A WORD FOR TODAY, January 23, 2026
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, January 23, 2026
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Lord, open my lips. My mouth will declare your praise. For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart.” Psalm 51:12-17, WEB
The church has recognized this week as the week of Christian unity. We began this week with the Confession of Peter, the remembrance of Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” an answer that came only by the grace of God. Peter’s faith in Jesus came because the truth was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. Peter’s confession was the foundation of the Church, and the Church continues because by His grace, God reveals Jesus to His people, so that they will confess faith in Him. Our unity is found only in and by this confession. When asked “Who do you say that Jesus is,” our answer is like Peter’s, “He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” We struggle with unity in many other ways, but it is this confession that hold’s Christ’s Church together throughout time and space.
The week ends with the Conversion of Paul, which is celebrated this coming Sunday. Paul came to faith in a different way than Peter. Peter lived and walked and worked with Jesus in the flesh. He was part of His earthly ministry: Peter believed Jesus as He followed Him for three years. Paul, on the other hand, rejected Jesus from the very beginning. He persecuted the Christians. Jesus was revealed to Paul in a most miraculous way, on the road to Damascus when the resurrected and living Christ appeared to Him. Jesus called Paul to a new life and Paul was transformed.
The story of Paul is amazing. When Jesus appeared to him, he was transformed into the greatest Christian apostle. Much of the book of Acts records his adventures, and thirteen of the epistles in the New Testament are attributed to him. He encouraged faith and helped the new Christians better understand how to live their faith in the world. They were confused and uncertain about what it meant to follow Jesus, but Paul taught them about the grace of God and the cruciform life we are to live. We are equally confused and uncertain, which is why we look to Paul for advice and understanding.
Paul’s name was Saul until Acts 13:9 when he began his ministry to the Gentiles; before then he persecuted Christians. He was zealous for the traditions of his fathers, doing everything he could to put a stop to the Way. He was successful, advancing quickly through the hierarchy of the religion of the Jews. He had Steven stoned and then went toward Damascus. He had letters giving him the authority to destroy the Church and any who were following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul had already been actively involved in the fight against the Way by the time he encountered Stephen. As a matter of fact, he was a leader in the movement (Acts 8:1). Saul was probably on his way to Damascus because many of the Christians fled to there from Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen.
He was stopped on the road by a blinding light and the words of the Master, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He heard the Word of God and was cut to the heart. “Who are you, Lord?” he asked, knowing any voice from heaven must be from God. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise up and enter into the city, then you will be told what you must do.” Saul did as he was told and fasted for three days until Ananias arrived to lay hands on him for healing and so that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. Saul was baptized and immediately began preaching the truth about Jesus Christ. He became Paul, the apostle to the nations.
Paul saw the joy of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. He willingly suffered for the sake of all those who came to know Christ through his preaching. The experience on the road to Damascus could have made Paul feel sorry for himself, after all it changed everything. Jesus turned his life upside down. The successful, even powerful, Pharisee became a man who was persecuted, hunted, rejected, ignored, beaten, imprisoned, and eventually martyred. He could not see, and he was being called to go against everything he knew to be right and true. Like the father on the television show, Paul saw the light of his own failure and was transformed by the grace of God. Paul certainly knew the words of the psalmist as a Pharisee, but after his conversion he began to sing it with a faith that only comes from God’s grace, a faith that we have received through the Word that has been spoken to us by witnesses of the Gospel like Paul.
We begin the week with Peter and end with Paul because the unity is found in their confession of faith in Jesus, yet we are also reminded that there are many differences between the two. Peter was a fisherman; Paul was a highly educated religious figure. Peter was not uneducated, but his life focused around manual labor and simple Jewish faith. Paul was a man of the world, both Jewish and Greek, focused on strict adherence of the Mosaic Law. Peter followed Jesus with just a word; Paul was dramatically called to faith and discipleship. Peter’s faith grew over three years, but Paul’s came miraculously one day as he was on his way to destroy the Church. While both ministered to the Church as a whole, Peter was sent to the Jews and Paul was sent to the Gentiles. Peter and Paul disagreed, but they learned to work together for the benefit of God’s Kingdom and His people.
We are reminded this week that we don’t all come to faith in the same way. We don’t all serve God in the same way. We don’t always agree with one another about aspects of our Christian life, but we are unified by the confession of our faith in Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus? He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God who lived and died for our sake, raised to new life so we can be transformed into the people God has created us to be. We might come to faith slowly, one step at a time, or have a miraculous moment when God reveals Jesus to us, but we are called to glorify Him in all we do, learning to work together with other Christians as best we can to share His grace and light with the world.
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