Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Acts 9:8-9 (ESV)
Saul was the first great persecutor of the Church. Acts 8:3 says that he began to destroy the church, dragging believers off to prison, and putting some of them to death (Acts 26:9-11). And Acts 9:1-2 describes his trip to Damascus to take prisoner the believers there and return them to the high priest for trial. Saul/Paul saw the Church as a serious threat and, raging with fury (Acts 26:11), was committed to stamping it out.
But on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him, and things were never the same. He was transformed from persecutor to evangelist. The latter half of Acts describes his missionary journeys. Instead of trying to eradicate the church, he was planting churches all over the Northeast Mediterranean.
But that transformation was not instantaneous. Acts tells us that after his encounter with Jesus, he was blind for three days and didn’t eat or drink. What would have been going through his mind during that time?
Transformation
Imagine discovering that what you had fervently believed from the bottom of your heart was false. That is what had happened to Paul. Jesus was not a false teacher who deserved his crucifixion and whose followers needed to be stamped out. He was the Christ that Israel had long been looking for—the Son of God.
We do not know what Paul was thinking during this time. Or what instruction Jesus may have been giving him. I can picture Paul, during those three days, reexamining the words of the Law and Prophets that he had memorized. And understanding them in a new light. And I can picture Jesus teaching him like he did to the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25-27, Gal. 1:11-12). While his physical eyes were blind, his spiritual eyes were being opened wide.
Whatever went on during those three days, when Ananias laid hands on him, the scales fell from his eyes, he was baptized, took food, and immediately began to teach in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God (Acts 9:18-20). The persecutor of Jesus and his followers had been transformed.
