Acts 9 - Conversion of Paul & Missions of Peter

Masaccio 1401-1428?

Saint Paul

from The Pisa Polyptych

1426

51x30cm

Museo Nazionale, Pisa



Saul's Birth and Upbringing



As Stephen was not the only one of the earliest Jerusalem Christians to suffer martyrdom, so Saul of Tarsus was not the only opponent of the Jesus movement active in harassment, even to the point of taking lives. Yet Luke singles out Stephen and Saul largely because the rest of his book will focus on Paul’s missionary activities, and his presence at Stephen’s murder will set the stage for his conversion.



Saul, who is introduced in Acts 7:58; 8:1 as “a young man” is the man whose subsequent life and career as a missionary of the gospel will resume in Acts 9 and occupy the rest of this book from chapter 13 on. In a speech recorded in ch. 22 of this book this same man tells us a little about his early life leading up to Stephen’s murder and continuing until his conversion, which is recorded in ch. 9.

3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city (Jerusalem). Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished” (Acts 22:3-5 NIV) .

The city called Tarsus in Cilicia was a very old city. The oldest mention we have of the city is from ancient Hittite texts from the time of Moses (Tarsa). Its area in those days belonged to an ancient kingdom called Kizzuwatna or Kummanni. From that region the famous Hittite king Hattusili III took his wife, Queen Puduhepa. This region, known in Roman times as Cilicia, as you can see from maps, is in the extreme southeastern part of what today is the Republic of Turkey. A detailed map of sites in the region shows it, as do historical maps reflecting Armenian control in the 11th century AD.



On the north and west it is surrounded by the high Taurus mountain range, which although it does not actually isolate Cilicia from the Turkish heartland to the N and NW, tends to make its most accessible neighbor the coastal area of ancient Syria across the gulf of Alexandretta to the east. In fact, historically Cilicia has been most often tied geo-politically to Syria on the east, rather than to inland Asia Minor to the north. Cilicia (and Tarsus) in Paul's day was heavily colonized by Jews.



We know Paul in the NT by two names: Saul and Paul. Since he was descended from the ancient Israelite tribe of Benjamin, the name Saul was a natural choice, since one of its most illustrious members was King Saul, the predecessor of David. Some have suggested that he took the name Paul on his conversion. But it is more likely that as a Jew born in Greek-speaking Asia Minor he was given both a Jewish name Saul and a Gentile (Graeco-roman) one Paulus. For strategic evangelistic purposes he ceased to use the Jewish name “Saul” once he began his Gentile mission. Some think this was because he wanted to appear more Roman as befitted his Roman citizenship, which he used often to the advantage of the Gospel. Others point out that in Greek the word σαῦλος saulos was used of the “wanton style of walking of prostitutes” (Leary cited by With. Acts 310 (n. 24)!



Saul’s parents may have moved to Jerusalem when he was still young, since Luke reports him as saying “I was brought up (ἀνατεθραμμένος) in this city [Jerusalem]” (Acts 22:3-5), and this claim would have had no point if local residents in his audience knew he had not lived there as a boy. Furthermore, according to Acts 23:16 he had a sister living there (cf. Witherington, Acts 669).



His claim in (Acts 23:6) to be “a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees” indicates that his parents associated with Pharisees after their move to Jerusalem. It is very natural that they would have affiliated with some party, the Pharisees being a natural choice. Parties like Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, were meaningless outside of Palestine, and it is very likely that Saul’s family in Cilicia had no affiliation of that kind. In Phil 3:5 Paul says his parents were “Hebrews”, since he styled himself a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (Ἑβραῖος ἐξ Ἑβραίων). So it was natural that during his Jerusalem days when he wished to have rabbinical training, he chose a Pharisee teacher in Gamaliel.



Young Saul was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5). His dual commitment to the “Written Torah”, the Old Testament laws as well as to the “Oral Torah” (torah she be-al pi), the rabbinical traditions, formed the basis for his eventual opposition to the believers in Jesus.



