The Story

We go now from Jerusalem to Damascus. Here it is on the map. It is a wonderful old city, famous before the days of Abraham, and a thriving city still. We must see pictures of Damascus if we can; its fine houses and gardens, its streets crowded with people in all kinds of bright clothes, with loaded camels from the desert and other strange sights, and especially the bazaars where the queer little shops are crowded thick together. There are gates in the old city wall which are closed at night, and heavy doors here and there across the streets which shut off one part of the city from another. And this wonderful old city has been kept alive for thousands of years by two beautiful streams which run from great springs in the mountains out into the desert and make it a garden of beautiful green.

Travelers and traders are journeying to the city, and caravans of camels from across the desert. Among the travelers is Saul, whom we saw at Jerusalem, with those who stoned Stephen. He was an enemy of the followers of the Lord, and was now going to Damascus with power from the high priest to seize any of these followers who might be found in Damascus and bring them bound to Jerusalem. But something wonderful happened, which changed Saul from a most dreaded enemy of the disciples and made him one of them, and one of the strongest in the Lord's work. "And as he journeyed he came near Damascus." Read on, Acts 9:3-9. It was midday, but the light from heaven was brighter than the sun. Those who were with Saul saw the light and heard a sound, but he alone heard the words which the Lord spoke to him. After the vision Saul was blind, and they led him into the city. For three days he was blind. Then the Lord sent one of His followers, Ananias, who was living in Damascus, to go to Saul and heal his blindness. He would find him at the house of Judas in the street that is called Straight. The main street of Damascus is still called by that name. It is the street that is seen as one looks in through the eastern gate of the city. Saul's blindness was healed. He was baptized and was one of the Lord's people, and he began to preach in Damascus. For a time he left the city and found quiet in Arabia, to the south and east of Damascus. When finally he left the city enemies were watching at the city gates to kill him, and he was let down in a basket by a window from the city wall. Then he came to the disciples at Jerusalem. At first they were afraid, for he had been their enemy. But they learned to trust him, and he was now one of them. At first called Saul, from this time in the story he is usually called Paul. Many times he told this story of the Lord's coming to him with blinding light on the road to Damascus and calling him to His work.

Junior

In connection with this story of Paul's conversion, read two other accounts given by Paul himself, which are in some particulars more full. (Acts 22:1-21; 26:4-20) These also refer to Paul's earlier life. He was born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, the southeastern district of Asia Minor. He learned the trade of tent-making. He was an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, was brought up as a strict Pharisee, and was a pupil of Gamaliel, the famous teacher in Jerusalem, probably the same who is mentioned in Acts 5:34.

After reading the three accounts of Paul's conversion, you can bring the particulars together into one story. All saw the bright light at noonday. Paul seems to have seen a glorious human form. He afterwards speaks of having seen the Lord. (1 Corinthians 9: 1; 15:8) The others heard a sound, but Paul the spoken words. The name Saul, by which the Lord addressed him, was his name in Hebrew, his mother tongue; but from this time he is known usually by the Roman name Paul. The bright light which shone about Paul with the Lord's coming to him reminds us of the shining of the Lord's face as the sun and His raiment white as the light on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the disciples were overshadowed by a cloud. Paul's blindness suggests that the Lord's glory was more than he could bear.

The phrase "of this way," in verse 2, was a name applied to the Christians, and we find it several times in Acts 19:9, 23; 22:4. Christianity was thought of as a way of life, the way of life with the Lord.

Other accounts show that considerable time passed before the flight of Paul from Damascus, described in verses 23-26. It was during that time that he made the visit to Arabia for preparation for his ministry, of which Paul speaks in an Epistle. (Galatians 1:17, 18) Another Epistle (2 Corinthians 11:32, 33) gives some further particulars of the attempt to kill Paul, and of his escape, showing that the effort to kill him had the support of the authorities of Damascus. We shall be with Paul on some of his missionary journeys and shall hear some of his teaching. The Lord said of him, "He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."

1. What was Paul's relation to the Christians when we first learn of him?

2. What experience caused him to become one of them?

3. By what name were the Lord's followers known at this time?

4. What did the Lord call Paul in speaking of him to Ananias?

Deeper Study

Intermediate

The words just quoted gave Ananias courage to go to Paul to heal his blindness and to be the instrument of his baptism and reception of the Holy Spirit. They also indicate the nature of the service to which the Lord was calling Paul, a service which would take the Christian message out into the world, making its appeal not only to Jews, as it so far had done, but to the great Gentile world. It was a bold and important step which opened new doors for the Church. "He is a chosen vessel unto Me," the Lord said, "to bear my name before the Gentiles."

