Apart from the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul’s dramatic encounter with Christ on the Damascus road while Paul was on his way to ferret out Christians for prosecution in Jerusalem for “crimes against the Jewish faith,” was the most pivotal event in human history. This is so because Paul was largely responsible for the spread of Christianity to the limits of the Roman Empire. Paul gave the early church their theology as well as the strategy for spreading the gospel. This was the case because The Holy Spirit used Paul’s extraordinary abilities as a theologian and breadth of understanding of the Jewish, Roman and Greek cultures. He had studied at the feet of Israel’s great sage, Gamaliel, and no doubt had attended the “University of Tarsus,” located in his hometown where he received his international perspective.
But with a resume like his, you would think that Paul would have been more open minded about the new faith that was captivating the hearts and minds of Jews all over Palestine. This was not the case, however, because Paul hated Christianity with every fiber of his being. He was convinced that Jesus was a fraud and that the new fledgling “way” was undermining Judaism. Paul apparently was the instigator of the execution of St. Stephen and would have rounded up all the apostles if he had the chance. Here was a man of immense energy and dedication to duty who alas had his head screwed on backwards because the more he ran after Christians, the more he was heading away from the way, the truth, and the life. But then Damascus happened. It was the most amazing conversion in Christian history. It is one of many convincing reasons for the truth of Christianity.
In Paul, we see that sometimes God has to stop us in our tracks and even immobilize us in order to get our attention. We may be zealously striving to do the “Lord’s work,” when in reality we are following our own agenda. The turning point in Paul’s life came when Jesus told him to get off the ground and go into Damascus where he would be told what to do. Acts 9:6. The one Paul was persecuting was now Paul’s boss. The significance of Paul’s blindness is that he was so educated and yet so in the dark about what God’ work is really all about. Whereas before he felt so in charge, he now had to be led by others to his new life’s work. One of the men, Ananias, who Paul had on his short list of “Christian criminals,” would now be God’s instrument for healing Paul. So if you are suddenly thrown off course and groping for answers, it just might be God tapping you on the shoulder and leading you to a new way. Spiritual metamorphosis can be very humbling but it certainly is worth all the pain. I remember a counselor of mine telling me that my own emotional upheaval in my younger days was my own “Damascus experience.” I’m no Paul, for sure, but at least I got a taste of what Paul experienced on that hot day on the Damascus road. But then, we’ll save that story for another day.
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