How Deep Does Conversion Go?

Acts 9 tells the story of the apostle Paul’s conversion from Judaism to being a follower of Christ. Acts 10 tells of another compelling conversion story, but conversion is more profound than we think in each chapter. Let’s start with Paul in Acts 9.

Paul, called Saul, was traveling with others on the road to Damascus so that he could capture Jewish converts to Christianity and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. While on the road, a brilliant light appeared, blinding Saul and his companions. A voice from the light spoke out, asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” When Saul asked who was speaking, the voice was revealed to be Jesus.

We know for sure that Paul was blind for three days, and here’s why his blindness was significant. In Philippians 3, when Paul commented on his pre-Christian life, he states, “as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless (Phil 3:6).”

It is the zeal part that is important. Zeal is described as a strong or earnest temper passionate about getting things done. It can also mean being jealous for what God is jealous for. It can be both positive and negative.

When Paul talks about his zeal, he refers to the same kind of zeal that Phinehas had in Numbers 25. Phinehas, who was the grandson of Aaron, killed a Midianite woman and her Israelite husband in the tent of meeting. Some Israelite men had begun to court Midianite women and, as a result, started offering sacrifices to their gods. The idolatry caused by marriage was seen as spiritual adultery in the eyes of God. So Phinehas assumed the jealousy of the Lord for his people, Israel, so that God and his people would not be defiled any longer (Num 25:1-13).

So, Paul was assuming the same “righteous” jealousy for the Lord and believed that Jews who converted to the way were prostituting themselves to idolatry and profaning the Lord and the people of Israel.

Fortunately for 1st-century Jewish Christians, Paul was wrong. Just as the Pharisees in John 9 were shown to be spiritually blind to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, so too was Paul, and to make Paul painfully aware of this fact, he became physically blind by Christ’s appearance. It wasn’t until Paul received the baptism of the Holy Spirit that he regained his sight. Acts 9:18 says that "something like scales fell from his eyes." Paul lost not only his physical blindness but also his spiritual blindness. He became one of the most influential Christians in the early Church from that point on.

What about Acts 10, though? Acts 10 famously tells the story of Cornelius’ conversion. There was another conversion that was just as important in the chapter, and that is the Apostle Peter’s conversion of conscience. Let me explain what I mean. Acts 10:9-16 tells the story of Peter falling into a trance and receiving a vision from God. In the vision, a large white sheet fell from the heavens. The sheet contained animals, including ones that Jews had been forbidden to eat by the Torah. Peter hears the voice of Jesus to rise, kill and eat. Peter protests based on the dietary laws, but the voice says not to call anything impure that God has made clean.

Almost directly after the vision, Peter receives an invitation to the house of Cornelius, a gentile, so that he can hear what Peter has to say. Jewish laws also prohibited Jews from entering the homes of gentiles (9:28). Understanding the vision, Peter went into Cornelius' home and his household converted to faith in Christ and received the Holy Spirit. That moment signified the promise of gentiles being able to be participants in inheriting the coming kingdom. 

In these two chapters, something exciting and profound happens. People are converted from one faith to another, and their consciences are converted from one perspective to another; a perspective that lets God's kingdom be better realized among His people. Peter’s and Paul’s consciences had been formed by their history and culture, the patterns of their world, which didn't allow for certain things that God was about to do. But in Acts 9 & 10, they were being shaped by Christ. 

The change is what Paul meant when he wrote that Christians need to be transformed by renewing their minds (Rom 12:2) and that we should not see others through a worldly perspective (2 Cor. 5:16). Right worship and right living require a change in our thinking and affections. Whether we’re aware of it or not, all of us have had consciences shaped by the world around us, whether through music, popular media, politics, social media, and family; family values and traditions are not always good values or traditions. God calls everyone who follows Jesus to have their perspectives (our consciences) transformed through the reading of His Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We do this to be Christ’s ambassadors in a world that needs him.