There are a lot of reasons why I believe that the resurrection of Jesus is an actual event that took place, and one of those is the conversion of Saul. In order to understand the significance of the change of heart that took place in Saul’s life you have to understand his background. Saul was a Pharisee who had been trained rigorously in Judaism. Not only was he a Pharisee, but he made it his job to hunt down Christians and destroy them. As Stephen faced his stoning, Saul watched the horrible event take place. It’s easy to criticize what he did, but we can’t forget that he believed that the Christians were dangerously leading people away from God. So what made him change? What made him pull a complete 180 in his belief?
Saul isn’t just a fictional character that we read about in Acts; there are other historical accounts about Saul. His conversion happened – so what caused it? How does a person go from one extreme to the other? Occam’s razor teaches us that we should pick the most logical answer among a set of hypotheses, and that is the one presented in Acts: Saul was blinded by a light on the road to Emmaus, and he saw the risen Christ. What else could cause such a change? He went from vehemently denying Christ to spreading the message of His resurrection? He became Paul, and he wrote over half of the New Testament books. The only explanation can be that he truly did believe he saw Christ, and because of that, the direction of his life changed dramatically. If you don’t believe that Jesus came back to life, what would it take for you to have a change of heart the way Saul did?
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