Acts 9:1-20 recounts one of the church's all-time favorite stories: how Saul of Tarsus, perhaps the most vehement persecutor of Jesus' followers, was transformed into Paul the apostle, the Lord's own voice to the Gentiles. The famous Damascus Road theophany has been held up to all generations of the church as one of the most stirring and miraculous transformations ever recorded.

Luke's sense of drama and gift for storytelling skillfully places this first of three accounts of Saul's conversion as a crescendo in a series of conversion stories. Beginning in Acts 8:4, Luke looks at Philip's remarkable work among the Samaritans, recounting their many conversions and healings. Luke follows Philip out on the road and tells of the sudden transformation of the Ethiopian eunuch into a believer. The …