The Way
Let Down the Wall in a Basket
The man who boasted of his most shameful night
Story
Many days went by. The more Saul proved in the synagogues that Jesus was the Christ, the more the Jews of Damascus were thrown into confusion. At last they plotted to kill him. The governor under Aretas, the Nabataean king, was also guarding the city to seize Saul. Men watched the gates day and night.
But Saul learned of the plot. One night the disciples who had come to believe through his preaching put him in a large basket. They slowly lowered the basket through an opening in the city wall. Saul stepped down into the darkness below the high wall, and that is how he escaped from Damascus.
The man who had come to tie up disciples slipped away in a basket. Years later Saul, better known by the name Paul, told this very night in a letter to the church in Corinth. Paul wrote, “If I must boast, I will boast about my weakness.”
Walk this scene on the map →Words of the Lord and of Paul
If I must boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness.
In Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the city to arrest me, but I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
The disciples Saul had taught took him by night and lowered him in a basket down the city wall.
The sayings are fresh renderings of the original meaning in today's language. Text: Acts 9:23–25 · 2 Cor 11:32–33
Background
In Galatians, Paul writes that after his conversion he went to Arabia, came back to Damascus, and only after three years went up to Jerusalem. King Aretas ruled the Nabataeans, whose capital was Petra.
Pause and Reflect
Why am I so afraid of letting my weakness show?