This is the story of Paul’s conversion experience on the Road to Damascus. “The Road to Damascus” has become a part of our lingo today you might say. People who have sudden conversions (and they don’t have to be religious conversions; just a sudden change of heart about something) are often said to have had a “Damascus Road experience.” Paul’s was a particularly dramatic conversion experience that we’ll talk about. The first thing that springs to my mind, though, is why Luke felt the need to include the story three times in the Book of Acts. It’s not unusual for there to be multiple accounts of a single story in the Bible. We have four Gospels. There are four stories of the resurrection; four stories of the crucifixion; five stories of the Last Supper (because Paul includes one in 1 Corinthians.) There are duplicate stories included in the Old Testament – two accounts of the giving of the Ten Commandments for example (one in Exodus and one in Deuteronomy.) So having multiple accounts of the same story isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is having them from the same author in the same book. But the Book of Acts (which is Luke’s “history” of the spread of Christianity) has three different accounts of this story. It’s certainly worth asking why, and I’m going to suggest that there are two ways of looking at this – personal and theological. Let’s deal with Luke’s personal reasons first.
There’s no doubt that Luke is an admirer of Paul. Once you get to the first story of Paul’s conversion the Book of Acts becomes largely the story of Paul and his missionary journeys. I don’t think it’s difficult to understand from a personal reason why Luke is such an admirer of Paul. Luke – as I’ve said before – is, to the best of our knowledge, the only Gentile author of a book in the New Testament. When we looked at some of Luke’s stories about the resurrection I pointed out that Luke throughout his Gospel always had a universal view of Jesus’ ministry; it was always directed outward and never in any way restricted to Israel. So Luke is a Gentile. We might well ask, then, how it is that Luke came to faith – and I think, given his obvious devotion to Paul – that it’s not unreasonable to believe that his devotion to Paul may well have stemmed from the possibility that it was Paul’s ministry that converted him. All three of Luke’s accounts of this “Damascus Road” experience stress that Paul was given a special responsibility for evangelizing the Gentile world; the account of Chapter 22 would probably be the most important to Luke, because, in the context of Acts at least, it seems to be the earliest public statement by Paul that he had been given this mission – it’s given as part of Paul’s testimony to the Sanhedrin. Chapter 26 repeats Paul’s insistence that his mission to the Gentiles came from Jesus personally. So at the very least Luke would have been converted as a part of this Gentile mission that Paul became the head of, but the closeness of their relationship is testified to in Colossians 4:14 and in Philemon, in both of which Paul identified Luke as one of his travelling companions. So there’s also a good possibility that Paul personally converted Luke to Christianity, which in Luke’s mind might give Paul a status as a sort of “spiritual father.” It’s also very likely that Paul shared this story with Luke personally, so what we read in Acts may be no less than a second hand account of the event – which makes it reasonably reliable if the original story came from Paul himself. So, for Luke, the story of how Paul himself was converted is of great personal interest and he wants it told. But there may also be a theological reason for the story being told three times.
While it could be argued that the three stories are just a matter of context – the first is Paul’s conversion, and the second and third are snapshots of Paul’s experiences in which he had to tell the story to others, and the progression of the stories mirrors the progression of the Christian faith, and even in some ways the story of Jesus’ own life. The first story begins with Paul as a Jewish persecutor of Christians who is witnessed to by Jesus himself and who, as a result, comes to faith in Jesus. The second story is an account of Paul’s testimony before the Sanhedrin – which was the Jewish Governing Council, who would represent in essence the Jewish community of Jerusalem. In the third appearance, Paul is speaking before two individuals of significance: King Herod Agrippa (the Roman-supported “King” of Judea) and Porcius Festus (the Roman Governor) and this hearing is a part of the account of how Paul is sent to Rome. In comparison, Jesus’ life progressed from temptation in the wilderness to confirmation of his mission by God to his mission to Israel to his command that all the world should learn the story. From the wider perspective of the faith, Christianity progresses from being a persecuted sect to being preached to the Jews to rapidly spreading in the Gentile world. There’s a certain symmetry there that seems to tie everything together.
