The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul Sunday

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Our Collect encourages GOD’s faithful people, considering St. Paul’s conversion, to faithfully keep the doctrine that he taught. Considering the body of theological writings that Paul contributed to the New Testament, it is challenging to pin down the Apostle to any one particular theological treatise that we might label as “Paul’s doctrine.” — Yet, prior to his Damascus Road encounter with JESUS the Christ, Paul, then known as Saul, could be easily identified by his theological predilections and biases. Before his conversion, Saul was a self-described “Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the Law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church” (Philippians 3.5-6). This Pharisaic Benjaminite was high energy, ambitious, sectarian, and his doctrine, before he met the LORD JESUS, was intensely militant against all things antithetical to Moses. — So intensely militant was he, that he thought he was doing GOD and Moses a favor by going about to ‘every synagogue in Israel, and imprisoning and beating those who believed in JESUS.’ (cf. Acts 22.18) — Concerning the martyrdom of one of the Church’s first deacons, Stephen, Paul would later confess: “I was also standing by consenting to Stephen’s death, and guarding the clothes of those [from the Sanhedrin], who were killing him” (Acts 22.20). Before his conversion to Christ, we might say that Saul’s doctrine was like that of those Jews who persecuted the church in Smyrna in The Book of Revelation. Of those Jews, JESUS said their doctrine and theology caused them to act like a ‘synagogue of Satan. (cf. Rev. 2.9-10)   

Keeping in step with his ambitious zeal for the doctrine of the synagogue of Satan, Saul, traveled with a warrant to seize and imprison members of the Christian Church that lived in Damascus. While on the road to Damascus, JESUS the Christ appeared to Saul from Heaven in a bright light. JESUS said, ‘Saul, Saul why are you persecuting Me?’  — At this, Saul said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ — And JESUS replied, ‘I am JESUS, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ (Acts 9.1-5)  

Let’s consider what our LORD said and quickly take two things from this statement. First, what one does to Christians, one does to the LORD. He is the Head of His incorporated Body, and every member of His Body is a part of Him – ‘He in us, and we in Him.’ — The Venerable Bede, and eighth century Christian monk and historian of the English Church wrote: “He did not say, ‘ Why do you persecute my members?’, but ‘Why do you persecute me?’ The LORD suffers from His enemies in His Body when they persecute His Church. JESUS also declared that kindnesses bestowed upon His members are also done to Him when He said, ‘I was hungry, and you gave me to eat,’ and added in explanation, ‘So long as you did it to the least of mine, you did it to me.'”¹ 

The second important thing to take note of is how JESUS said that Saul was kicking against the goads. — The LORD had been goading Saul along, but he was kicking against the pricks of the LORD’s goading and resisting the Master. The goads are those spikes at the end of a long stick made to spur beasts of burden along, that they might mind their taskmasters, versus obstinately kicking against the pricking of the goad and turning to the side to walk in a different direction. — “The arguments from Stephen in his final speech, the spread of the Gospel, and the extraordinary response of the believers to the Gospel were like goads to Saul, but Saul in his fury, kicked against such promptings from the Holy Spirit.”² — In fact, we are told in Acts 2, after hearing the Gospel preached by St. Peter, the Jews in Jerusalem were ‘cut to the heart’ (cf. 2.37) while the Chief Priest and Elders of the Temple were similarly ‘cut to the heart’ by Stephen’s preaching from the Old Testament about JESUS being the Christ. (cf. 7.54) Some of these were goaded into the Faith, while others kicked against the Spirit’s pricking. No doubt, Paul, that is Saul, knew about these things, and yet he persisted in kicking against the goading of Christ, as well. That is, until Christ appeared to Him at noonday, in a light brighter than the sun. Because of this event, we are now able to pin Paul down on his doctrine, which we should be careful to follow, for it was revealed to him by our LORD and Master, JESUS.   

