Zeal: Sometimes Wrongly Directed

At this, David summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not Israelites, but a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had taken an oath concerning them, but in his zeal for Israel and Judah, Saul had sought to kill them.)

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel in strict conformity to the law of our fathers. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

I persecuted this Way even to the death, detaining both men and women and throwing them into prison,

…as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.