Luke included this incident to prove the genuineness of Saul's conversion. He who had been persecuting to the death believers in Jesus had now become the target of deadly persecution because of his changed view of Jesus.
9:23-24a It is hard to determine how "many days"had elapsed, but evidently Saul remained in Damascus several months. F. F. Bruce dated his return to Jerusalem about 35 A.D. and his conversion in 33.405I think it is more probable that he became a Christian in 34 and returned to Jerusalem in 37 A.D.406Regardless of the dates, we know that he finally left Damascus for Jerusalem three years after his conversion (Gal. 1:18).
"No one persecutes a man who is ineffective and who obviously does not matter. George Bernard Shaw once said that the biggest compliment you can pay an author is to burn his books. Someone has said, A wolf will never attack a painted sheep.' Counterfeit Christianity is always safe. Real Christianity is always in peril. To suffer persecution is to be paid the greatest of compliments because it is the certain proof that men think we really matter."407
9:24b-25 It would have been natural for Saul's enemies to watch the gates of Damascus since he would have had to pass out of one of them to leave the city under normal circumstances. "Disciples"everywhere but here in Acts refers to followers of Jesus. Here it describes followers of Saul probably to indicate that his preaching had resulted in some people coming to faith in Christ. Perhaps it was one of these disciples who owned the house on the wall from which Saul escaped the city.
Paul described his escape from Damascus in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, and it is there we learn that someone lowered him in a basket from a house built on the city wall. The fact that Paul did not minimize this ignominious exit in his writings says a lot for his humility and the transformation God affected in this once haughty Pharisee. The local Jews arranged this attempt on his life, and their Nabatean governor supported them.
"Saul's plans for persecuting Christians in Damascus took a strange turn; he had entered the city blind and left in a basket! Ironically hebecame the object of persecution."408
