Acts 9:6 “And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do” (KJV). Saul of Tarsus was a man intent on extinguishing those who followed Christ. He requested written approval from the Sanhedrin high priests to follow after those Christians that fled Jerusalem. The question “why” came to mind; why did Saul of Tarsus have such a passionate belief that Christians were the enemy? Acts 22:3 “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feed of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day” (KJV). He was a man taught by a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who was considered a doctor of the Jewish law (Act. 5:34). There is no doubt that Saul had formal education in the Jewish law. His teachings would have included such law as Deut. 21:23 “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God; that thy land be no defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance” (KJV). Before Saul was blinded by the Lord’s light, he was living by the works of the Jewish law. He believed that Christ died on the cross, but was not resurrected. Since the law was clear that any man who died on a cross was considered cursed by God; certainly he did not think that God would take a cursed false prophet and turn him into the Messiah. The Lord took one simple moment to close the physical eyes of Saul and open his spiritual eyes to the truth, that He was alive. That moment began with conviction upon his heart (Act. 9:5) and turned an unlikely disciple into one of the greatest missionaries recorded in Scripture. Saul of Tarsus became an evangelical soul winner of the lost; now called the Apostle Paul. The transformation occurred on a dusty road as he traveled towards Damascus to persecute Christians. Application Who do we picture when we think about lost souls? What type of occupation, lifestyle, race, economic, or social class of people do we see? Paul was an educated man and I would say he landed in the upper class of the Jewish population. Are we witnessing to all lost souls or do we pick and choose who we are willing to witness too? Maybe we are missing an opportunity to allow the Lord to turn a “Saul” into a “Paul”. Lost souls should not be placed into any other category other than those that are lost; people who need a chance to meet the Redeemer. In Christ, The Silent Preacher