Week 43 Acts 9
Paul’s conversion story is told three times. In Acts 9 (by Luke) and then in chapter 22 & 26 (by Paul).
A couple of years ago I noticed that the words that the Lord said to Paul were reported differently in each telling…mostly in length:
Account #1: the Lord said 30 words
Account #2: 38 words
Account #3: 127 words.
This year I noticed that the length of each account was also different:
Account #1: 16 verses (~360 words)
Account #2: 11 verses (~230 words)
Account #3: 7 verses (~190 words).
So obviously there’s differences:
The first account is told by Luke and is more detailed. Paul is telling his own story in #2 & #3.
A detail in one account might get skipped in another (for example Ananias isn’t even mentioned in Account #3).
Or a detail might be in one account only (for example Ananias tells Paul to get baptized only in #2).
But the differences are in the details. The stories are the same. It’s not like one account says Paul didn’t go blind…or that he put Ananias in prison…or that he heard the Lord tell him he was doing a great job.
It’s like if a kid keeps asking me to tell the story of the wolf and the pigs. I might switch-out some of the details each time I retell it but the wolf is always big and bad and the pigs – three of them – are always little.
Note: The Damascus road story is in Acts 9:3-18 22:6-16 & 26:12-18.