Walking in the Light

The events recorded in Acts 26:1-23 describe Paul’s conversion and illustrate the difference between what the world, even the religious world, thinks of as ‘light’ and what actually is light.

Paul thought he was walking in the light.

By his own accounts, Paul was at the top of his class when it came to his religious life. He mentions in more than one letter that he was educated and trained by a leading Pharisee in the best traditions of the Pharisees.

In this account of his conversion, he says, “The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.”

We know from reading Acts that he was active in protecting those traditions by persecuting the ‘Way’, even to the point of agreeing with the deaths of Christians. He was present at the martyrdom of Stephen.

He was so steeped in those traditions and so convicted in his beliefs that he behaved as though he was walking in the light.

If you will, his faith had feet. He not only believed, but he acted upon that belief.

But in all reality, he was blind to the truth. The light he was walking in was actually the darkness of spiritual blindness. And on his way to Damascus on that fateful day, he had an encounter that fully exposed his spiritual blindness by causing physical blindness.

The light that Paul encountered on the road to Damascus was so intense it produced physical blindness. But it also ignited a spiritual light within Paul that brought about the rescue of countless Jews and Gentiles.

Jesus told Paul that Paul would become “…a servant and … a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

It was a far greater commission than what Paul had received from the religious leaders in Jerusalem. And, as we can see from reading about Paul’s travels and reading his many letters, he was just as zealous in the performance of this new commission as he had been in the performance of the previous commission.

And what about that light? The light that Paul saw.

It was brighter than the noonday sun.

Even in the Middle East, where the sun beats down out of the sky with merciless intent much of the time, and near noon, when it is at its most fierce, the light that shone around Paul was so bright it immediately caused physical blindness. Paul does not mention that fact in Acts 26:1-23, but does mention it in a previous testimony and it is described in the text that describes the event as it happens.

But the real power in this light is that it had the ability to banish spiritual blindness. Seeing this light opened Paul’s eyes to his real blindness. But it also opened his heart and the rest of his earthly life to the work of the Savior.

Paul met the resurrected Christ in that bright light and he was resurrected from his past life.

We can be, too, if we but yield.