Paul Blinded so He Would See Christ, March 30

Paul Blinded so He Would See Christ, March 30

And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Acts 9:17.

In the military schools of Egypt, Moses was taught the law of force, and so strong a hold did this teaching have upon his character that it required forty years ... to fit him for leadership of Israel by the law of love. The same lesson Paul had to learn.

At the gate of Damascus the vision of the Crucified One changed the whole current of his life. The persecutor became a disciple, the teacher a learner. The days of darkness spent in solitude at Damascus were as years in his experience. The Old Testament Scriptures stored in his memory were his study, and Christ his teacher. To him also nature’s solitudes became a school. To the desert of Arabia he went, there to study the Scriptures and to learn of God. He emptied his soul of the prejudices and traditions that had shaped his life, and received instruction from the Source of truth.

His after-life was inspired by the one principle of self-sacrifice, the ministry of love. “I am debtor,” he said, “both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” ...

While he possessed high intellectual endowments, the life of Paul revealed the power of a rarer wisdom. Principles of deepest import, principles concerning which the greatest minds of his time were ignorant, are unfolded in his teachings and exemplified in his life. He had that greatest of all wisdom, which gives quickness of insight and sympathy of heart, which brings man in touch with men, and enables him to arouse their better nature and inspire them to a higher life....

“Being reviled,” he said, “we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat”; “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”76 [97]