If you ever want to read a fantastic brief Jewish whirlwind summary of the Old Testament, turn to Stephen’s last words before his murder as recorded in Acts 7.  In a final attempt to demonstrate the authenticity of Jesus’ Messiahship, this first of the Christian martyrs, Stephen, walked the angry crowd of listeners through a journey of the Hebrew Scriptures, showing them that their entire Jewish history had culminated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  And one statement you can’t miss at the end chapter 7 is this one, “At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at [Stephen], dragging 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.” (7:57-58)

Saul, who Christians later knew as ‘Paul,’ would have no doubt wondered why anyone would possibly believe in a crucified Messiah.  The very word Messiah meant, “anointed one.”  It referred to one who was anointed, appointed, and blessed by God for something.  After all, how could crucifixion (utter humiliation) be joined with God’s Anointed One (Messiah)?  Saul found the answer to that question.

Stephen’s message of what God was doing in history didn’t really fall into place for Saul until he was confronted by this resurrected and glorified Jesus one day outside of Damascus (Acts 9).  Blinded by a shattering light and knocked to the ground, Saul heard a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (vs. 4)  Suddenly, as historian Bruce Shelley puts it, “the persecutor of Christians became the persecuted among Christians.”  Saul was willing to trade a life of upward social and religious mobility—having studied under the famed Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem—to a life he later described as, “hard pressed on every side…perplexed…persecuted…struck down” (2 Cor 4:8).  What could possibly cause an otherwise sane person to make such a radical life shift?

LIKELY OR UNLIKELY?
Saul had not been a follower of Jesus’ revolutionary movement.  In fact, he was vehemently against it.  His religious convictions informed him that the followers of this heretical movement were guilty of a capital crime under Jewish law and worthy of punishment.  He had no inclination to believe in a dieing, much less rising, Messiah.  Along with the others Jews of his day (except for the Sadducees, as they denied the idea of resurrection), Saul only had expectations of a general resurrection, in which all people would be raised together for judgment.  A particular resurrection of one individual would have been completely out of his line of vision.  The only reasonable explanation then for Saul’s conversion is an actual resurrection encounter with Jesus.

Despite all these unlikely reasons for God to have chosen Saul, we can also see why Saul was so effective at obeying God’s sending of him (Apostleship) into the world.  Though Paul had been trained in the strictest of Jewish traditions, he was also well versed in Hellenistic or Greek culture (seen by his familiarity with Greek thought and literature in his interaction the with Areopagus in Acts 17:16).  Saul was also a Roman citizen which provided him certain rights and protections in his missionary traveling.  His Roman citizenship opened doors of opportunity for hiim with high levels of Roman society (seen by his introduction to the Governor Felix in Acts 23:23-24).  As Shelley puts it, Paul was “a man of three worlds: Jewish, Greek, and Roman.”

APPLICATION
I guess thinking about the life of Paul gives us hope.  While in our clearest moments we should have the humility of Paul—wondering why God uses us at all (1 Tim 1:15-16)—we should also be encouraged to know that God can use what is in us (upbringing, personality, skills, talents, passions, etc.) for His kingdom.  Only God is able to weave together these elements into a meaningful tapestry of functionality.  You might be the only person, given the “good” & “bad” of your experiences, who could accomplish a specific task or reach that particular person whom God has put in your life.  God is the God who redeems the blunders.  He is the “MacGyver” or “A-Team” of common things in life who can spin them together in a way that produces an arsenal of tools and weapons.  And you are those things.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
1. What other characteristics of Paul do you think of that made him an effective witness for Christ?
2. Do you think that God chooses both the “unlikely” and the “likely”? 
3. What characters from the Bible or from your own relationships come to mind when thinking about God calling an “unlikely” or “likely” person?
4. How have you seen God redeem both the good and bad of your life to make you an effective tool in His hands?  How?