Contemplative Bible Reading

Acts 8:3 (New Living Translation)

But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.

Saul, later to be the Apostle Paul, was trying to destroy this new group of persons who followed after Jesus of Nazareth. He was being the ultimate Jew.

Note, however, what this ultimate Jew was doing to persons. He was putting them into prison. In Jewish law, there were no prisons—only punishment by the community. Prisons were an invention of the Gentiles.

The ultimate Jew was punishing other Jews with Gentile inventions.