Down the Wall in a Basket

“One night, however, his disciples took him and lowered him in a basket through a window in the wall.” — Acts 9:25

Saul kept preaching about Jesus in Damascus, and many people listened. But some of the leaders there were furious. The man who was supposed to arrest Christians had become a Christian himself!

So they made a plan to kill Saul. Day and night, they watched the city gates, waiting to catch him when he tried to leave.

But Saul found out about their plot.

Damascus had a huge wall all around it. Some houses were built right into the wall, with windows looking out over the edge. So one night, Saul’s friends put him in a big basket, tied ropes to it, and let him down through a window in the city wall! The basket swung down the outside of the wall, all the way to the ground. And Saul escaped into the dark.

The man who had come to Damascus to drag Christians off to prison now had to escape from Damascus in a basket, like a parcel!

Saul went back to Jerusalem. He tried to join the followers of Jesus there. But they were all afraid of him. They didn’t believe he had really become a follower of Jesus. They thought it might be a trick, so that he could find them and arrest them.

Who could blame them? Saul had dragged their friends off to prison. He had watched Stephen die.

But one man was brave enough to give Saul a chance. Do you remember Barnabas, the “Son of Encouragement”? Barnabas took Saul and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road, and how the Lord had spoken to him, and how Saul had preached boldly about Jesus in Damascus.

Because Barnabas stood up for him, the believers welcomed Saul. He stayed with them, and went all around Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.

But soon some people wanted to kill Saul in Jerusalem too. So the believers took him down to the coast and sent him home to Tarsus, the city where he had grown up.

Then the church all over Judea, Galilee and Samaria had a time of peace. It grew stronger, and more and more people became followers of Jesus.

Everybody needs a Barnabas: someone who believes in them and gives them a chance. And we can be a Barnabas for other people.

Read it in your Bible: Acts 9:23–31

Dear God, thank you for the people who have encouraged me. Please help me to be like Barnabas: to give people a chance, to stand up for them, and to welcome them. Amen.