Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Conversion of Paul
Commentary
for the August 4, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“For
what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on
the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and
then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the
brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though
some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and
last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the
least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because
I persecuted the church of God.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-9, NIV
Paul’s account of the timeliness of his conversion to
the believers in Corinth is enigmatic. There is no biblical corroboration of
some of the special apparitions of Jesus that he lists. Yet, if we accept Paul’s
authorship of the epistle then we must also credit his statement as based on
statements he heard from the Apostles, perhaps while visiting Jerusalem the
first time. The special appearance to James may have been offered as
explanation of why the Apostles were comfortable deferring leadership to the
brother of Jesus. But it is the nature of singular experiences that they cannot
be corroborated, only testified about. The credibility of any such witness is largely
based on the evidence of the experience seen in their life. Few would question
that the Apostles had actually been in the presence of Jesus for over three
years while he ministered in Judea. The evidence for James’ experience may be found
in his transition from perhaps questioning the sanity of his brother and
seeking to rein him in[i] to supporting the nascent
church. But Paul had the most dramatic conversion experience.
Maybe through the influence of the Pharisees he associated
with and a desire to win the approval of the priesthood, he became convinced
that the followers of Christ were an existential threat to Judaism and to the
temple services. While the early Christians were still trying to figure out
their relationship with the temple, Paul may have already determined the
implications of the message of a savior who bore everyone’s sins upon himself.
If such a message were true, what need would there be for the temple with its
system of sacrifices based on cleansing from sin? For that matter what would
become of the priesthood and the Pharisees of whom he was one? No, the threat
had to be eliminated before it could grow beyond their ability to control it
from Jerusalem. For that reason, the stoning of Stephen seemed a good start,
and he began to do all in his power to extirpate the threat from Judaism. Not
satisfied with what he could do there and hearing of Christians in Damascus, he
sought permission to travel there and bring back any Christians he found to Jerusalem,
stopping the spread of such beliefs. What happened to him in that endeavor is
illustration of God’s sense of irony.
On the way to Damascus, Paul had an encounter with
Jesus.[ii] That encounter is
depicted in our picture in the painting by Caravaggio. While there is no
mention in the biblical account of a horse, medieval art depicted the tradition
that the party traveling to Damascus was on horseback, perhaps based on the
distance of the journey. However, there is no popular belief that Paul traveled
on horseback for any of his missionary journeys that involved far greater
distances, so the idea may be apocryphal but it adds to the drama if he fell
from his horse. Nonetheless, the drama of the experience likely needed little
embellishment since Paul was blinded by the apparition and had to be led by the
hand into Damascus. This implies that he was afoot at least after the vision if
not before. So where was the irony? Pauls’ goal was to stop the spread of Christianity
beyond Jerusalem, but Jesus announced to him that Paul himself would carry the
gospel far afield to the Gentile world. The about face of such a change could
not be more dramatic. It was so dramatic that for years many would not believe
it had occurred. Even in Damascus, Ananias did not want to baptize him for fear
of Paul’s reputation. God urged him to do it anyway. That Ananias was willing
to follow the Spirit’s leading opened the door for God to dramatically impact
the world with the message of salvation and grace. Sadly we have today too many
who unlike Ananias want nothing to do with those whom God has called based on
gender, race, or some other issue because they believe God would never call
anyone like that. Like Paul who was resisting the message of Jesus, these
modern Pharisees “kick against the goads” of God, resisting God’s call to them
to support the wonderful work he is doing in pouring out his spirit on all
flesh.[iii] Eventually they may
discover as Paul did that it is God they are fighting against rather than
fighting for. Because of ecclesiastical endorsement, Paul was completely
convinced of the rightness of his persecution of the Christian sect. Are those
today who persecute those who answer God’s call to ministry somehow wiser than
Paul that they are immune to making the same error he did? Perhaps we would all
do well to examine whether we are hindering or helping God in his work by our
opposition to the ministry of others. Who is to say whom God will call if he is
willing to even call our greatest enemies, as he did with Paul, to carry the
work forward?
