. It seems to have been motivated by Jesus’ words quoting from Daniel. That’s what A.D. is hinting at, though they are about 30 years early.

Anyway, back to Peter and Paul…I mean Saul (he’ll change his name later)…

Last week I asked you to think about why people conspire together.

• Why did Japan conspire with Nazi Germany?
• Why did President Nixon conspire to tape conversations held in the Watergate Hotel?
• Why did President Clinton conspire to meet privately with Monica Lewinsky?

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Retired detective J. Warner Wallace, in his book Cold Case Christianity-states that conspiracy happens for three reasons: Power/Position, Money, & Pleasure.

People do not conspire together to become poor, to become hated, to be imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Obvious, right?

Why did Saul convert to the Christian faith? Here, I’m asking you to move past our Sunday night television show and consider the real Saul. He was a high-ranking leader in his religion. He was comfortable, respected, even feared. He had it made.

Can you think of any human reason, anything logical, understandable, to explain why Saul would turn his back on all he had aquired to become a Christian? He knew what Christian people were going through. There weren’t beautiful women waiting for him, no fat paycheck, no promotion.

This is important because there are many skeptics out there who suggest that Saul and Peter and John and the rest of the disciples conspired together for just those things. The skeptics suggest that these people met together; conspiring to lay the foundations for an institution they’d name after Jesus: “Christianity.” Within this organization they’d be in charge, here they’d live comfortably off of the offerings of others, here they could boss women around in the name of God (or Jesus) and here they could control the hearts and minds of those who were weak-minded enough to believe their story.

Not a bad idea. Material like this makes for a gripping Da Vinci Code-like stories. Maybe Jesus had a wife. Maybe Leonardo Da Vinci was trying to tell us that by painting the Apostle John the way he did. Maybe the “church” is trying to cover up the truth. Etc. Etc. Etc. There is no shortage of people who take this convenient way out of intelligently grappling with what happened after the death of Jesus.

But these charges of conspiracy do not address the facts.

Lets go back to Saul. Saul didn’t make a rational choice that day on the road to Damascus. He wasn’t walking along considering two options (to be or not to be). He did not conspire for power, money, or pleasure. That’s as silly as A.D.’s suggestion that he might have been delirious.

Saul made no choice at all. That’s the great thing about his conversion: He woke up that morning with plans for evil and pain.

God chose him. God came to him. God opened the eyes of faith and everything changed for Saul.

A.D. does a nice job of showing the struggle Christians may have been wrestling with: Was Saul lying, had he gone “undercover”, should they let him in? Even if he was being genuine, could he be forgiven? Still, what troubled me here was A.D.’s portrayal of Saul trying to talk Peter into working together to “do something great.” That begins to smell of conspiracy.

These men didn’t plan to do something great. They were simple witnesses; that’s it. A most horrible and violent thing had happened to someone they knew, someone who claimed to be God, someone who claimed that by this sacrifice their own peace would be remade with God. Grand promises! Three days later, that Someone was alive. The guards could not produce His closely guarded corpse. People who had been scared for their lives became brave. But not brave for battle, no one picked up weapons to usher in a new regime. These people, Stephen being one of the first, now saw pain and prison and death as inconsequential
when compared to sharing the message of the Resurrection.

Not that anyone looked for pain, prison, or death; but these things didn’t carry the weight they once did.

A few months later that same someone appeared to Saul.

Conspiracy for money, for power, or for pleasure does not explain the behavior of these people. This was not conspiracy. This was faith. Faith conceived and birthed by the Holy Spirit. God’s will that Saul and the rest of us not perish, but be saved by Christ.

We have three episodes left. I’m curious to see if A.D. places Peter firmly in charge of this growing Church. Also, keep an eye on Cornelius, the centurion to Pontius Pilate. We didn’t see him in Episode 8 but with a name like “Cornelius” I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of him.