Acts 9:1-9

Saul’s Conversion
1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.


Dig Deeper
Have you ever been absolutely sure of something even though other people told you that you were wrong? They might have been convinced of their position but you just knew that you were right and were sticking to your guns. I know I have been there. A few weeks ago I was looking for an important piece of paper that had some very vital notes on it. I needed that piece of paper right then but suddenly I couldn’t find it so I went rummaging through the house looking for it. To add to my earnestness, I absolutely cannot stand it when I can’t find something that I need. That’s an unusual situation for me and I don’t like it when I find myself unable to find what I want. As I was looking, though, my wife came in and asked what I was looking for. When I told her, she mentioned that she thought it was in a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. I had already looked through that stack and so I confidently told her that it wasn’t in there but that I needed to find it quickly. She repeated that she was pretty sure she saw it there a few days previous. I was annoyed now and told her that I knew it wasn’t in there because I had looked and I would appreciate if she would help me look for this paper. She went into our room presumably to look for the paper in there but by this time I had looked everywhere that it could have been and I was nearing despair of finding this paper. I was beginning to formulate a new plan of what I would now have to do without these notes. As I was standing there thinking, I put my hand on the counter and realized that it had fallen on that stack of papers. For some reason, I pulled back about half of the stack and there staring at me light a blinding white light was the paper I had been looking for. I suddenly had a sinking feeling. My wife had been right. I had been wrong. And I had wasted a lot of time looking for something that was exactly where my wife said it had been. I had just known that she was wrong, though, but now came the dizzying truth that I was the one that was wrong. It can be a difficult thing to swallow even with little things like a lost piece of paper.

Saul had spent the balance of his life serving the God of Israel with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He had given his life to a study of the Scriptures and was so committed to serving the almighty God and defending his cause that he was willing to prove his zeal by doing whatever it would take. Oh sure, he had heard these Christians claim that those who rejected Jesus as Messiah were wrong and that God would prove that one day, but Saul could safely ignore those claims. Jesus was a failed Messiah “wanna-be” that was all. All they needed to do was look at his crucifixion. In that moment, Paul had looked at the idea of Jesus being the Messiah and could see clearly that he wasn’t. No Messiah would die at the hands of the pagan Romans on a shameful cross. That was how criminals died. He saw nothing there of note, and was sure that he was doing the right thing by rejecting this blasphemy towards the true God. He would demonstrate his loyalty to God by ridding Israel of this heresy as quickly as was humanly possible.

Although some have argued against Saul’s legal ability to go around killing disciples, it is certain that the early Christian communities would have taken his threats quite seriously. Saul was there giving approval to Stephen’s stoning death and it is quite possible that Saul and Stephen knew each other before Stephen’s conversion to Christianity. If that is how someone he knew was treated what would that mean for the many Christians that didn’t know him. Those threats were serious, and whether they were strictly legal or not, Saul seemed to have enough authority behind him in the form of approval letters from the Sanhedrin, and he certainly had the will and determination to carry out those threats. Stephen was willing to die for what he believed to be the truth and Saul was willing to kill for what he believed to be the truth. It was certainly a stark difference. As F.F. Bruce stated in his book “Paul”, Stephen argued that “the new has come, therefore the old must go.” While Saul reasoned that “the old must stay, therefore the new must go.” Something clearly had to give.

Saul’s zeal is demonstrated in that he wasn’t just willing to deal with issues with Christians as they came up. He wanted to go hunt down disciples and eradicate this movement before it could spread any further than it already had. He was going to round them up and take them to prison in Jerusalem, and seemed to be quite willing to put to death any who caused trouble or refused to recant. As Paul packed up for his trip to Damascus, a town about 150 miles from Jerusalem, he had letters of authority in his bag and the determined warmth in his heart of knowing that he was doing the right thing.

We don’t know and aren’t told what Paul was doing as he made the journey between Jerusalem and Damascus but we can probably guess that he may have been praying and asking for continued guidance from the Lord or perhaps he was meditating on the presence of the Lord. But whatever he was doing, he was suddenly shaken into the moment as a bright light from heaven flashed all around him. The light was so bright and unexpected that it caused Saul to fall to the ground. Paul had presumably never experienced anything like this before but he would have almost assuredly associated this light with the Shekinah glory of God described in the Old Testament. The divine voice coming from the realm of heaven was similar to other instances of God’s voice being heard (Gen. 22:11; 46:2; Ex. 31-6; 1 Sam. 3:4; Isa. 6:8; Lk. 3:22; 9:35).

But this voice had a question for Saul. Why was he persecuting me, asked the divine voice? This must have been a shocking question for Saul. Who was he persecuting? Far be it from Saul to ever do anything that would injure the almighty God. He had made a life of serving him, not persecuting him. He was defending God. He just couldn’t be wrong about that. But then the voice clearly identified himself. It was Jesus. In that moment Saul’s life changed forever.

Saul would later say that at this moment God had revealed his son to him (Gal. 1:16); he had seen Jesus face to face for himself (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). Jesus was alive. His disciples had been right and Saul had been monumentally wrong. He could no longer deny that as he stood stunned in the divine presence of Jesus. That was the kicker. He hadn’t just seen Jesus, he was seeing him in the realm of heaven. This meant that Jesus had truly ascended to the right hand of the Father, just as Stephen had claimed. He was the Messiah. All of God’s promises had really been answered “yes” in him (2 Cor. 1:20). It was in this moment that Paul began the journey of discovery that would eventually lead to his realization that he had been viewing Jesus from a worldly point of view (2 Cor. 5:16). Saul had looked at the cross as evidence of Jesus’ failure as a claimed Messiah, but he would soon realize that it was his very confirmation. The cross was how all of God’s promises came together in Christ. From this moment on, Saul would no longer view Jesus the Messiah from a worldly point of view.

Perhaps the next most shocking realization beyond the fact that Jesus really had resurrected from the dead and was the Messiah ruling from the heavenly realm, was that these people that Paul had been so full of zeal to hunt down were the King’s people. To strike them was to strike the ascended Jesus. Saul would learn the lesson well that whatever was true of the Messiah was true of his people. When Saul persecuted them, it was really Christ he was persecuting because they were an extension of him. Not only that, but Saul would later go on to realize that all that Christ had in his identity as the Son of God and the true Messiah also belonged to those in Christ (see Rom. 6:1-14).

Not only did Jesus identify himself and place himself as the true target of Saul’s persecutions, he also ordered that Saul go into the city of Damascus and await further instructions. We are told that his companions heard a sound but that Christ did not reveal himself to them, they could only see the bright light and hear a noise but could not distinguish a voice (Acts 22:9; cf. Jn. 12:29 for a similar phenomenon). Saul’s friends led him into the city. Once there, Saul was so stunned by his encounter with the resurrected Jesus that he spent the next three days still blinded (perhaps as God’s way of showing Saul that he had been blind spiritually all along) unable to eat or drink. He apparently did nothing more than pray and fast. Saul had always had total belief in the God of Israel and now he had come to total belief in Jesus Christ as his saving agent but he was about to learn that not only does faith require that we believe in God but also that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (cf. Heb. 11:6). Saul had come to a point of total belief but he would soon find out about total conversion and total commitment. He would soon find out what it would really require of him to serve the living God.


Devotional Thought
Many people already feel like they have had their “Damascus road” experience in coming to the realization of the truth about God and Jesus but feel very uncomfortable with the thought that God might want to use them as his “bright light” in the life of someone else. Ask God to use you as his “light” to shine into the life of someone and be prepared to be bold as you lovingly show them that everything they thought they knew was perhaps not quite accurate.