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Paul Blinded so He Would See Christ, March 30
And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting
his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that
appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that
thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Acts 9:17
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In the military schools of Egypt, Moses was taught the law of force,
and so strong a hold did this teaching have upon his character that it
required forty years ... to fit him for leadership of Israel by the law of love.
The same lesson Paul had to learn.
At the gate of Damascus the vision of the Crucified One changed the
whole current of his life. The persecutor became a disciple, the teacher a
learner. The days of darkness spent in solitude at Damascus were as years
in his experience. The Old Testament Scriptures stored in his memory
were his study, and Christ his teacher. To him also nature’s solitudes
became a school. To the desert of Arabia he went, there to study the
Scriptures and to learn of God. He emptied his soul of the prejudices and
traditions that had shaped his life, and received instruction from the Source
of truth.
His after-life was inspired by the one principle of self-sacrifice, the
ministry of love. “I am debtor,” he said, “both to the Greeks, and to the
barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” ...
While he possessed high intellectual endowments, the life of Paul
revealed the power of a rarer wisdom. Principles of deepest import, prin-
ciples concerning which the greatest minds of his time were ignorant, are
unfolded in his teachings and exemplified in his life. He had that greatest
of all wisdom, which gives quickness of insight and sympathy of heart,
which brings man in touch with men, and enables him to arouse their
better nature and inspire them to a higher life....
“Being reviled,” he said, “we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it;
being defamed, we entreat”; “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor,
yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
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Education, 65-68
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