I persecuted this Way to death,
binding both men and women and delivering them to prison.
Paul demonstrates for us that we ought never rule out anyone from being used by God. There is nothing that can so disqualify us as to make unusable by God for his purposes. Even our mistakes and sins can be recast by our conversion to be evidence of our credibility.
Even the high priest and the whole council of elders
can testify on my behalf.
For from them I even received letters to the brothers
and set out for Damascus to bring back to Jerusalem
in chains for punishment those there as well.
Certainly it must have pained Paul to remember the harm he caused to those who were now fellow followers of Jesus. It was no longer a past of which he was proud. Yet he spoke of it boldly, without shrinking back, in order to show that he was not only without bias toward Jesus, he was won over in spite of a bias against him, a misdirection of his extreme zeal for God.
On that journey as I drew near to Damascus,
about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me.
It is reassuring to see that God can use surprising people for his purposes, taking the initiative himself when there seems to be no chance for change from a human point of view. We see the pure grace of a direct intervention that was able to overcome even the mostly deeply rooted opposition in the heart of Paul. We see God's unmerited favor poured out, transforming those he called into those whom he could send. This was so much the case that Paul regarded all that he previously considered gain now seemed to be so much rubbish.
Even in Paul's case, however, it was not a conversion that happened entirely isolated from the past. The fact the he was able understand the voice that told him that it was "Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting" was almost certainly all the more intelligible for what he saw at the stoning of Stephen, where Stephen became almost transparent to the presence of Christ himself.
In addition to the impact of the martyrdom of Stephen another thing that prepared for the conversion of Paul was certainly the fact that the whole community of early Christians was united in prayer. It was a prayer that paved the way for God to act in ways that would perhaps have been surprising even to that community. Because of the surprising things they had already seen they were prepared and praying for God to continue to surprise them, to open doors that they might have thought to be tightly sealed. Members of that community were living in the power of the Holy Spirit, able to hear the voice of the Lord even when it made the unthinkable suggestion of outreach to their most vehement opponents.
The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight
and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul.
He is there praying,
and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias
come in and lay his hands on him,
that he may regain his sight.”
Granted, when Ananias heard that message he did discern it. He was not reckless but he was obedient when it turned out that the message was more than his imagination at work.
Why did God go to all of the trouble to bring about the conversion of Paul, both by putting all of the right pieces in place, and by the direction intervention and appearance to Paul himself? Certainly Paul had personality traits that, when directed to the Kingdom, would make him an ideal evangelist. And it was doubtlessly true that the converted Paul was just as zealous as ever or even more so. But it may well have been that God called him at least as much for what he was not as for any qualifications of his. That zeal took on a new and humble context as Paul presented himself as the least of the disciples, the chief of sinners. He openly displayed his faults and liabilities so that the world could see that the main thing wasn't human strength, zeal, or persuasiveness, but the truth and power of Jesus himself. The same zeal he displayed as a persecutor of Christians was now entirely recast to showcase, not Paul, but Jesus himself.
Was Paul converted? In some sense yes. In some sense no. Much of what Paul received was a completion of things he had already known and pursued. Yet his change in direction, his change in motivation, his shift from violent suppression to proclamation do imply a break from the past in addition to whatever continuity there may have been.
Why Paul? Perhaps not so much because of Paul, but because God knew who Paul would become when he received the grace offered. This was what it meant for him to be an instrument chosen by God himself.
The conversion of Paul was so dramatic that we risk thinking it has nothing to say to us who may have been born into the faith, and those for whom conversion has been a more gradual and ongoing process. Yet God would say to us no less than Paul that we are chosen instruments for his plan. Whatever our past, whatever our liabilities and assets, God is able to recast them to make us perfect for whatever role he intends for us.
Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
We all have a part to play. Imagine Christianity without Paul and let us praise God for his contributions. Let us take heed not to neglect what God might want to do through us. Just as Paul's role was unexpected, both for Paul and for the world, so too might God's desires for us be more than we imagined.
These signs will accompany those who believe
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