Saul's Conversion (with conflicts!)

 ³ Now as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; ⁴ and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” ⁵ And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, ⁶ but get up and enter the city, and it will be told to you what you must do.” ⁷ The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. (Acts 9:3-7, NASB) 

If I never knew what Calvinism was, then reading the account of Paul’s conversion would have led me inexorably to some primordial form.

 

Paul was not seeking the Lord.

Paul was not being divinely wooed to come to Christ.

Paul was not being proselytized.

 

No, Paul experienced literally what most of us experience metaphorically: We are knocked to the ground; we are dragged and compelled. Any feeling that we had something to do with our conversion is simply an attempt at after-the-fact rationalization. It's illusory. It's our effort to drape a worldly context on what amounts to a supernatural intervention, a miracle if you will. We contribute naught but our sin.

 

In the case at hand, the utterance of the Lord begins with the object's name repeated: Saul, Saul. This is a common feature when God deigns to speak audibly to a creature. Saul recognizes the divine authority of the voice but not the specifics, as he asks: “Who are you, Lord?” He received an answer that he could not have possibly expected (or wanted). We would all love to hear the first part: “I am Jesus.” We would rather not have to hear the rest: “whom you are persecuting.” Yikes. I'd be expecting something unpleasant at that point. But then again, this is Jesus we are talking about.

 

The account does not tell us that Saul saw Jesus. That's not a conflict, just a factoid. That particular detail is added later, first by Ananias in 9:17, and then by Barnabas in 9:17, and again later by Paul’s retelling (e.g., 1 Cor 9:1). 

 

There are some conflicts perhaps worth mentioning. In 9:7 we are told a) Saul’s companions stood speechless and b) they heard the voice.  The first is superficially in conflict with Paul’s retelling in Acts 26:14

And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me 

The second is in apparent conflict with, again, Paul’s own words, this time from Acts 22:9

And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.

The first conflict is usually explained by the possibility that while Saul remained on the ground his companions, somewhat stunned by the light, went to the ground, but not being the target of the act of divine sovereignty were less affected, and so they quickly recovered and got up. So they were sort of down and not down (Schrödinger companions.) That is, by the time we get to v7 of the primary account, the companions have already stood up.

The second conflict is often explained away with the argument that the companions heard something but unlike Saul what reached their ears was not discernable, it was just thunderous noise.

 

That works for me. These are not important (apparent) discrepancies.