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Jesus never met Paul during his earthly life. But with reports of the resurrection and the increase in the activities of Jesus’ followers, Paul got involved. He was there to approve the death of Stephen for ‘speaking against Moses and against God’. And with the best intentions of his convictions Paul then set out to destroy the rest of the followers, the embryonic Church.

Travelling to Damascus on a persecution mission, Paul finds himself confronted by Jesus. The accounts of what happened on the road vary (the story is told three times in Acts: 9, 22 and 26). What is certain is that Paul encountered Jesus in a very dramatic and life-changing way, and instead of a persecutor, became a witness to the resurrection. Grounded, blind, confused and humiliated, he found himself on a different road altogether, and it was not to be an easy one.

Just as the Peter we hear about in Acts seems to be a changed man compared with Peter in the gospels, so the man who becomes Paul is different from the man who was Saul. Saul, devout and educated in his own faith, was persecuting Christians cruelly: faith and knowledge do not necessarily mean we will do the right thing. We learn from Paul’s encounter that God sometimes comes directly to sinners, and even theologians. Paul also discovered that the risen Jesus still cares for his people when they are persecuted.

The account suggests that Paul’s change of direction was immediate, but as he gained his physical and spiritual sight, he had to come to terms with his years of schooling in centuries of Jewish learning. In some of his letters, which make up many other books of the New Testament, we can see him struggling to make sense of his complete change of world view.

But his first challenge was to convince the Christians that his life had changed. What on earth do you make of someone who was coming to arrest you, possibly to oversee your death (as he had done Stephen’s), who then says he wants to be your friend and fellow-worker. How do we each deal with someone who seems to become so radically different? We never know what is in store in our own life or anyone else’s life: we must always be prepared to be surprised – and to work with the surprising.