What Saul was thinking

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When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep. - Acts 7:54 - 60


Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Acts 9:1-4


I was quite intrigued by some unmentioned details in these two passages. Saul, later named Paul, was present at the stoning of Stephen and he heard what has been said and prayed by Stephen. I seriously believed that this had an impact to him, despite whether the bible mentioned it or not. Cos thinking a bit deeper, it must have been the accumulation of his experience that culminate in his meeting of Jesus that led to his conversion. Think about it, after he was blind for three days and did not eat or drink anything. The bible did not mention if he has said anything. What was he doing but thinking? Thinking about what? Must have been reviewing and reflecting upon what has been said and what has happened. I figured that God must have given Saul the three days to think through his experiences and to reach the conclusion by himself.

What does that has to say to us? Many a times, we are an accumulation of our experiences, and we need to put these experiences into more eternal perspective, to see it from God's perspective. However, being a historian, I know that we cannot do so until time has passed to allow us to reflect and connect the dots what God has done in our lives. The question of course is whether we do or not. Connecting the dots did a lot to Saul's life and his ministry after that as he was able to make sense of his experience and make an impact in God's Kingdom as mentioned in the scripture. So what about us?

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