What if the person you have written off became Christianity’s next great champion?
What if the angry activist, the celebrity mocking your beliefs, the political opponent you cannot stand, or the person attacking your faith online became tomorrow’s Paul?
It sounds unlikely, but the early Christians probably thought so too. If Saul lived today, most of us would likely view him as beyond redemption. He persecuted Christians, approved of their executions, and tried to destroy the early Church. His name would trend online for all the wrong reasons.
Yet Saul still became Paul.
One of the most influential figures in Christianity began as one of its greatest enemies. That should make us pause because it raises a question that feels especially relevant today: What if we are wrong about whom God can change?
The Bible is full of people whom others overlooked. David was the youngest son, a shepherd boy whose older brothers seemed stronger and more qualified. Yet God saw something others missed. The apostles were not kings, scholars, or celebrities. They were fishermen, tax collectors, and ordinary men with flaws and failures. Saul was a persecutor of Christians. Yet God used every one of them.
The pattern is hard to miss: God often transforms the people everyone else has given up on.
But that creates an uncomfortable question for Christians.
How should we respond to the modern-day Saul?
The answer is not to celebrate wrongdoing. Christians are called to stand for truth and reject sin. But we are also called to remember that a person’s sin is not the entirety of his or her identity.
Too often, our culture swings between two extremes. One side says we should accept everything. The other says we should condemn people entirely because of their errors or beliefs.
Jesus did neither.
He spoke the truth clearly. He confronted sin directly. Yet He treated people as souls worth saving rather than enemies worth destroying.
Perhaps the best example is Stephen, the first Christian martyr. As Stephen was being stoned to death, Saul stood nearby approving of it. Stephen did not approve of Saul’s actions, nor did he compromise his beliefs. Yet with his final words, he prayed: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Among those men was Saul, the future Paul. Stephen understood something many of us forget: standing for truth and extending grace are not opposites.
That is the Christian challenge.
Stand for truth. Reject sin. Protect what is right. But never lose hope in what God can do in another person’s life.
The celebrity who mocks Christianity. The atheist professor. The political opponent. The follower of another faith. The person whose beliefs seem completely opposed to your own.
Before we become too confident identifying today’s Saul, we should remember something else.
Most of us have a little Saul in us.
We all have blind spots. We all have moments when we are more interested in winning arguments than loving people. We all need God’s grace.
The lesson is not that every person will change. The lesson is that we are not qualified to decide who cannot.
The early Christians looked at Saul and saw a persecutor. God looked at Saul and saw Paul.
