The conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus is one of the most dramatic episodes in the Book of Acts. The most fanatical persecutor of the early Christians has an overwhelming experience with the risen Jesus and becomes a member of the very community he has previously attacked. Within a short space of time, Paul became one of his new community’s most eloquent preachers, earning him many converts but also the enmity of his former allies. Not once but twice he has to flee for his life. The arch-persecutor thus joins the ranks of the persecuted.

Saul’s vision

The story in Acts begins with Paul, who is then known by his Hebrew name, Saul, “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1). Armed with warrants from the high priest, he is on his way to Damascus to hunt down believers and bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners. Just outside the city, however, he has an extraordinary encounter. A “light from heaven” flashes around him, and a voice says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (9:3–4). Saul, who has fallen to the ground, asks who is speaking. The voice replies, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (9:5–6).

Finding himself blinded, Saul is taken into Damascus by his traveling companions. After three days, the Lord appears to a local believer named Ananias and tells him to visit Saul. Ananias does as the Lord says and baptizes Saul, who receives the Holy Spirit and the return of his sight.

According to Luke, Saul is soon preaching about Jesus in the Damascus synagogues, arousing the animosity of local Jews, who conspire to murder him.

Lowered in a basket from the city wall by his disciples, Saul escapes the conspirators and goes to Jerusalem, where he makes contact with the initially suspicious Apostles. Once again, his preaching earns him the hostility of certain Jews—probably the very group of diaspora Jews with whom he had previously associated—and he has to flee, this time to his home city of Tarsus. The conversion of Saul is so fundamental to the evolution of the early Church that Luke tells the story three times (Acts 9, 22, and 26). His aim is clear: to establish Paul as an apostolic and prophetic figure, who was called, revealed, and confirmed as such by God.

The drama of Paul’s experience is captured by Caravaggio’s Conversion on the Way to Damascus (1601), in which the blinded Saul is thrown into a pool of light.

God’s prophet

As in the rest of the Bible, God works through signs and wonders, but also through suffering. The fact that Paul is now persecuted affirms both the power of God and the status of Paul as God’s prophet, suffering with Jesus and the Hebrew prophets who came before Him. As God reveals to Ananias, He has selected the former enemy of His people to become His “chosen instrument to proclaim My name to the Gentiles. … I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (9:15–16).

Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles

Paul was born in the city of Tarsus, in today’s Turkey, to a family of Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jews. The well-educated young man had a knowledge of Greek thought and studied under the famous Pharisee Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

Paul makes reference to his conversion in his letters to the Galatians and Corinthians. Paul adds to Luke’s account in Acts, saying he traveled from Damascus to Arabia after his conversion and that it was three years before he went to Jerusalem to meet Peter and the other Apostles.

In the years that followed, Paul traveled around the eastern Mediterranean, preaching the Gospel and establishing communities of Christians in the major cities. The hostility of Jewish opponents led to his eventual arrest in Jerusalem and then transportation to Rome for trial. The New Testament gives no account of his death, but an early tradition asserts that he died by beheading during the persecution unleashed in 64 CE by the Roman Emperor Nero.

See also: The Word Spreads • The Council of Jerusalem • Paul’s Arrest • The Power of the Resurrection