The first account describes Saul (remember that Saul and Paul are the same person) “still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.” Saul is a faithful Jew to the point of being willing to kill those who disagree with him for the sake of his faith. There are hints of religious extremism about Saul. He – to his credit – doesn’t ever try to hide his background later in life. In Galatians, he reminds his readers of “how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” He mentions his past as a persecutor of the church in Philippians. He never tries to evade it or set it behind him. In fact, his past as a persecutor of the church is in some ways a badge of honour – it points out the sincerity of his conversion. It holds out hope that anyone could be converted by Jesus. There’s an old hymn that includes the words “the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” Paul is the proof positive of that. He never shies away from his past or downplays it. He holds it up as a sign of how completely an experience with Jesus can change a person’s life. He was a vile offender – and he was not only pardoned by Jesus, he was called by Jesus; used by Jesus. His past reminds all future Christians that the Gospel is intended for everyone – even the vilest.
There are a few points that are interesting for what they tell us about very early Christian faith. Since Saul had received letters from the Sanhedrin to the synagogues in Damascus allowing him to search for and apparently arrest Christians, we know two things: Christianity by this point had spread at least 250 km from Jerusalem (so, even without Paul, the Christian faith was expanding into areas outside Jerusalem and its surrounding areas) and – as we’ve noted before – Christians continued to worship as Jews while also worshiping Jesus – so he would find them in the synagogues; that was a natural place for Christians of the day to be. In Chapter 9 we have the first reference to Christians being called followers of “the Way.” It’s not really clear how we should interpret that. Does it refer specifically to Jesus. Remember that Jesus called himself “the Way”: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” So is calling someone a follower of the Way simply another way of identifying them as a follower of Jesus, or is it something deeper? To follow “the Way” might suggest that there was a general recognition that Christian faith called people to a particular way of life. The use of the definite article here is probably important. So Christians are called followers of “the Way.” It suggests a uniqueness to a Christian way of life. It is not just “another” way – it is “the Way.” It’s an early hint of Christian exclusivism. The term used in this way (to designate Christians) only appears in the Book of Acts, and it appears twice – in Chapter 9 (“the Way”) and in the same story in Acts 22 (“this Way.”) It’s likely that the early Christians chose that as a way of referring to themselves rather than having the name given to them by others. The other thing that is stressed strongly in all three accounts of the story is Jesus’ lament: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” What’s interesting about that is that it clearly equates the person of Jesus with the Christian community; the corporate church. Saul is obviously persecuting the church, but Jesus refers to him persecuting “me.” So the image of the church as the Body of Christ gains traction from this story. In Acts 26 when Jesus says “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” he is said to have added the words, “It hurts you to kick against the goads.” What exactly does that mean? In Jesus’ day the goad was a long stick carried by farmers who used oxen to plow their fields. The stick would be blunt on one end but would have a very sharp point at the other end. If the oxen became stubborn, the farmer would basically stab the point into the oxen’s legs or rear end to try to force him to move. Sometimes the oxen still resisted and kicked back at the goads – which only resulted in the oxen being stabbed more and more by the goads, causing more and more pain to the animal. In this case, the message from Jesus to Saul seems to be that God is pushing Saul forward to a particular destiny (leading the Christian mission to the Gentiles) that Saul is rebelling against, and that even as Saul rebels more, it becomes harder for him not to accept the mission. A modern way of putting it might be to have Jesus say “you can’t fight against your destiny,” or “you can’t ignore God’s will” – with the understanding that doing so is a very uncomfortable thing. We still use the word today probably without knowing the imagery behind it; so we still speak of “goading” people on. To combine these two images together, from a faith perspective, the point might be that true conversion to the way of Jesus is a very difficult thing because it requires to some extent leaving behind a previous way of life and adopting a new way of life; a new way of looking at the world; and possibly leaving behind some of the things we had been accustomed to in the past. This becomes something of a recurring theme in Paul’s writings. In Philippians 3, for example, Paul speaks about his status as a faithful Jew and Pharisee, with the status that would have conferred on him being implied although not stated outright, and then he says “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. … I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection … Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Giving up that which has been of value to embrace a new way of life and a new way of thinking isn’t easy. Sometimes we fight God’s call; we “kick against the goads,” but the more we fight God’s call the clearer it becomes that God is calling! Some have suggested that if Saul has been “kicking against the goads” then it might suggest that Saul had been fighting God’s call for some time; that for a long time Saul had been both repelled by and attracted to Christ and “the Way” - that perhaps he had even heard of Jesus or his teachings before Jesus was killed; that perhaps he had even seen Jesus in the flesh. We can’t know for sure, although if Paul had seen Jesus in the flesh it would seem unusual that he never mentioned such an encounter in his letters. But however long Paul’s spiritual struggle was, it was a struggle. Becoming a disciple of Jesus was not an easy thing for him to accept.