Saul may not have represented a very broad spectrum of Judaean Jews in his vigorous persecution of the believers in Jesus. We must be careful not to read any more into Luke’s account than he specifically claims. We know that over 5,000 Jews responded favorably at Pentecost, that later many priests believed, and that through the healings even more Jerusalemites joined the disciples.



Luke introduced Paul in the Book of Acts at the execution of Stephen. Now Stephen may not have said what the false witnesses claimed, but together with all the apostles, he placed Jesus (1) superior to the law and (2) superior to the Temple. Stephen claimed (3) that the fathers of the Jewish nation had always been rebellious.



Stephen's sermon was the last straw which touched off Paul's persecution of the church. What Stephen claimed about the temple and the law were not in themselves blasphemy. Everything hinged on whether or not Jesus was in fact the Messiah. For Jews in Paul’s day expected that the Messiah would make major changes, which might affect both temple worship and the way the law was applied.



Did Saul-Paul know Jesus? Had he heard him preach in Jerusalem? We cannot say for sure, and Paul never mentions it, but it is very likely that a boy who grew up in Jerusalem must have seen one of the public gatherings in which Jesus taught.



Did Saul-Paul know Jesus? Had he heard him preach in Jerusalem? We cannot say for sure, and Paul never mentions it, unless his statement “even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more” (2 Cor 5:16) refers to that. But it is very likely that a boy who grew up in Jerusalem must have seen one of the public gatherings in which Jesus taught.



What did the Pharisee Saul think of Jesus? Although many Pharisees criticized Jesus' teaching and actions, a few (Nicodemus) liked him. Jesus himself always made it clear that his being “superior to” the law only freed him from the current rabbinic interpretations of that law, not from that law itself! And similarly, it was in order to protect the sanctity of the Jerusalem temple that Jesus drove out the money-changers. His criticism of the Pharisees ““thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:13 NIV)” must have rankled many of the Pharisees, probably including Saul.

What did Saul think of the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, the “Christ”? Clearly he would not have persecuted the Christians, if he had believed Jesus was the Messiah. He may or may not have thought that Jesus' claim to be the Messiah was blasphemy and therefore worthy of death. But he certainly thought that claim was false and that his disciples by perpetuating the idea that he had risen from the dead and sitting on a throne in heaven were indeed doing something blasphemous. This was more than the relatively minor differences between Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots and Dead Sea covenanters. This was either a monstrous perversion of monotheism and unworthy to be called Jewish, or it was true! Saul was unwilling to entertain the thought that it might be true.

Critics have questioned how someone who studied under Gamaliel I, one of the most tolerant and lenient of the Pharisaic rabbis of his day, and whom we have seen in Acts 6 advised a tolerant, wait-and-see attitude toward the earliest Jesus-believers in Jerusalem, could have been such a violent persecutor of the same people.



Finally, we need to reflect on whether or not it is appropriate to speak of a “conversion” here, and if so what this means when the person “converted” already expected the Messiah, but just didn’t recognize Him.



In Christian art of the Middle Ages and later the theme of the humbling of Saul the persecutor was a popular one (cf. Bruce Corley, "Interpreting Paul's Conversion — Then and Now" in Road from Damascus: The Impact of Paul's Conversion on His Life, Thought, and Ministry, edited by Richard N. Longenecker, 1-17. Eerdmans, 1997). Paul the persecutor was depicted either as a ravenous wolf attacking a lamb, or as an arrogant soldier on horseback (see Corley, p. 7). See paintings on this subject by clicking on these links to Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Parmigianino, Dujardin, Schenk, and Xanto Avelli.



Saul's conversion (1-30)



This brings us to Acts ch. 9 and the first of three tellings of the story of Paul's confrontation by the Exalted Jesus on the Road to Damascus. Luke records Paul himself as telling the story in ch. 22 and 26, each with minor variations from the account here.





