Acts 9:13,14

‘But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many of this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” '

We learn here that Ananias was not one of the fugitives from Jerusalem but was presumably a resident of Damascus for he speaks only of what he has ‘heard'. Nevertheless he is obviously in touch with what is going on, suggesting that he was an influential person. For the Lord chose his representative well. He was ‘a devout man. according to the Law, well reported of by all the Jews who dwelt there' (Acts 22:12). Here was one Christian who could safely enter ‘the house of Judas' in which lay the High Priest's representative. It was the house of Jewish authority in Damascus, but Ananias would be welcome there.

The anticipated arrival of Saul of Tarsus with his temple police was clearly well known in Damascus, together with the reason for his coming. Judas would have been sent details of his coming, and it is probable that disciples in the know had travelled post haste to Damascus with a warning to the church. So Ananias, naturally unaware of what had happened to Saul on the way to Damascus, explains to the Lord what he knows about him. He has done much evil to the Lord's work in Jerusalem among ‘the saints'. This is the first use of the term ‘saints' in Acts (see also Acts 9:32; Acts 9:41; Acts 26:10) but it appears regularly in the Old Testament to indicate the true people of God, and is regularly used by Paul in his letters. It brings out Ananias' Jewish background. Furthermore, he explains that the Damascus believers have received the intelligence that Saul's purpose in coming there was to bind all who ‘call on the Lord's name' (worship Him and seek His mercy) by the authority of the chief priests in Jerusalem.

Ananias is not here trying to give God information, he is rather protesting about the task given him. It not one that he fancies and he wants reassurance.