First, the Resurrection. — The qualifications to be an Apostle of JESUS the Christ, was that the man had to have walked with JESUS for the length of His three-year ministry, seen Him crucified, and also seen Him after His resurrection from the dead. Paul did not have all three of these qualifications, but since the LORD appeared to Him personally from Heaven, Paul was able to catalogue himself an Apostle of Christ, as he said, “as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15.8). Paul uses this phrase to showcase the transformation that happened to him because of the power of Christ’s Resurrection. He says, “‘But by the grace of GOD, I am what I am’ (1 Corinthians 15:10). The Resurrection that reverses death also inverts Paul’s spiritual miscarriage, bringing to term and full of life, that which was humanly stillborn under the Law.”³ For before he met JESUS, he tried to kill the Faith of JESUS by the credentials of his Mosaic militancy. After he met the LORD, Paul said, “But what things were gain to me then, these I have counted loss for Christ … that I might know Him and the power of His Resurrection” (Philippians 3.7, 10a).   

The second foundation of Paul’s doctrine is the Mystery of the Church. Notice that Paul did not ask JESUS to explain what He meant when He said, ‘Why are thou persecuting me?’ The idea that the people who claimed Christ as their LORD by faith, being baptized into His Body, were a part of Him, was as consistent with the idea of those who claimed the bloodline of Abraham and were circumcised in his circumcision. To be a son by the outward signs of the Abrahamic Covenant, was to be a part of Abraham’s body, more than just his kin. Though on the road to Damascus, Paul did not yet have an understanding of the doctrine of Baptism or of the Eucharist, the Mystery of the Church would be revealed to him as something more than an outward, physical sign of ethnic and religious devotion. Instead, it was revealed to him as a sign of sacramental grace, expressed by the divine constitution of union of the many becoming one in Christ. This is best idealized and understood through the sacrament of Holy Matrimony – one man and one woman. Like this mystery of holy union, Christ is the magisterial Head of willing and conciliary Body, viz., the Church. Paul explains the mystery of the doctrine of the Church thus: “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5.31-32).      

Third, and finally, Paul’s doctrinal framework can be made complete by his belief that salvation comes by grace through faith in JESUS Christ, alone. How does one explain JESUS’ appearance to Paul in any other way? — Again, wallowing in his militant exploits as a faithful Jew in the flesh, Paul was, spiritually speaking, as unto a stillborn child – dead, cold, and lifeless. After He witnessed the power of the Resurrection and was incorporated into the Body of Christ by Holy Baptism, Paul saw his works for GOD in a whole new light. He said, “But what things were gain to me [then], these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ JESUS my LORD, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from GOD by faith” (Philippians 3.7-9).  — Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Anglican Way, entitled ‘Of the Justification of Man,’ says, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour JESUS Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings.”⁴ This is a most wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and it is completely informed by Paul’s theology. 

The power of Christ’s Resurrection, the Mystery of the Church incorporated as one Body in Him through Holy Baptism, and salvation by grace through a true and lively faith in Christ JESUS as LORD and Savior, these are the tenets of the Apostle Paul’s doctrine. And as our Collect encourages us, keeping Paul’s wonderful conversion in remembrance, let us then show forth our thankfulness unto GOD for choosing, redeeming, and informing St. Paul’s doctrine, that by it, the Gospel has shone forth in all the world. And let us, by following the holy doctrine which he taught, believe the same, that we might shine forth the Gospel in all of Ellis County; through JESUS Christ our LORD. Amen  

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1 Ancient Christian Commentary of Scripture, ed. Francis Martin, (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 104. 

2 Nelson NKJV Study Bible, ‘fn. Act 9.3-9’, (Nashville: Harpers Collins Christian Publishing, 2018), 1599. 

3 BibleHub.org. “Commentary on 1 Cor. 15.” Accessed 29-January 20026. https://biblehub.com/greek/1626.htm. 

4 1928 Book of Common Prayer, 605.