Alive - by Dave Smith

that was going on in his mind or heart; rather, Saul was engaged in a
real, audible two-way conversation with a real person who identified
himself as Jesus (in Acts 22:8, as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’).
But we don’t need to base our conclusions on this speculation,
rather we can go to Paul’s own words to establish the facts. 10
If we look at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we see a very
simple but clear statement in 9:1: ‘Am I not an apostle? Have I not
seen Jesus our Lord?’ Paul was linking his claim to be an apostle to
the fact that he had clearly seen the risen Jesus.
This is backed up even more strongly by the evidence of 1
Corinthians 15, widely considered by both critics and proponents as
the most important resurrection document in the New Testament. 11
Having reaffirmed the key facts of the gospel – Jesus’ death for our
sins, his burial and his being raised on the day – Paul then
summarised many of the key resurrection appearances – to Peter,
‘the Twelve’, to a group of 500, to Jesus’ brother, James and then to
all the apostles, before concluding: ‘and last of all he appeared to me
also’ (1 Corinthians 15:8). In other words, just like he appeared to the
other witnesses – as the risen Lord – so Jesus appeared to Paul. 12
This is of huge significance. Whereas Mary, the Emmaus Road
travellers, Peter, John, Thomas and the rest of the Eleven disciples
were all friends of Jesus prior to the first Easter, Saul was an outright
opponent – a violent persecutor of the early Christians. This makes
his turnaround even more remarkable.
What’s different between our encounters now, and Saul’s encounter
then, is that whereas he encountered Jesus physically, we encounter
him spiritually. Moreover, while many people have and still do
experience the sudden dramatic turnaround that Saul did (that was
my experience), there are also many others who have still