The significance of Paul's conversion experience along the Damascus road is evident by the fact that it is described in three separate places in Acts (9:1-22;22:3-16;26:4-18). Both the remarkable, miraculous nature of this event and the personal transformation of Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle that results from this encounter make it a tale worth telling and retelling.

This first and most succinct version of the event that changed Saul into Paul reveals more than the identity of the voice and vision that stunned this fired-up Pharisee. It celebrates the narrative style beloved by the Lukan author, and it offers continuity between the God who revealed himself in the Old Testament and the God whose face is known in the New Testament.

Saul had already been singled out as one of the…