Read Acts 9:1-19. Saul was converted on the road to Damascus. Outside of the Gospels, it’s one of the most dramatic stories of the New Testament. It looks like a complete turnaround. He was a persecutor; now he’s a persuader. He was all against the Jesus people; now he’s set to become one of them – and one of the key ones.
It’s a great story as we hear it in Acts. But what does it mean for us?
There are two sets of actors who are important in this, apart from Saul himself.
The first is God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is God’s amazing grace that allowed Saul to live a redeemed life of love. The power of God’s love was greater than the power of what held him before. It was stronger than his religious rule-book. It was stronger than the status he had with his peer group. It was stronger than the power of his tradition. It was stronger than the self-doubt that must have been working in him, even as he burnt in anger against the people of the Way.
What about us? Do we need to be converted? If we go to church, we may think not. And maybe we have accepted Jesus as our Saviour. But we can learn from what happened at Saul’s conversion. He was immediately given a job. He was not just converted; he was called. We are not just converted, either; we, too, are called. Do we respond? Or do we find excuses to burn in anger sometimes, and to avoid the Way?
This brings us to the second set of actors who were important in changing Saul the persecutor to Paul the apostle. These were the the people already in ‘church’: people like Ananias.
Ananias and the other Christians in Damascus knew all about Saul. So when Ananias got a word from God to minister to him, he was on guard. But Ananias was a man of faith. It seems that he was familiar with words from God. So, unlike Saul, he didn’t ask, “Who are you?”. But he could pray frankly about what concerned him. In his prayer, he pointed out that Saul had worked against the Christians. Yet he was persuaded by God to take a risk. He agreed to set out and meet Saul with his men. He agreed to be a miracle healer for Saul. But more than that, when it came to the moment, he understood 100% what he was doing in terms of faith. You can see it in his greeting: “Brother Saul” (Acts 9:17). “Brother!”
We need people like this in church. People who engage with God in prayer, and who can see with the eyes of faith. People who see past the failings of the people around them, and believe in the promising future that God might have for them.
Not everyone in the church trusted Saul – or Paul, as he became better known. There were some who never forgot where he came from. There were many who felt that their own idea of church was better than Paul’s. We know this from some of the letters that Paul wrote. Paul was given a job: to bring Christ to the Gentiles – the non-Jews. Christians in Jerusalem were often quite comfortable with keeping their old traditions. But Paul had no time for Jewish customs and purity ideas that got in the road of bringing the world to Christ.
What kind of Christians are we? Do we bravely see a disciple in the dreaded or discarded? Or do we hold back the work of modern apostles by thinking that people will only come by the road that brought us?
One thing is certain: our salvation is for a purpose. With Saul’s sight came the Holy Spirit. The Spirit empowers us to serve. God willing, we see as God does. Even painful people can be promising apostles!
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