Note 1 at Acts 9:10: Ananias is the Greek form of the Hebrew "Hananiah," meaning "Jehovah has been gracious." This Ananias is only mentioned in scripture in association with Saul's conversion (here and Acts 22:12-16; see Parallel Scriptures, p. 624), which was no doubt his most important contribution to the history of the gospel.

Ananias was "a devout man according to the law having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there" (Acts 22:12). This made him an appropriate messenger for a skeptical Saul who had been use to criticizing Christians, probably over their lack of strict adherence to the Jewish law. There was nothing for Saul to find fault with in Ananias. Ananias also showed a maturity and great faith in the Lord to go to Saul and identify himself as a Christian, knowing that Saul had come to Damascus for the express purpose of persecuting Christians.

One of the great qualities about Ananias was that when the Lord called for him, he was there. He was evidently a man who spent time waiting in the presence of the Lord. There is no other mention in scripture that the Lord appeared to Ananias or used him in a similar fashion with others. That is certainly possible, but it is just as possible that this was the only time the Lord ever appeared to him in a vision and gave him such an assignment. Tradition holds that Ananias was the first bishop of Damascus and that he suffered martyrdom.

Miraculous manifestations, such as Ananias had here, are not everyday occurrences. Some of the mightest men of God in the Bible went years between direct miraculous encounters with God. Yet the thing that made them mighty men of God was that they were constantly in communion with God during those times when there were no blinding revelations or dramatic instructions. Many have missed being used of God as Ananias was because they were so impatient for the miraculous that they failed to just be there in the presence of God day by day.

Note 2 at Acts 9:10: A vision is a supernatural presentation of a visual (and many times audible) message from God to the mind of a person. If a person is asleep when this happens, then it is a dream or what the Bible calls a night vision (Gen. 46:2; Job 33:15; Dan. 2:19; Acts 18:9) and is seen not by our physical eyes, but is a mental image.

When a person is awake and sees a vision, it is the Lord showing him something in his mind's eye, even though to the person it may be so real that he actually thought he saw it with his physical eyes. In the case of Ezekiel (Eze. 8:1-11:24), others were present when he had this vision (8:1) but they were not transported "in the visions of God" to Jerusalem (8:3) as he was. Ezekiel's body stayed put while he experienced being transported to Jerusalem in his mind. In Acts 12:9, Peter didn't think that what he was experiencing was real, but thought he saw a vision. This leads us to conclude that a vision is not a physical reality, but a spiritual happening.

A trance and a vision are the same thing according to Numbers 24:4, 16 and Acts 10:10, 19. In a trace or vision a person's physical eyes are open and usually fixed into a stare, but they are not receiving the normal physical images. Instead they receive direct supernatural images from God.

The transfiguration of Jesus is called a vision (Mt. 17:9), and is therefore possibly something that didn't suddenly happen physically. Instead, the disciples' spiritual eyes were opened to glimpse the glory of Jesus that was always there, but that they had been blinded to when looking through their physical eyes. This would be the same thing that happened to Elisha's servant when the Lord opened his spiritual eyes to see the horses and chariots of fire surrounding them (2 Ki. 6:17).

The scriptures clearly states that Abraham (Gen. 15:1), Jacob (Gen. 46:2), Balaam (Num. 24:4, 16), Samuel (1 Sam. 3:1, 15), Nathan (2 Sam. 7:17; 1 Chr. 17:15), Isaiah (Isa. 1:1), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1; 7:13; 8:13; 11:24), Daniel (Dan. 2:19: 8:1-27; 9:21-24), Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:28), Zacharias (Lk. 1:22), Peter (Acts 10:10, 19), John (Rev. 9:17), Ananias (Acts 9:10), Cornelius (Acts 10:3), and Paul (Acts 16:9-10; 18:9; 2 Cor. 12:1), all had visions.

Although the word "vision" is not mentioned, the criteria of a vision was met with Elisha's servant (2 Ki. 6:17) and Micaiah (1 Ki. 22:19-22). As mentioned in the first paragraph of this note, dreams are visions (see note 3 at Mt. 1:20, p. 49).