If you read all three accounts you will find some minor differences – which is perhaps surprising since Luke wrote all three (although presumably basing the story on the account he had heard from Paul.) One of the differences is the addition we’ve just spoken of – adding “it hurts you to kick against the goads” in Chapter 26. There’s also the description of what Saul’s companions experienced during the encounter. In Chapter 9 “they heard the voice but saw no one.” In Chapter 22 they “saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to [Saul.]” Chapter 26 is silent on the issue of what Saul’s companions experienced. A lot has actually been written about that difference, but to me it’s just another example of a small detail that doesn’t really change the substance of the story. More substantial is that the account in Chapter 26 includes a much longer “speech” (for lack of a better word) by Jesus. There’s nothing especially surprising in the words. They’re another iteration of Paul’s commission to go to the Gentiles. In this case, however, they’re added to the story near the end. Paul is about to embark on his last missionary journey. To make a long story short, he had been arrested by the Roman authorities at the request of the Jewish authorities, but the Romans could find nothing specific to charge him with. (There are some shades there of Jesus being arrested before his crucifixion and Pilate acknowledging that there was no basis for a charge against him.) But Festus (the Roman governor) asked Paul if he would be “willing” to go with him to Jerusalem to face the charges. Apparently he didn’t have to. The implication is that he could have been released. But instead of simply declining to go to Jerusalem and being set free, Paul surprised everyone by exercising his right as a Roman citizen to be sent to Rome to face trial. (“I appeal to Caesar!” he said.) So these words of Jesus related to Herod Agrippa and Festus are perhaps setting the stage for this last journey. Paul the missionary to the Gentiles will now be sent to the heart of the Gentile world – the great city of Rome – to proclaim the gospel there. In some ways, these words of Jesus are a fitting last speech coming from him and directed to Paul, because Paul’s time in Rome will be difficult. The church appears to have been already established there by the time he arrives, and how much influence he had on the Roman church is open to question. We know that he wrote to the Roman church to let them know that he was coming (“Romans”) but his relationship to that church is unknown. It was certainly not one of the Gentile churches that he founded. And in the end, although the last verses of Acts describe Paul as preaching and teaching in Rome for two years, the story ends abruptly there. It’s almost as if Luke – with his great admiration for Paul – couldn’t bring himself to write the last bit of the story: that Paul was finally executed in Rome, supposedly beheaded during a persecution of Christians, which brings Paul’s story full circle: the one who began as a persecutor of Christians is executed because he is a Christian.
The only remaining item is the question of the nature of
this experience. Paul includes it in 1 Corinthians in his list of Jesus’
resurrection appearances. But this does seem to have been a spiritual
experience more than a resurrection appearance. The light and the voice suggest
this. One thing this does have in common with several earlier resurrection
appearances is that Saul doesn’t recognize Jesus. “Who are you, Lord?” he’s
said to have asked. So how we fit this into the resurrection appearances of
Jesus is a question – although in 1 Corinthians Paul simply included it as if
there were no question. This was the resurrected Jesus that Paul had
encountered, just as the other disciples had encountered the resurrected Jesus.
This may relate to questions about Paul’s status as an apostle. In basically
every letter he writes he opens with a defence of his status as an apostle. “I
am an apostle of Jesus Christ” he more or less says over and over again. The
point of contention that made many reject his apostle-ship may have been that
he hadn’t actually encountered Jesus as the other apostles had. Paul holds up
his Damascus Road experience as his “apostolic encounter” you might say. Paul
certainly wants it equated with how all of the other apostles experienced Jesus
in the flesh.
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