With the excitement of a new convert, Paul’s natural reaction
was to tell everyone of his conversion experience. The Christians in Damascus
were reluctant but eventually several were won over, but when he began to proselytize
those in the synagogue, things did not go as well. They felt that what he was
doing was a capital crime and made plans to end his life, but the local
Christian community took steps to preserve his life. This alone is evidence
that he had overcome the trepidations of several in that fellowship about the
genuineness of his conversion. Paul then traveled into Arabia. There is no
biblical record of what transpired there, but I can guess that there were
perhaps some similarities with the experience of Moses when he fled Egypt. He
may have been hurt by the refusal of other Jews to accept Jesus just as Moses
was surprised that his intervention on behalf of his fellow Israelites was not
welcomed.[iv] What was so plain to Paul
was so vehemently opposed by those whom he once may have considered friends and
companions, some of whom may have accompanied him from Jerusalem to Damascus.
As a result, he may have begun a time of introspection, examining what he had
been taught by Gamaliel and other Pharisees, what he could read for himself in
the scrolls that would be available for study at the synagogues, and the
elements of the ecstatic experience when he was approaching Damascus where he
had been blinded by the glory of God. There is a tradition that he traveled to
Mount Sinai which Paul referred to as being in Arabia.[v] Perhaps in that setting he
found common cause with Moses and found focus for his ministry. Eventually, he
returned to Damascus. We cannot ascertain how much time he spent separately in either
Arabia or Damascus from the biblical record.
After three years had passed since his conversion, he
decided to travel to the nexus of the faith in Jerusalem. He does not say what
he expected to find there. Perhaps he sought confirmation of his experience.
Maybe he sought answers to question that had come up during his time of
self-examination. Perhaps he even thought that the Jewish Christians and even
the Jews of Jerusalem might be more understanding of what he had to say than
those in Damascus had been. After all, he had studied in Jerusalem under
Gamaliel, a school that was well known for its open and progressive study of
the Greek philosophers. He also had the theological training to establish a
systematic theology of the new faith. What he found was a church hiding from
persecution, unsure of their security and their mission, unwilling to venture
far afield to spread the gospel. The Apostles were reluctant to meet with him,
seeing him as another persecutor who only represented a threat to a struggling
fellowship. This would especially be true if he questioned the relevance of
their practice in light of his theological studies. In the end, he was only able
to meet with Peter and James. Not until Barnabas, a Hellenistic Jew whom they
trusted, was willing to advocate on Paul’s behalf were even these willing to
meet with him. There is little evidence of what was discussed when they met,
but Paul was stirring up the city with his arguments with the Jews about Jesus
and his witnessing about his experience. Once again his life was being
threatened, and it was likely deemed expedient both for the Jerusalem church
and for Paul’s safety to encourage him on his way by granting him some
recognition from those in Jerusalem of his desire to carry the gospel to the Gentiles.
This he was eager to do. Paul then returned to his home city of Tarsus. Barnabas
was also eager to carry the message to the Gentiles and was active in the
Christian community that had grown up in Antioch as a result of Christians fleeing
the persecution in Jerusalem. Eventually, knowing Paul’s eagerness to
proselytize, he went to Tarsus and brought him back to help with the work in
Antioch. From there, Paul began to set the world on fire with his message,
traveling first with Barnabas and then with Silas, he raised and established
congregations in many of the important trading centers of his day. Eventually,
during a later trip to Jerusalem, he was arrested and was taken to Rome where
he was tried and exonerated, only to be. After a few years, arrested again and
tried and executed. But he carried his faith to a growing Christian community
in the very heart of the empire where it continued to take root and eventually
became the state religion. Such is the power of the faith of one who responds
willingly to God’s call. He did not see what Christianity would become, but by
faith he was willing to lay its foundation wherever he could. Who knows what
might grow from those willing to lay such foundations today?
