<p>9:6 <em>But rise and enter into the city, and you shall be told what you must do</em>- The obvious question is why the Lord didn't tell Saul immediately of the need for repentance, baptism and a life of service. Perhaps He did, but it's not recorded. But maybe it was and continues to be His preferred method of working to use a human mechanism in explaining His will. He had Ananias in view already for this work. And he wanted Saul to meet with one of those he intended to abuse, and learn the Lord's requirements from him. If these were the only words of response which the Lord made, then Saul's obedience to the Lord's word would have been tested. On arrival at Straight Street, Damascus, he was presumably taken to a suitably hard-line Jewish Orthodox household. He must've wondered whether it was all for real; for no further instructions were given. Until Ananias bravely turned up on the door of a household he probably knew were bent on his destruction. The very same words for &quot;he shall tell you what you must do&quot; were used by the Angel in telling Cornelius that he must go to Peter and Peter would tell him what he must do (Acts 10:9). We see here the same Divine footprint; and again, we note the Lord's preference to work through human mechanisms in order to reveal His Truth to men. The Ethiopian eunuch correctly noted that he couldn't understand the Bible unless someone should guide him. Often the theoretical case has been presented of a man on a deserted island with only a Bible. Would he figure out the Gospel for himself by his Bible reading? Maybe. It would have to be theoretically possible. But my sense both from Biblical history and observed experience is that God would parachute someone onto the island to explain the Bible to the marooned man.</p>