The Road to Damascus

Acts 9:4–5 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." Saul is breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

He has letters of authorisation from the high priest and a clear sense of righteous purpose. He is not a villain in his own narrative; he is a defender of the faith against what he sincerely believes is a dangerous corruption.

On the road to Damascus, at midday, a light brighter than the sun strikes him down. He falls. He hears a voice. The voice calls him by name — twice, the way God called Abraham and Moses and Samuel: Saul, Saul.

The urgency of the repetition is the urgency of love trying to reach someone who is running in the wrong direction. Why are you persecuting me? The identification of Jesus with the persecuted disciples is the most arresting sentence in Paul's conversion narrative.

Not "why are you persecuting them?" but me. Every arrest, every flogging, every imprisonment — Jesus takes it personally. The union between Christ and his church is not a legal fiction or a theological metaphor; it is a living reality.

To touch the church is to touch the one whose body the church is. Saul has been persecuting Jesus while believing he was defending God — one of the most devastating sentences in the history of religious zeal misdirected.

Ananias, who is sent to restore Saul's sight, is given a preview of what Saul will become: I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. The persecutor will become the persecuted. The one who imprisoned others for the name of Jesus will be imprisoned for the name of Jesus.

Paul's conversion is not a rescue from difficulty; it is a conscription into a specific and costly mission that the risen Christ has planned for him. Grace does not always make life easier; it sometimes redirects a person's entire existence toward a calling that will require everything they have.

Paul recounts his Damascus road experience three times in Acts (chapters 9, 22, and 26), each time with slight variations that reflect the different audiences and emphases. The repetition underlines how foundational the encounter was for his entire theology.

His later writings — particularly in Galatians and Philippians — return to the event as the basis for his apostolic authority and his understanding of grace: the one who persecuted the church was shown mercy, and that mercy became the template for his entire understanding of justification.

He did not deserve it; he received it; and therefore no one is beyond the reach of the same grace. 🪞 Reflect on this • Is there any area of your life where, like Saul, you might be sincerely convinced that what you are doing is right, when the risen Christ might be asking "why are you persecuting me?"

• How does the identification of Jesus with the persecuted church — "you are persecuting me" — change the way you treat the most marginalised members of his body? • Ananias was sent to the man who had been arresting his community.

What would it mean for you to obey a call to extend grace to your equivalent of Saul? 👣 Take a Step — Obey the Unexpected Errand Ask God this week whether there is a "Saul" he is sending you to — someone you would not naturally approach, perhaps someone who has hurt you or your community.

Take one step toward that person: a message, a prayer with them, an act of restoration. Prayer: Lord, you called Saul by name on the road to Damascus and turned the church's greatest persecutor into its greatest missionary.

Nothing is impossible to you. Show me where I have been running in the wrong direction — and show me the Sauls you are sending me to reach.