The place that it happened, near to Damascus, 135 miles from Jerusalem, is not mentioned directly in Paul’s own incidental allusian to his conversion (Gal. 1:15), but is inferred from his mention two verses later in Gal 1:17 of a “return” to Damascus.



3 In his speech in Acts 22:6 Paul says it happened “about noon”. The great light from heaven blinded him (Acts 9:8; 22:11) and he fell to the ground, stunned. Before Agrippa in Acts 26:13 Paul said it was “brighter than the sun”. Lightning storms breaking around one on the road are often thought to indicate divine displeasure. This is as early as the Hittite king Mursili II in Moses’ day, and as late as Martin Luther’s experience in a lightning storm which led him to pray to St. Anne and vow to enter a monastery.



A. F. Segal (in Charlesworth [ed.], The Messiah 336) points out that Luke in Acts distinguishes the appearance of the risen Jesus to Paul on the Damascus Road (Acts 9) from the resurrection appearances to the Eleven: the former being a “vision” (Gk. optasia), the latter physical appearances. Paul himself makes no such distinction when in 1 Cor 15 he concludes the chronological listing of those who saw the risen Lord by mentioning himself as “one born out of due time”. If by “vision” one means something unreal or imaginary, Paul would not call it a “vision”. But by the word “vision” Luke and Paul do not mean something imaginary, but simply a supernatural ability to see a reality others do not and cannot see.



4 Prostrate on the ground and blind, he heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The twofold repetition of his name indicated urgency and reproachment. Before Agrippa, Paul added that the voice said: “It hurts you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). Witherington (p. 311, following Wilson Paul), claims that this proverb is Greek in origin, not Jewish or Aramaic, and that Luke or Paul insert it before Agrippa or Festus, because they would have recognized and understood it. He furthermore claims that “Jesus surely did not use [it] when he spoke to Saul originally”. Yet Jesus grew up on Galilee among farmers and in his parables used all sorts of agricultural and farming images. It is incredible that one should exclude the possiblity that he would use such a colorful and vivid way of conveying to Saul the painful futility of his struggling against God!



When Jesus spoke to Saul from heaven he did so in Aramaic (Acts 26:14), and Saul/Paul used Aramaic to address the crowds in Jerusalem (Acts 21:40; 22:2). It was not, as Conybeare thought (Life & Epistles of Paul, 24-25), that God somehow punished the Jews by making Greek and Latin the exclusive vehicles of Christian ministry! Jesus spoke this way to Saul, just as he did through the “tongues” at Pentecost to the foreign visitors, not because they could not understand Greek, for they all could do so, but in order to personalize the message, to show that it was directed at them as individuals. Aramaic was the language Paul's mother spoke to him as a child.



But it was the word “me”, coming from heaven, that must have alarmed Paul to the roots of his being. Who was this speaking? Terrified, he knew the answer before it came! Who else could it possibly be, but the One that Stephen in his final minutes said he saw “standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56)?



5 The voice had asked a question: “Why…?” An answer was expected! Paul had never had a problem justifying his hounding of the Jesus-people before. It was so easy, even something to explain with pride. But now! How to answer a Voice from Heaven? Trembling, in the same Aramaic tongue he asks the question whose answer he fears that he knows: man att mar “Who are you, Lord?” The word “Lord” (Aramaic mar, which Luke renders with Greek κύριε) can, of course, just mean “sir”, but when addressed to the voice from heaven, it had to carry a deeper meaning. And who was Saul “persecuting” but those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, killed, risen from the dead and exalted to heaven? This voice said “me”!



The dreaded answer came: “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting”! Paul had thought he was persecuting apostates, but now he knows that it was Jesus himself that he was persecuting, and that Jesus is what he had claimed to be: the exalted Messiah in heaven. Paul’s teacher Gamaliel had warned the Sanhedrin not to harm Jesus’ disciples lest they turn out to be “fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39). Now Paul heard from the very voice of God in heaven: “It is painful for you to kick against the goads!” (Acts 26:14). God had been goading Saul like a stubborn ox to get him to believe, and like a stubborn ox he had been kicking against God’s goading and bringing only pain upon himself. He had indeed been fighting against God, as Gamaliel had warned he might be! What was the punishment for fighting against God?



