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Saul's conversion is important to us because we are always wanting detailed accounts of the journey of those people who have become great or famous. They always fascinate us. We avidly consume all the minute specifics we can find about them, sometimes even stooping to seek out tidbits of gossip. We are titillated by the trivial. Why was Sir Winston Churchill buried in a small country cemetery rather than in Westminster Abbey? Why was Churchill born in the servant's quarters of Blenheim Palace rather than in the upstairs rooms reserved for dignitaries? Did Franklin D. Roosevelt have a mistress and did John F. Kennedy have extramarital affairs? Has the passion gone from the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Di? Will Elizabeth Taylor marry yet again? Insatiable is our appetite for singularities in noteworthy people. So, since we know how vastly important Saul is to our Christian faith, we latch onto Luke's accounts with ready interest. Let us be aware that this is the first of three accounts of the conversion of Saul (Acts 9, 22, and 26). Only an event of greatest import would ever cause Luke, who is usually known for his brevity and concision, to repeat it so often.

But even more than our interest in important people, we are desirous of knowing about Saul because of what conversion is and how it occurs. We realize that nothing is more staggering than knowing salvation through faith in Christ, so we read of this man's pilgrimage with keen interest, for we want to know, too: "What must I do to be saved?" "How can I be right with God?" "Is there a clue here that will help me to be converted, and to help others come to faith?"

So, let us use Saul's experience to guide us in our attempt to find Christ and then to assist others to become followers of the Way. The Way, people of Christ - that's the description of the Christian faith and its adherents, used a number of times in Acts, even before they were called Christians. This term was not always meant as a term of approbation to be called of the Way. Often it was a slur against the believer in Christ, for the pagan priests were convinced that the Christian way was a way of heresy. Later, Paul was to say to Felix, "I do admit this to you: I worship the God of our ancestors by following that Way which they say is false (Acts 24:14)." But the term certainly was not always uncomplimentary, for it did mean something special. It said that the Christians had a special walk, or manner or life. How wonderful to be accused of walking after a certain way so that your detractors would be reminded of Jesus! So closely did they pattern their lives after Christ that they could be distinguished by it. It's true that often today we are recognized by our creed - Arian, Athanasian, or Pelagian, or by our ceremonies and how we perform them - baptism by sprinkling or immersion, or by our divisions liberal or conservative, but tragic that we rarely are marked by our way of living, acting, talking, and thinking. Far too seldom do we hear it said, "Now that person is a Christian!"

So how did Saul become a true follower of the Way? How did his conversion come about? We need to know how his decisive encounter with the Way himself (for our Lord's own claim was "I am the Way") came about.

The Conversion

When first we meet Saul of Tarsus we know him to be an almost fanatical persecutor of those of the Way. We know he had witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen and then had gone on a personal crusade against Christians in Jerusalem, invading the privacy of their homes and hauling them away to prison. After ravaging Jerusalem, he is still looking for more ways to vent his anger against this new sect which was born out of the life and death of that man called Jesus. Jesus, whom they had killed by hanging on a tree. They crucified him, now it is Saul's bounden duty to stamp out his followers - all of them - by whatever means it takes.

So, learning that many of the Jesus people had scattered to Damascus, Saul obtained orders from the chief priest to continue his murderous, merciless mission there. In true vigilante fashion he takes his letters of authorization and begins to extend his persecution all the way to Damascus.

Damascus is 150 miles from Jerusalem and he is nearing his destination when he is confronted with someone with a greater plan. The same Lord who had exposed him to the vital faith of the church, to the soul-searching experience of watching Stephen die with words of forgiveness on his lips for his killers, now begins to draw the net around Saul.

It takes four to six days to get to Damascus from Jerusalem. What do you suppose Saul thought about enroute? A man of Saul's intelligence and learning had to think and remember and wonder about these strange Jesus people. What made them tick? Who was right? Could this Jesus have been the promised Messiah? What made these folks love Jesus to the death? Why did they make him so furious? What did he care what they did if he, Saul, were right? What made their lives so different? Did these questions occur to him?

Of course, we never know what people are thinking, no matter what they say. On our tour to the United Kingdom I met a man who told me he was an atheist. I learned that he was an exceptionally fine historian, and that he had taught for years at one of our outstanding universities. In a breakfast conversation he said, rather condescendingly, to me, "I don't believe in God. I don't believe in life after death. When you tell me that knowing Christ is a matter of faith, I say, 'the mind cannot accept what cannot be proven.' I think you are wrong in your confidence in Christ now and in your hope for heaven later. What do you say to that?" I responded, "You are right about this one thing; I can't prove it. Faith is a matter of the heart more than the head, and reason is often the enemy of faith. But, even if I am wrong - and I'm sure I'm not - and you are right, I have more to smile about than you. I have hope even when things seem hopeless, and I am not shattered at the thought of death, for I look to a brighter future. The fact is, right now, I'm happier in my faith than you are without faith!" He smiled and said, "Well, that much I do admit." And the rest of the trip he dogged my heels for further conversation. I tell you, you just never know what someone is thinking and feeling, regardless of what their actions say.

