Learning from Paul

It was only when Saul had a correct view of Christ that he could have a correct view of other people. His conversion reminds us that it is impossible to have a right view of man when we have a wrong view of Christ.

Saul’s conversion was so radical that his name was changed from Saul to Paul. Because of his Damascus Road experience, Paul became a champion of equal rights for all people, especially Gentiles, who he had formerly hated. Overnight, he changed from being a Gentile hater to a Gentile lover. Why? Because “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” And for Paul, that “anyone” included everyone!

It was that spiritual transformation that turned the Roman world of institutionalized racism for a privileged few upside down. It also brought down the dividing wall of hostility erected by the Jews

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through their sense of religious superiority. Salvation was not for a privileged few. It was available to everyone.

That’s why Paul lovingly and boldly proclaimed the revolutionary message of transformation that could only take place through the Gospel. While racial and social barriers existed in the world, Paul said that in the Church “there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3:11).

The message of racial, social, sexual, and economic reconciliation through spiritual reconciliation is still the only solution to our new American divisions. Love is still the only lasting antidote to hate.

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