But now came the ray of hope for forgiveness: “But arise and go into the city [of Damascus], and it will be told you what you must do.” Before Agrippa Paul says that Jesus added:

“But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:16-18).

The shorter version of ch. 9 is undoubtedly what the voice actually said: the longer version to Agrippa is based on what God said about Saul to Ananias in Acts 9:15-16, and was Paul’s bridge from the story proper to his defense against the Jews charging him in Agrippa’s court. The introduction of this “what you are to do” is what makes this incident more than a conversion: it is also a call, and that to a Gentile mission. This is certainly how Paul himself describes it:

“But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus.”

(Gal 1:15-17 RSV)

7 Why do you think Luke records v. 7? And why does Paul mention it again with minor variations in his speech to the Jerusalem crowd in Acts 22:9? Not just because Jesus’ message was a private one for Saul—which of course is true—but because some of them probably told their friends back in Jerusalem that they didn’t see or hear what Saul claimed he did, casting doubt on the miracle and on the geniuneness of Saul’s experience. Bammel (BA-PS, 361 w. n. 17) suspects that Paul’s companions went on with the plan to extradite the Messianic Jews from the Damascus synagogues, giving little credence to his alleged experience.



8-9 Blinded, Saul had to be led by the hand into Damascus, and remained in the house of a Jew named Judas in the street called Straight, alone and shut into his own dark world for three days to contemplate what he had done and what judgment might now await him! Penitent and praying (v. 11), and having seen a vision of a man named Ananias restoring his sight to him, but still not knowing that Christ’s shed blood could offer him lasting forgiveness, Saul fasted for three days. At this point Paul didn’t know the Christian teaching of Jesus’ atoning death. He could not be certain that temple sacrifices would be enough to purge this sin of his against God’s Messiah. The law of Moses made clear that there were some sins so serious that sacrifice could not atone for them. And Jesus himself had taught that the “sin against the Holy Spirit” was not forgiveable. Was Paul in a hopeless situation?



10 Paul spent the next three days locked into his dark world of blindness, pondering what punishment my lie ahead for him. It must have been like being in a tomb. But "resurrection" came on the third day! For a believer named Ananias, whose name Hananiyah means “the grace of Yahweh”, was about to help Saul to receive the “grace” of Jesus. There were Christians who fled to Damascus from Jerusalem following the persecution by Saul and others, but this Ananias was probably not one of them, for the text tells us that he had only “heard” of this persecution and Saul’s role in it. He must have been a long-term resident of Damascus. How he came to be a Christian we do not know.



10-18 Initially Ananias was afraid to go to this man Saul and identify himself as one sent by Jesus. But believing what Jesus said to him in the vision, Ananias went to Saul, and even called him “brother Saul” (not “brother Jew, but brother Christian!), because he would be God’s chosen instrument (v. 15) to carry the name of Jesus “before Gentiles, kings, and the people of Israel, and to suffer for the sake of that name.” Faith in the words of Jesus enabled Ananias to see Paul as what he would become: not the enemy who had come in order to drag him to Jerusalem for trial and possible death, but a brother and a powerful witness for Jesus who would suffer much in his service.



11-12 The phenomenon of simultaneous divine messages to two parties who are to be brought together is repeated in the case of Peter and Cornelius in chs. 10-11. No mention is made of the Ethioian eunuch being warned to expect Philip, but that he was prepared by God for it is quite clear.



13 The Jerusalem believers are called “saints” (ἁγιοι). Although Paul uses this term for all believers, Luke tends to confine its use (Acts 9:32, 41; 26:10) to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem (Witherington, 318).



