Sunday School Stories
When I was a child, I attended Sunday School every week before worship. We sat around a table reading Bible stories, and in the younger grades, we used printed handouts produced by a Christian publishing company, and the handouts featured the Bible story, several illustrations, which made it look almost like a comic book, and almost as cool as a comic book… but not quite.
However, that’s where I first heard many of the Bible stories, and some of them really captured my attention. I remember reading about Gideon, and how God showed him which soldiers to choose by having him watch how the soldiers drank water from a stream. How clever that was!
And I remember reading the story of Samson, who lost his strength when Delilah cut off his hair. I didn’t cut my hair for months after that… and now, well, it’s quite a shock that I still have any strength left!
And I remember reading the story we just heard, about Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The way that story was presented - and the way my Sunday School teacher taught it - was that Saul was a Jew who persecuted Christians, but when he encountered Jesus on that road, he was converted to Christianity. He even changed his name - from Saul to Paul - as a sign of his conversion.
It was never said out loud, but implied in all this was the belief that Judaism was bad. Evil, even; and what a good thing it was that Saul - now, Paul - switched from being a Jew to being a Christian.
It wasn’t until later that I realized how problematic this interpretation is. Problematic, and also, wrong.
But that didn’t stop many in the church from teaching that Christianity was good and Judaism was bad - and some churches taught this in ways that were a lot less subtle than mine.
And they quoted other New Testament writings, including some written by Paul himself - verses that talk about living by faith rather than under the law, for example...
And from this, Christians developed a sort of smugness when it came to Judaism. And sometimes, that smugness became something much worse.
In the early days of Christianity, the church portrayed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God, or as agents of the devil and murderers of Jesus - even though crucifixion was a strictly Roman form of execution, and not a Jewish one.
And this kind of biblical interpretation led to anti-semitism, which in turn led to the Holocaust, during which some 6 million Jews were killed. And those who carried out the Holocaust were Christian.
So this is another reason why some Christians today have a hard time with the apostle Paul. The story of his conversion, and his writings about how the law gives way to faith, seem to support antisemitism; and this is something that compassionate, progressive, seekers of peace just can’t look to for guidance.
But just as Paul has been misrepresented when it comes to his views on women in leadership, or his views on homosexuality, so also has Paul been misrepresented when it comes to what he thinks of Judaism and the Jewish people.
Paul’s “Conversion”
First of all, it is not at all accurate to call what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus a “conversion” experience. “Conversion” implies that you leave one religion behind, and embrace another.
The thing is, Paul never left Judaism behind. In his letters, he remained proud of his background as a Jew. He boasted of his status as a Pharisee. To the Philippians, Paul wrote that he was “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.” And when writing about salvation, Paul wrote that salvation was for the Jews first, and then the Gentiles.
And all this was after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Paul was Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. All of Jesus’ disciples were Jewish. They may have been Galileean Jews, or collaborationist Jews, or zealous, anti-Roman Jews, but they were all Jews.
You know, I used to think that the reason Christians began meeting on Sundays was because that was the day of Jesus’ resurrection - and maybe that is partly true. But it’s also true that they couldn’t meet on Saturdays, because on Saturdays, they went to temple. They went to the synagogue. Jewish worship never ceased to be a part of life for that first generation of disciples.
Which brings up a second point: at the time, there was no “Christianity” for Paul to convert to. The Christian church wasn’t really organized yet; it hadn’t yet developed into a separate religion. I was reminded of this in Eric Smith’s book Paul the Progressive, which I mentioned last week.
There was no organized Christian church or organized Christian religion. There was nothing for Paul to convert to.
So, despite what I learned in Sunday School, and despite what the section heading in my Bible says - the heading that was placed there by the publisher and which is not part of the scripture itself - what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus was not a conversion.
A Life-Changing Revelation
The book of Acts was not written by Paul. It doesn’t even claim to be. Paul does write about his experience on the road to Damascus himself, but his descriptions of the event are not nearly so dramatic as that which appears in Acts.
To the Galatians, Paul simply says that “God chose to reveal his son to me.” That’s all he says. And to the Corinthians, when Paul wrote about his experience, he was even more vague.