But now Saul is on his way - almost there - when suddenly, at high noon, a bright light flashed, so brilliant in intensity that he and his companions were thrown to the ground. The light is followed by a voice telling him that he is an enemy of God, engaged in warfare against God's own people. When Saul asks for the voice's I.D., the speaker identifies himself as Jesus. Then the Lord instructs Saul to go into the city where he will be told what to do. The one who is used to giving orders is now receiving them. Saul, likely shaking with fear and awe, proceeds to obey the voice, but when he opens his eyes he finds that he cannot see. He is blind! We know that before he will see with his eyes again he will have the eyes of his soul enlightened - and that's the best illumination of all! Saul of Tarsus is about to become Paul the Apostle.

The Conveyors

The Lord reaches each of us differently. We may not all have, and probably won't, so dramatic an encounter as Saul, but the important thing is how we respond to Christ. Saul was brought to the end of his own resources, his own cleverness, learning, and pride - and so must we be. Perhaps the reason so few of us have definite conversion experience is that we have not allowed ourselves to know how deep is our need for a Savior. Only those who are very ill are aware of the need for a physician. We are not doing God a favor to let him save us. He is doing a radical operation of rescuing us from death and hell and the punishment we so surely deserve for our sins. If we only could recognize how dire is our distress, we might also realize how dramatic is our deliverance!

Saul's conversion is not a sudden conversion, but it is a sudden surrender. It's true that the light at midday was a sudden experience, but a lot of factors have gone into this struggle before this time and place.

We do not become Christians in isolation. Think about it - you are a Christian today because of whom? What factors? How many people touched your life on your journey to Christ? I can never say, when someone comes to own Christ as Lord in a revival I am preaching, that "He or she is my convert," for though I may be the one who prays with them, receives their confession of faith, and may baptise them in Christ, still, how many others touched them to bring them to this place of ultimate decision?

Consequently, it is essential that others who are outside of the faith have no difficulty identifying us as Christians. The Irish tell the story of Murphy, who went into a restaurant in New York and said to the man at the counter, "I want a burger, fries, and a chocolate shake." The man replied, "You must be Irish." Murphy said, "I can't believe it. Everybody always knows." He vowed to disguise his Irishness if it's the last thing he did. He went to school to lose his accent. He got a whole new wardrobe. He then went to a finishing school to learn all the proper manners and how always to behave. Then, some months later he went to the same restaurant, and said to the man at the counter, "I would like to start with some vichyssoise, then I'll have steak tartare, and I'll complete the meal with fresh raspberries." The man said, "You must be Irish." Murphy replied, "How is it that you always know I'm Irish?" The man said, "Because this is a hardware store." Just so easy should it be to know us as people of the Way.

Too, it is imperative that we realize our responsibility to be of the Way, rather than in the way. We have all experienced having to say to another, "Please, get out of the way." They have, at the moment, become a hindrance, an obstacle, or a threat to what is being accomplished, so we say they are in the way. But people of the Way should never be in the way of those who need to find Christ. Rather, we are obligated to be persons whose lives are indelibly stamped with the imprint of Jesus. We never know when someone is watching us. Sometimes people become Christians because of us, other times in spite of us. As people of the way, we are an influence whether we want to be or not. Sometimes it is consciously, other times it is unconsciously, but whether accidentally or on purpose, we carry weight either for or against our Lord. Terrifying thought and responsibility, isn't it?

A minister from a Communist party, speaking of churches being allowed to exist in an atheistic society, said, "Christianity is no threat as long as you can contain it to one day a week. It is only when it becomes a way of life that the authorities seek to stamp it out."

If we could manage to be real in all of our lives, it would amount to a powerful inducement for others to come to Christ. A woman in a certain bank said she sees counterfeit money almost every day. When she was asked how she spotted the phoney money, she said, "We learn to spot the fake money by recognizing and handling so much of the real thing. Once you know the real, you can spot the counterfeit in a minute." So it is that the authentic Christian becomes his own validator, and the indicator of the false. The world needs because of believers and fewer in spite of persons.

Paul became a Christian in spite of his rigid, legalistic background, in spite of his prejudices and arrogant opinions, in spite of his learning and cleverness. But because of the seeking Savior and persons of the Way, he was found by Christ. Of course it is always through Christ's initiative that we are apprehended in our head-long dash for self-destruction. Because of Christ, Saul found knowledge of the Way - Way both in a person and in a direction for his life.