15 The sequence of Paul’s testimony (before Gentiles, kings, people of Israel) is like Acts 1:8 a kind of chronological outline of the rest of this book: first the Gentile missions, then arrest and testimony before Festus and Agrippa, then testimony to Jews. This is also in descending order of priority in his life.



17 Jesus had told Ananias that he would restore Saul’s sight, but here we see that Ananias understood this to also involve the filling with the Holy Spirit, something which could only happen to a believer.



18-19 His sight restored, Saul received baptism immediately as a new believer in Jesus the Messiah and immediately broke his fast, since sadness and penitence were no longer appropriate for one who was forgiven and a new creature in the Messiah. In his later years Paul recalled his own experience and used it as a metaphor for the experience of all who come to faith:

“For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

(Rom 5:10 NIV)

20-22 Immediately also he received instruction from fellow believers (v. 19b) and began to confess publicly his faith that Jesus is the Messiah (v. 22) and Son of God (v. 20) (Rom 10:9-10). NIV in v. 22 has the Greek tense correct: “Jesus is (still, not “was” [NRSV, ESV]) the Messiah”. With his thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, all tht Paul needed was to be convinced by the vision that Jesus was indeed raised and exalted to heaven: all else fell into place. There was no quibbling about minor points. He was no active arguing in the synagogues of Damascus and proving that Jesus was the Messiah.



23-25 This had predictable results. Others among the Jews equally zealous and prone to Phinehas-type violent punishment of apostates now turned their eyes on Saul.



Paul's First visit to Jerusalem as a Believer (26-31)



26-27 In Galatians Paul tells us that there was also an interim visit to a region he calls “Arabia”. But Luke does not think it appropriate to go into that here. Leaving Damascus, Paul goes to Jerusalem to meet with Peter, and to tell the apostles that Jesus had commissioned him to evangelize the Gentiles. But the disciples in Jerusalem feared that he was feigning conversion, and that this was a trap. Good old Barnabas was the only one who believed Saul and introduced him to the others.



28-30 Once received into the group, Paul began to preach with the same power and effectiveness in Jerusalem that he had in Damascus, which led to the same reaction from the opponents. In Gal. 1 he tells us that he stayed there for only two weeks, at the end of which he was warned by a vision of Jesus to leave the city. Again he had to be spirited away, this time to Tarsus, where he had lived as a small child.



Peter in Lydda (31-35)



As spectacular and spiritually earth-shaking as is the account of Paul’s “conversion”, there is more to see in ch. 9. Luke focuses entirely on Peter and Paul from this point on, and we therefore do not know what the other apostles were doing. Undoubtedly, they too were evangelizing and founding communities of believers in Judea, Samaria, Galilee and neighboring lands.



But we see Peter continuing what he and John did in Samaria in ch. 8: visiting newly founded communities of believers and making sure that they had received the Holy Spirit and were being well instructed in the faith. In this chapter and in the following two we see Peter making such a “pastoral” trip, starting to the west of Jerusalem along the Mediterranean coast (at Lydda), then heading northward to Joppa, and ending up in Caesarea (ch. 11).







We are not told how these Jews living in Lydda (OT Lod) came to be believers in Jesus. None of Jesus’ own earthly ministry extended to the southern coastal plain. But it is likely that they heard of His resurrection in the preaching of the apostles during one of the pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem which they would have attended as good Jews.



33-35 As earlier in Jerusalem, Peter exercised the gift of healing. You recall that there even his shadow falling on a sick person brought healing. Here his healing a particular man, named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed for 8 years, resulted in “all those who lived in Lydda and Sharon” seeing him whole and becoming convinced that Jesus was the exalted Messiah who gave Peter this power. As in Jerusalem and in the Samaritan village, it is the miracles attending the preaching of the apostles that are singled out by Luke as determinative in producing new converts. Certainly, not all who came to believe required seeing such miracles: the Ethiopian eunuch certainly did not need it. But Luke’s point is that there was an outpouring of such supernatural power in those days.



