This isn't the first time the force of Saul's fierce personality surfaces in the book of Acts. He stands by in approval at the stoning of Stephen, and soon after that he sets out to "destroy the church" (8:1-3). He isn't a psychopath; he's a Pharisee who is so devoted to God's law that he sees this upstart group as a threat to the Jewish people.

From Acts and from his own epistles, we learn that Saul is a devout man, trained by the greatest rabbis of his day, deeply knowledgeable of the Scriptures, and utterly devoted to God as Saul understood him. Furthermore, he is a cosmopolitan man---a Roman citizen fluent in Greek and Latin as well as his own Hebrew tongue. Though he began as the church's worst enemy, by God's grace he becomes its best missionary.

Saul doesn't wait for anyone to give him orders; he asks for letters from the high priest giving him the authority to arrest Christians in the synagogue in Damascus. As Saul and his traveling companions near the city, a bright light flashes, and Saul falls to the ground. He hears a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asks. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." This is not a pronouncement, but a personal conversation.

That means two things. First, this was not an angel visitation, nor a trance, but a personal appearance by the Lord. Second, Jesus informs Saul that in persecuting the church he is persecuting Jesus himself. Jesus so identifies with the church, which Saul/Paul will come to call "the body of Christ," that anything done to the church is done to Jesus personally.

That's it---Paul receives no other orders except that he should go into the city, where he will find out what to do next. The only trouble is that he is temporarily blind from the powerful light he had seen. Making his way into the city with the help of his companions (we never learn what happens to them), he ends up in a house. He's blind, and so scared or moved that he will not eat or drink.

It's the Lord who makes the arrangements, calling on one Ananias. This man is understandably hesitant at first, but he makes his way over to Saul to lay healing hands on him and to give him his marching orders from the Lord. Saul is God's "chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel," (v. 15; also see 22:14-16). Ananias baptized Saul, and within days, Saul was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

No wonder we refer to a "Damascus road experience" when we hear about someone whose life is completely turned around. It's obvious by the way Paul tells the story of his conversion (Acts 22; 26) that he considered this the most important moment of his life. It's another thing to make Paul's experience a model for all conversions. Saul's story is told precisely because it is so extraordinary. God laid claim to this enemy of the church to make him its key evangelist and theologian. It's a measure of Saul's stubborn determination that this is what it took to turn him from enemy to friend.