So perhaps the author of Acts just embellished things a bit, to make the story a bit more dramatic - almost as if he was writing with the intent to capture the imagination of a ten year-old Danny Bradfield sitting in his Sunday School class.
If so, it worked, because for some time after that, I was afraid to walk down the street by myself, out of fear that a light and voice from heaven would suddenly come upon me, and what would I do then?
Anyway, my point is that it isn’t right to call what happened to Paul a “conversion.” Instead, we should call it an “encounter,” or a “confrontation,” or an “awakening.” Paul himself calls it a “revelation.”
And it certainly was a revelation that was life-changing.
But it was not a conversion from one religion to another.
The God of Jews and Gentiles
What did change for Paul was the realization that it was not only the Jews who were blessed by God. In Romans 8:29, Paul wrote: “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not also the God of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles also.” After his encounter with Jesus, Paul began preaching that the path to God was now open for non-Jews as well as Jews. Paul took this message to the Gentiles, and told them: this good news is for you, too.
And that’s why Paul changed his name. Saul was a Jewish name, but he was now working with and among Gentiles, so he started using the Gentile version of his name.
A lot of the kids I substitute teach do the same thing. I call roll, I look at their name on the roster, I do my best to pronounce it, and they respond, “Just call me Paul.” Or “Julie.” Or whatever.
That’s why Saul started going by Paul. Because he was working with and among Gentiles, and he didn’t want them to get hung up on his name. He just wanted them to know that the good news of Jesus was for them as well. They didn’t have to become Jewish to receive the good news.
And then Paul would say, “Don’t get me wrong; being Jewish is great! But it’s not a requirement to receive the gospel. It’s not a requirement for salvation.”
And sometimes Paul had to defend himself against his fellow Jews. Sometimes he had to defend himself against some of the apostles. They weren’t so sure that Gentiles could receive salvation without first becoming Jews. And maybe they were a little resentful of Paul and his message. They saw all Paul was doing to try and include Gentiles, and they wondered what he had against his own people.
It’s like a person who says, “Black lives matter;” another person is going to see that as being anti-white, even though it’s not.
It’s like a man who says, “I’m a feminist;” another man might look at him and say, “Why? Do you hate being a man?”
Just because you are for someone else doesn’t mean you are against who you are, or against your own people.
Good news for you and me
Paul was for the gentiles, those who were not Jewish. That doesn’t mean that Paul was anti-Jewish. He wasn’t; and when these arguments came at him, he defended his Jewish background and affirmed his identity as a Jew.
So, we don’t have to hate Paul for being an anti-semite.
Now, there are some writings which came later, particularly in the gospel of John, which says that Jews are the children of Satan. (Yeah, it really says that, unfortunately.)
In part, this reflects the divisions that developed several generations after Jesus, and after Paul. And those divisions between Jews and Christians were largely the result of Roman meddling. Any powerful, oppressive government knows that one way to weaken the masses and keep them oppressed is to turn them against each other.
But I think it’s also shorthand - when the Bible speaks disparagingly of Jews, most often, it’s referring to the most influential, most powerful religious leaders. The high priests, who collaborated with Rome; they collaborated with Rome because Rome gave them power, as long as they helped Rome keep the people in line.
They were sellouts; They were puppets of the Roman government, even though they wore priestly robes. And when the Bible speaks negatively of Jews, it usually has these leaders in mind.
And to be honest, I feel the same way about many of the most influential and powerful Christian leaders today. They have sold out. They have corrupted the message of the gospel in exchange for wealth and power. And I confess I do sometimes think of them as children of Satan.
But nothing in the Bible - not anything spoken by Jesus or written by Paul or presented in any chapter of any book - should be taken as implying that the Jewish religion is evil, or that the people who follow the Torah are children of Satan.
Because after all, Paul himself was a practicing Jew who faithfully followed the Torah. All he did was insist that those who were not Jewish did not need to become Jewish like him in order to receive salvation. Because of Jesus, the path to salvation is open to everyone, no matter what religion or culture they come from.
That’s all Paul’s really trying to say.
And isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it truly good news? The way of Jesus - the way of love, the way of healing and wholeness and life in abundance - is for everyone.
It’s for everyone.
It’s for you.
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