And at Joppa (36-43)



Continuing northwards up the coast, Peter’s travels brought him to Joppa. One of Luke’s special interests is the role of women in the new community.



While in Lydda, Peter received an embassy of believers from Joppa to the north. The believers there were mourning the recent death of a woman named Tabitha. Some translations give the false impression that she had a double name: Tabitha and Dorcas. But the text merely says that the Aramaic name Tabitha means what the Greek word dorkas means which is “gazelle”. Jewish girls were often named for animals: Moses’ wife Zipporah’s name means “sparrow”, and the names Leah and Rachel mean “cow” and “ewe” respectively. She was known in the community for her charitable acts. From v. 39 we learn that she made garments for the poor believers, and especially for the widows. But there is more. In v. 36 she is called a “discliple”, which means that as what in Hebrew is called a talmidah, she became a student of the Scripture, something no woman ordinarily was allowed to do in rabbinic circles. But then she became ill and died (v. 37). And after the belivers had washed the body and laid it respectfully in an upper room, they sent for Peter. Luke doesn’t tell us whether they asked him to raise Tabitha from the dead or just to preside at her burial service. But Peter folllowed a pattern he had himself witnessed in the miracles of Jesus: he sent everyone out of the room so he could be alone with the body. First he prayed—we are given no words of his prayer and then he addressed the body: “Tabitha, get up!” There is a striking similarity between this incident and the similar miracle of Jesus restoring to life a little girl.

Mark 5:35-43 While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher any more?” Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, … get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Jesus put the crowd outside the room, but allowed the parents and his own disciples to stay in the room where her body lay. Jesus’ words to her were ‏טַלְיְתָא קוּמִי‎ “Talitha, get up!” (Mark 5:41). Talitha is the Aramaic word for “little girl”. As Jesus then called the family in to see her, so does Peter here. The succession of miracles has gone from healing the sick to raising the dead. And again, as with the healing of Aeneas in Lydda, the news of the miracle brought further conversions.



Peter is also being prepared to relax some of the stricter laws of Judaism: here he lived with a tanner named Simon. Now Jewish law considered tanners unclean, since the tanning agent they continually used was urine. And the odor of their houses was so bad that Jewish law permitted tanners’ wives special latitude in getting divorces! In chapters 10 and 11 Peter will have to become even more relaxed in welcoming a Gentile into the community of believers.



What lessons are we to draw today from this chapter? From the story of Paul we learn that no unbeliever is immune to the grace of God. think of a person whom you know who seems to you most unlikely to ever become a believer. Is he or she really beyond God’s reach? What might God be able to accomplish through that person, if he or she were born again. Will you pray for that person today and ask God to work a miracle?



In Peter’s ministry in Lydda nad Joppa we see evidence that the kingdom of God comes in power through the gospel, and that lives touched by the gospel can never be “dead” or “crippled”. That goes for your life and mine, as well as for those we pray for and seek to reach with the gospel. In what ways do you see your own life as “crippled” today in its effectiveness as a model and witness to Jesus? Will you ask God to allow you to shake off that which hinders you from living like someone raised from the dead?



This is the Advent Season, the days we count off until the First Coming of our Savior and days in which we anticipate his Second Coming. In both we see God breaking in to the worldly routines, the days that all seem like one another, life going on without reference to God or to redemption. Jesus interrupts a world living oblivious to its Creator and Redeemer. Will you let Him make of you in this season a person mindful above all of realities outside of the This-Wordly? You can do so in several ways. You can set aside extra time beyond the usual quiet times, in which to focus on the meaning of Incarnation and Second Coming. And you can let your mind focus on these subjects even while working at other tasks during the day. God gave Israel special seasons (called “festivals”) during the year and Sabbaths on a weekly basis, as times for special re-focusing on Him. Christians also have them. But the major ones have been secularized. Let’s “de-secularize” them this year!