We learn today of Paul's preparation, very different from that of the men of Galilee whom the Lord first called. Learn something of his home in Tarsus of Cilicia, a city whose people had been granted Roman citizenship, and of his education. We have seen the zeal with which he at first persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem and in other places, but how he was changed by the experience on the Damascus road and was now one of them. He brought new powers to the service of the Church, needed in the new development which it was now to make. Paul's witness of Jesus before kings we find in his speech before Agrippa and in his preaching in Rome, resulting from his appeal to Caesar. (Acts 26:1, 32)

We shall in the Acts learn of Paul's missionary journeys in which in the face of hardship and persecution he with his chosen companions, of whom Luke who tells the story was often one, carried the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and of Christian life into many districts of Asia Minor, into Macedonia and Greece. Even as a prisoner he was a power for the Church in Rome. In each new place it was Paul's custom to appeal first to the Jews, but the conviction was strong with him that the Christian Gospel was equally for the Gentiles, for all men. It became the conviction of the Church that Gentiles could be received by the Lord as Christians without first conforming to the Jewish ceremonial law.

Paul's belief in the world-wide mission of the Church is strongly shown in the Acts.. The book contains reports of many pleadings of Paul with members of Jewish synagogues, and of addresses to Gentile audiences. For further knowledge of Paul's teaching of the Christian gospel, not to Jews familiar with Scripture, but to Gentile minds trained in Greek philosophical thought, we have the group of his letters or Epistles to churches under his care and to individual disciples. Note his strong statement of the Divinity of Jesus Christ in Colossians 2:9, his emphasis upon the supreme place of charity or love in Christian life (1 Corinthians 13) and his teaching of resurrection and the reality of the spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:44.) Swedenborg often quotes Paul in support of Christian doctrine. Read again his statement in regard to the value of the Acts and Epistles to the Church in Documents 224, quoted in Lesson 33 above, page 204. It will be right to learn the facts of Paul's ministry and then to form our estimate of it.

Give more careful study to the subject of the bright light attending the Lord's presence, which was seen on the Mount of Transfiguration and by Paul, and which makes the Lord the sun of heaven. Read the chapter in Heaven and Hell on the sun in heaven, especially Nos. 117, 118. Note the caution in W. 97: "But beware of thinking that the sun of the spiritual world is God Himself. God is Man. The first proceeding from His love and wisdom is a fiery spiritual substance, which appears in the sight of the angels as a sun." Read also in U. 40 a beautiful account of the appearing of the Lord to spirits from this and other earths as a human form encompassed with the sun. He appeared so to some who when they were men saw the Lord in this world, and they said that it was the Lord Himself. (See also R. 831; A. 10809)

Notice first, in regard to the appearance of the Lord as a sun to the angels, that the heat and light which shine from Him are in correspondence with the love and wisdom from Him which warm their hearts and lighten their minds; for in that world the inward and the outward radiance are inseparable. In the Lord's words to Nicodemus, in John 3:16-21, see described these two elements of the heavenly sunshine which He brought into the world: the great saving love and from this the light to show all things truly. In His coming the prophecy was fulfilled, that the Sun of righteousness would arise with healing in His wings. (Malachi 4:2) It was the receiving of the inward heat and light which made men the Lord's disciples; but when a glimpse of His outward glory also would be useful it was granted by the opening of their spiritual sight, as to the three on the Mount of Transfiguration, and to Paul.

There is in the Lord's question, "Why persecutest thou Me?" a beautiful expression of His nearness and sympathy, which makes our trials His trials, our joys His joys. Remember the saying of the King to those on His right hand and left, that what they had done to the least of His brethren they had done to Him. (Matthew 25: 40, 45) It is true always that love or hatred of goodness and truth in our relations with one another is an act of kindness or cruelty to the Lord. "He who loves evils, also loves to do evil to the Lord, nay, to crucify Him: this is inmostly latent in all evil." (R. 527)

It may not be necessary or possible for us to know deeply the effect of this sudden and startling experience upon Paul's character as a man. Such an experience in itself could not regenerate a man. (P.130-136; D.4322) What Swedenborg says of Paul shows also that a sense of importance and a desire to rule were deep rooted in his character. (D. 4412) While this should keep us from undue reverence for Paul as a man, it should not prevent our recognizing that in the Lord's providence he wrote "good books for the church, insisting upon the doctrine of charity and its faith as strongly as the Lord Himself has done in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation," and that he had an important part in making known the Christian religion to the world. Remember the Lord's words to Ananias when He sent him to Paul: "He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."

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