Scott Hahn on the Conversion of St. Paul

greetings in the lord and i wish you a blessed feast to the conversion of saint paul from the saint paul center studios here in steubenville ohio i want to spend just a few minutes on this special podcast reflecting upon saint paul and his impact in history in the church and especially in our lives let's think about saint paul and his

conversion first of all we have to step back and recognize that saint paul is the single most influential writer of all time our lord jesus would have been if he had written anything but he didn't so saint paul's writings are massive in their influence but even more than being an influential writer he is the most thoroughly converted man in all of history

when you look at his conversion you see three different accounts of it in the book of acts chapter 9 chapter 22 and chapter 26 each one is a little bit more information and it's fascinating to read them all together but exactly what do we mean by paul's conversion because it isn't a conversion from atheism to christianity it isn't even a conversion from protestantism

to catholicism like my conversion you know i think we have to recognize that paul is the single greatest convert in history because saul the pharisee was the single most fervent persecutor in history this was all part of god's plan for him and for us you know god took all of the energy of saul the pharisee the persecutor who had the authority and the papers

from the chief priests of jerusalem as we read in acts 26 to conduct this persecution rounding them up imprisoning them and putting them to death just like he sort of hosted stephen's martyrdom there in acts 7 but he had the authority to do so but more than the authority he had this drive what did god do well he basically took all of that misdirected zeal and reversed it

i call it the rubber band effect you know you take a rubber band and the further you pull it back when you release it the faster and the farther it flies and so you can see how god is harnessing all of that zeal to bring about a conversion but again not from one religion to another because saul the pharisee the student of rabbi gamaliel the greatest rabbi

in jewish antiquity believed in the coming messiah he was sure that the christ would come but he was also sure that jesus was not the christ until he met him on the road to damascus and he's blinded by a light and he and the men around him fall to the ground and he hears the voice in hebrew saying saul saul why do you persecute me i can't imagine

the bundle of thoughts that must have been rushing through his brain in those seconds falling to the ground seeing a light brighter than the sun he knows it's divine he knows it's from heaven and then suddenly saul saw why are you persecuting me all he can get out of his mouth is who are you lord and then of course when he hears i am jesus of nazareth whom you are

persecuting and the rest of the mission that jesus has for him you know you can you could get a sense of like wow i have really been on the wrong road here you know i'm reminded of a book that came out back in the early 70s by an author named moss his last name it was called the velachi papers joseph velacci was the one who took us from the notion of the mafia

organized crime to the insider's perspective and why well because he told us about la cosa nostra which is our thing because he was an insider he was a hired hit man and you know he he knew that from his experience that if you ever ended up killing the wrong guy there was a contract immediately put out on you because the only thing that could

potentially awaken the conscience of a professional hit man was killing the wrong guy and so when velocity killed a guy in prison and then turned him around and realized he's not the guy i killed an innocent man he basically spilled his guts he he told everything that ended up being in this collection that's called the velocity papers now

saul the pharisee would have passed a polygraph he was sincere in persecuting what he believed to be the followers of jesus the false messiah until he realized he was totally wrong and so he was going after the wrong guy while he was going after the followers but when jesus says you know why are you persecuting me another thought that might have been rushing through his mind was

okay jesus you're the lord you're the messiah i've obviously been profoundly wrong but what's with this uh you know taking the persecution a little too personally what do you mean persecuting you i've been persecuting your followers but it's obvious that you identify yourself deeply closely radically with them and of course that's why later on paul is the only new testament writer to

ever speak about the church as the body of christ not just an assembly but members of christ's own body and so the seed was sown right there in the moment of his conversion but again not a conversion from one religion to another but a conversion that is described by paul himself in second corinthians 5. listen to what he has to say about his own past

judged now from the supernatural awakening that he realized there on the road in second corinthians 5 16 we read from now on therefore we regard no one from a human point of view let me just interrupt for a moment because that i think is an adequate translation from a human point of view is a rather wordy translation of two greek terms kata

sarka according to the flesh all right from now on therefore regard no one according to the flesh no one why well even though he once regarded christ from a human point of view according to the flesh he's looking back on his own days as a pharisee and a persecutor we regard him thus no longer why because if anyone is in christ he is a kinect he is a new creation a brand new creature the old has passed

away behold the new has come all this is from god who through christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation wow so there's a certain sense in which you could practice judaism with your whole heart but from a natural perspective with your whole mind but from a strictly intellectual standpoint and so katasarka points to