We, too, are saved, because God always uses the intricate weaving of other lives into our conversion. There were those persons who became an indispensable part of God's transforming power to make us his own.

Look at some of those of the Way whom God used in this marvelous redemptive work for Saul. There was an obedientto-God-Ananias who came with a brother's heart to help. There were the people who led him, as he was blind, to Damascus. There was Judas, in whose house he found hospitality. There were the unnamed disciples among whom he spent certain days. There was his revered teacher, Gamaliel, who had been conciliatory to the church. And back of this company, surely, the remembrance of Stephen, who was a witness to the very end, praying for his persecutors, walking as a person of the Way right into death. And how many others do you suppose there were, whose names the Record does not mention? Add them together, with the sweet and compelling intervention of Christ on the Damascus Road, and you have the capitulation of Saul to allow Jesus as Lord in his life!

How different the outcome might have been in this great man's life without these people of the Way - some of them so obscure we don't even know their names. But they were the bridge over whom Saul passed from the old life to the new. It is a sobering thought to know that when a life of great potential fails, it is not the shining light of God which is lacking, for he is always faithful, but a human life who at a critical time might have been "in the way" rather than of the Way.

I, among many others, give thanks to God for the consistency of the life of Billy Graham. There has been a number of evangelistic stars who have ascended in recent years, and many have fallen, as they were beset by scandal, political controversy, or organizational woes. But Billy Graham remains untainted, the most admired religious leader in America, and the most durable. It was 50 or more years ago that a tall, young Billy delivered his first sermon one cold night before a few Baptists in Bostwick, Florida. Since then, he has preached in person to upwards of 100 million people, more than any other clergymen in history, except perhaps Pope John Paul. Billy Graham was quoted in Time (Nov. 14, 1988, p. 86) as saying, "From the very beginning of my career I was frightened - I still am - that I would do something to dishonor the Lord." Well, thanks be to God!, so far so good. He continues to be a because of person of the Way.

I can personally witness that I am a Christian today in spite of a deep poverty when I was growing up which made me terribly shy and insecure around others. I was embarrassed because of my poor home, my poor clothes, and my obvious lack of material things. Also, I had a number of friends who thought it was clever to laugh at anyone who claimed the Christian faith. There were some years when my father, crippled by alcoholism and mad at God, refused to have anything to do with the church and badgered me to stay away as well. Then there were those Christians whose example of the Way left much to be desired. I shall never forget one Easter when we had no money for new clothes or new shoes, and because I needed them so badly had nothing to wear to church. My mother made me a dress from a scrap of material, probably meant for herself, and then managed to scrape together enough coins to make a dollar. She knew I was wearing cardboard inside my shoes to keep my feet off the ground for I had such large holes in the soles. She handed me the dollar and said, "Honey, go downtown to the Brokerage (a cheap, discount store) and see if you can find a pair of shoes that cost no more than this." I was so excited, and went shopping for new shoes, and found one pair. Just one pair was all they had in my size. I found them on the dollar-sale-rack, and they were bright red. I'd never had red shoes before, but they seemed wonderful to me. I was delighted to think of getting to wear them to Sunday school and church the next day. But, to this day I still hurt when I remember the pain and embarrassment I felt when I met a woman in the aisle of the church that Sunday, who looked at my feet, and said, "How could you have the nerve to wear red shoes to church? You look like a Jezebel, only harlots wear red shoes!" I was cut to the quick, for not only did I not think there was anything wrong with red shoes, I knew I could not afford others. There was a woman, supposedly of the Way, but that day was definitely in the way of my becoming a Christian. People are Christians in spite of us or because of us.

On the other hand, however, exposure to the Word of God as it was preached, and taught, and lived, meant that the Holy Spirit came to me again and again with entreaty, with wooing urgency, to give my life to Christ. Along with the Spirit's gentle and powerful drawing me like a moth to a flame, there was that network of people of the Way who made so attractive to me the Christian life. There was first and foremost, my Christian mother whose daily singing of hymns as she worked around the home, whose vibrant faith, and whose passionate prayers for her children that were so real I could neither deny nor ignore them. There were those pastors of the church, people of God who preached the Word with love and power and conviction and authority. There was a Sunday school teacher, who really didn't know much about the Bible, and even less about theology (I now know), but who, nonetheless, believed it all, was infinitely patient with my endless questions, and I owe her an unpayable debt. There were those friends whose love for Christ attracted me and enticed me to trust him, too. And then there was that evangelist, Dodson was his name, and he always wore a red tie, who, in a revival, made it so easy for me to come to Christ as he taught me to pray the sinner's prayer, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." And, "because of" them and others, I walk as one "of the Way."

Laurence Houseman said, "A saint is one who makes goodness attractive." Many have done that through the ages. May God give us the same initiative. Paul said it so well to Timothy, and it could become our watchword, "... Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."