The Tragedy of Friendly Fire

This sermon looked at Saul’s persecution of Christians in Acts 9 as a tragic case of friendly fire; a zealous but misguided attempt to protect God’s people by attacking the very movement that God was using to fulfill His promises. Drawing on Saul’s own background, Old Testament examples like Phinehas, and Paul’s later reflection in Philippians 3, we learn how zeal without Christ leads to the contamination of God’s people rather than to our purity. The sermon warned against weaponizing Scripture without the interpretive lens of Jesus and the Spirit, urging humility, prayerfulness, and discernment in our stewardship of God’s Word. Just as Saul had to be blinded to see clearly, we too must be reoriented by Christ to rightly identify who the enemy really is and how that enemy is to be properly engaged.