April 17, 2026 Acts 9:1-19a Paul's Conversion, His Call, or Both

Was Saul of Tarsus’  encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. a conversion, a call or, perhaps, both. 

While most call this Saul’s conversion, there are good reasons to question that term. Typically, Christians have used “conversion” when someone moves from unbelief to belief or from one religion to another.

Saul passionately believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as did the early Christians. Saul was initially convinced Jesus’ followers were heretical Jews who perverted God’s word and will in the world.

It is appropriate to speak of Saul converting from one form of Judaism to another. Paul refers to himself as a Pharisee in Philippians 3:5–6. Likewise, Luke depicts Saul as a  zealoos and devout Jew who violently disagreed with the early Christians because of their teaching that Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah, whom God raised from the dead. This did not follow the narrative Saul had learned

This lies at the heart of Saul’s "conversion". Instead of seeing Jesus as a deceased leader of unfaithful and heretical Jews, Saul begins to recognize Jesus as the resurrected and living Lord.

Luke initially depicts Saul as growing perpetually more violent. In 7:58, Saul stands by as others stone Stephen. In 8:1, Saul approves of the murderers’ actions. By 9:1, Saul is literally “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Saul hunts and pursues his victims. He instigates the violent Christian persecutions in Damascus (9:2). Beginning in 9:3, however, Luke’s depiction of Saul changes dramatically.

Saul experiences a true theophany, (or a manifestation of God among humans), much like we see at other points in the Scriptures (like, for example, in Exodus 19:16–19; 1 Kings 19:11; Isaiah 66:15; or Acts 2:2). Saul sees a bright light, falls to the ground, and hears a voice calling his name (9:3–4) like these Old Testament examples.

Saul even recognizes he is encountering God directly by referring to the speaker of the voice as “Lord” (9:5). Saul also confesses his profound confusion when he asks, “Who are you, Lord?” He recognizes both that God is speaking and that something does not add up. The voice asks, “Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me?” (9:4). Previously, Saul was sure he was performing the Lord’s work, not thwarting it. After hearing this, that certainty vanishes.

The pivotal revelation occurs in 9:5. The voice of God identifies as Jesus, whom Saul is persecuting as Christians. Jesus’ statements to Saul are multifaceted. If Jesus is speaking personally with Saul, it means Jesus is not dead nor far off, as some might envision in light of his ascension (1:9–11). 

Instead, Luke depicts Jesus as alive, speaking as God's voice, and intimately connected to his followers. Thereafter, Luke associates Saul with images of death (blindness, no food, and no drink (9:9). Yet, those images soon give way to images of life, such as sight, baptism, food, and strength (9:18–19a). This experience is related in Acts three times, another number associated with Jesus' death. 

Luke weds Saul’s “conversion” with his “call.” To speak of one without the other skews the biblical witness and can lead to theological imbalance. Ananias, a disciple in Damascus, likewise experiences a divine summons (like Exodus 3:1–4:17; or Isaiah 6:1–13). 

He initially responds like Isaiah, making himself available to the Lord (9:10), but then responds as humans typically do by making excuses (9:13–14; see Exodus 4:1, 10; Judges 6:15; or Luke 1:18–20). 

Interestingly, the Lord commissions Ananias to relay the Lord’s commission to Saul (9:15–16). Importantly, Saul does not receive his calling directly from God (or Jesus). Instead, God works with and through a fellow believer to reveal God’s will to Saul. This speaks imperatively to essential witnessing to one another, as Pastor Steve preached last Sunday. Ananias’ obedience is pivotal for Saul’s understanding and subsequent faithfulness. One wonders whether Saul would have fulfilled his divine commission if Ananias had not been faithful in his. 

Saul receives a double commission. Saul will proclaim the good news of God’s work in and through Jesus to a wide swath of people (9:15). Yet, Saul is also called to suffer for the sake of Jesus’s name (9:16). Saul doesn't receive a carefree commission. Saul’s suffering will serve God’s purposes as much as Saul’s proclamations.

In Acts 9:1–19a, Luke introduces us to two distinct, yet interlocking, relationships. On the one hand, Luke wants us to recognize the importance of what will become our Trinitarian theology. The voice of Jesus and the voice of God cannot be separated in Acts 9:5, and God’s commission does not take place apart from the Holy Spirit’s empowerment (9:17). 

At the same time, Luke wants us to recognize the intimate connection between Jesus and the church. When Saul persecutes the church, Saul persecutes Jesus. Jesus is not far off. Even in his ascended state, he is present and advocating for his people. Some have said, “Christians are the only Jesus people will ever see.” Luke would disagree with them here.

When adequately understood, authentic encounters with Jesus change human lives. Those changes involve both conversion and commission. A genuine encounter with Jesus alters both our actions and our faith. 

God’s call to Ananias involved the potential for suffering. God’s call to Saul involved the certainty of suffering. Obedience to God’s call does not guarantee Christians (nor ministers) a life free from suffering.

Something is unsettling about how the Acts of the Apostles tells the story of Saul on the road to Damascus. We want clarity: was it a conversion or a calling? Luke insists on both, and in that “both” is where the Spirit does its most unsettling work.

Saul doesn't move from unbelief to belief. He is not empty of faith. He is full of zealous and disciplined faith. He loves the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yet, in that very devotion, he is violently wrong. It is possible to be passionately religious and profoundly misaligned with God.

So Saul’s “conversion” is not a rejection of God but a reorientation toward God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. The shock is not that God exists, but that God looks like Jesus. Crucified. Risen. Identified not with power, but with the persecuted. 

“Why do you persecute me?” Jesus asks. Not “my followers,” but me. In that moment, Saul’s entire world is fundamentally shattered and remade. God is not where Saul thought God was. God is in the very people Saul was trying to destroy.

This feels like death for Saul. Blindness. Silence. Fasting. Saul is undone before he is remade and the imagery is unmistakable. Before there is resurrection, there is burial. Before sight, there is darkness. Whatever else "conversion" means, it is a dying and rising. 

Paul is even renamed when he is born again. The story refuses to remain inward. It immediately turns outward, toward calling.

Saul does not simply gain new insight. Rather, he is given a new direction, and strikingly, that calling does not come to him alone. It comes through Ananias of Damascus, as a reluctant, ordinary disciple who must overcome fear to participate in God’s work. The risen Christ chooses to work through the fragile obedience of another human being.

This should give us pause. We might imagine that God’s purposes will prevail regardless of our participation. But here, Saul’s future is mysteriously bound up with Ananias’s courage. The great apostle’s mission begins with someone else’s trembling “yes.” The church is not incidental to God’s work; it is the means by which God reveals, confirms, and sustains his call.

The calling itself is not romantic. In Acts 9, obedience leads directly into pain and misunderstanding. Not because God is absent, but because God is deeply present, especially in the places where the world resists love.

There is an inseparability of God, Christ, and the community. The voice that speaks is the voice of God through Jesus, heals, and is filled with the Holy Spirit. To touch one is to touch all. To harm one is to harm Christ himself. Encounters with Jesus are never private spiritual experiences. They are always relational and consequential.

So perhaps the question is not whether Saul was converted or called. Perhaps the question is whether we are willing to allow it to be both. To be converted, again and again, from our certainties, our inherited assumptions, and yes, even from our zeal

We'll be called, not to comfort, but into our lives that bear Christ into the world. That path includes suffering because the risen Christ must interrupt, must blind and finally send us through all the unexpected voices that ask, with such unsettling intimacy:

“Why do you persecute me?”