It was a Paul in this kind of seething turmoil who set out one day to go from Jerusalem to Damascus. He had a very specific purpose in mind. It was to capture as many Christians as he could, take them back to Jerusalem in chains, and see that they met the same fate as Stephen.
And then something happened. It is described on three different occasions in the book of The Acts (chs. 9: 3-6; 22: 610; 26: 13-16), and fundamentally the accounts are the same, differing only on minor details. Paul found himself confronted by the Jesus whom he had been persecuting.
This overturned his entire world.
The risen Christ, he stoutly affirmed, had appeared to him. To Paul's question, "Who are you, Lord?" he got the disconcerting answer, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." And Paul began to see that he had been following the wrong track and going in the wrong direction. He must turn about in the most radical sense of the word; rather than being a killer of Christians he must become a lover of Christians; rather than denying the God of the Christians, he must commit himself to the God of the Christians. In short, Paul, the notorious antiChristian, must become a Christian himself! An astonishing suggestion. The only thing more astonishing is that he did precisely that!
Some people argue that this dramatic change in Paul occurred immediately. One moment he hated Christ; the next moment he loved him. Others will suggest that Paul had been moving in this direction for a long time, even though the decision "clicked" at one specific moment. Imagine that you are listening to a symphonic recording. You know the music pretty well, and you like the way the violins play the main theme. Then there comes a section that isn't too clear, after which the violins play the theme again. But one day, perhaps all of a sudden on the fifteenth hearing or perhaps only gradually in
the next few hearings, you hear in that middle section the same theme, this time played very slowly by the cellos. Of course! No wonder the other parts sounded a little strange. They were merely accompaniment. If you discover this at one particular moment, it is still true that the discovery would not have come without hearing the music fourteen times before. In the same way, although many people seem to "get religion" in spectacular ways, it may be the result of a long previous spiritual pilgrimage. Furthermore, just as your awareness of the cello theme may come only gradually, and the beauty of the passage increase with each rehearing, so our real awareness of God may come very unspectacularly, and continue to deepen throughout the rest of our lives. The person who has had no sudden moment of clarification need not feel that he has been denied an authentic experience of the presence of God in his life. Not even Paul claimed that the whole story had been written on the way to Damascus; years later he wrote, "Not that I am already perfect; but I press on" ( Phil. 3: 12).
What happened after this event? Press on he did, for the rest of his life, determined not to be "disobedient to the heavenly vision" ( Acts 26: 19). After a period of preparation., he embarked on one of the most vigorous lives of which there is any record. He literally tramped up and down Asia Minor and Europe, spreading this "good news" and demonstrating what a difference it made. It is an understatement to say that there was never a dull moment. Paul has left an accounting:
Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. [Forty lashes was supposed to kill a person.] Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; . . . in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure ( II Cor. 11: 24-27).
Not an easy life! Why live this way? Why not "play it safe"?
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