the fact that we weren't meant to live the covenant according to the flesh by our own human powers we were called to open our hearts up to grace to faith to the power of the holy spirit and that can happen in a way that is almost entirely voluntary or in saul's case it can happen in a way that is not only utterly

unexpected but something that represents the opposite of what he was intending to do i can relate you know because though i didn't convert from being a non-christian to being a christian i converted from being an a protestant an evangelical a fervent calvinist and thus you know a rather strong anti-catholic and it was a you know conviction that was you know if the eucharist is just a

way for why are they worshiping it if the pope is just a a sincere teacher why does he claim to be infallible you know if the blessed virgin mary is an amazingly blessed woman but not the mother of god not the fullness of grace then this is mereolatry and i would have passed a polygraph that's why i didn't just disagree i opposed and i target my catholic friends not imprisoning them

to be sure but i'm convinced that saint paul like an older brother has paved the way for me because once suddenly you begin to see things not katasarka according to the flesh but kadapanuma according to the spirit then suddenly it's like whoa my goodness it's like you know in a theater watching a movie wondering why it's blurry until you

realize you haven't put on your 3d spectacles yet then suddenly it just comes to life you know it's a conversion to be sure but it's not over and done in the past it's not a once and for all type of thing it ends up being ongoing at least it has been for me over the last 35 years but i think there's even more proof that it was for paul something ongoing there was a flip of

the switch and the light from heaven comes on but if you read paul's own self-description you realize looking at the earlier epistles and what he says about himself and then looking at the epistles at the middle of his own apostolic career and then contrasting that with what he says about himself at the very end you might think good better best it's

the opposite there is this deepening of his own humility and this awakening of the mercy of god so in first corinthians near the beginning of his own apostolic career paul spoke of himself as the least of the apostles in first corinthians 15 9. and then later on one of his prison epistles ephesians he says that i am the least of all the saints

chapter 3 verse 8 but in the pastoral epistles near the end of his life he basically says how christ jesus came into the world to save sinners and i am the foremost of sinners notice he doesn't say i was he says i am the foremost of sinners and you're like well that's just apostolic hyperbole you know pauline exaggeration well i think he would have passed a polygraph and gotten a slightly

higher grade than when saul would have been interviewed you know this is reminiscent of other saints too i'm thinking of saint francis of assisi who by the end of his life has radicalized the ways in which catholics now can envision living the gospel the radical gospel following christ and yet what does he say about himself

in the end the same thing that paul says he considers himself the foremost of sinners and he explains that if anybody else had gotten the grace that i was given they would have been far more farther along and so i want to underscore not only that paul is the most thoroughly converted christian of all time but the conversion was something that

was ongoing ever deepening life long but also daily and so we have so much to learn from him about our own lives not just from his writing but by his example as well and i am also convinced that that we as catholics have a special need to kind of rediscover paul to re-read paul to reappropriate him in terms of a closer bond you know i think back to over 10 years ago back in 2008 and 9 when then pope

benedict the the 16th called for the year of saint paul when that was announced it was taking most people by surprise and when people like experts theologians biblical scholars were interviewed i took a special interest in listening to them explain why is it that there seems to be a space between saint paul and ordinary catholics cradle

catholics you know one particular scholar spoke about how paul usually gets lip service even from catholic priests and theologians and and why is that well his writings are you know challenging to say the least i'm reminded of what saint peter says in second peter chapter three about his about his friend i it's a glorious testimony

but listen carefully in second peter chapter 3 peter says so also our beloved brother paul first of all notice that a beloved brother there was no hostility or opposition between peter and paul so also our beloved brother paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him the wisdom from on high the wisdom of god

speaking of this as he does in all his letters so they were already being gathered into a collection by the the time that saint peter was nearing the end of his life there are some things in them that is the letters of paul that are hard to understand which i think might be the understatement of the entire new testament canon you know it's been said by adolf von

harnack a protestant church historian quote one might write a history of dogma as a history of the reactions to paul's writings in the church and in doing so he would touch upon all of the turning points of church history you know you you look at marcin and the gnostics the apostolic fathers irenaeus clement going all the way through the middle

ages up through the protestant reformation you know it's always been an ongoing discussion or debate about what did paul mean and already back in the first century saint peter testifies the fact that there is wisdom gold in them are hills but there are also some things in them that are hard to understand and peter doesn't add you know for the

hoi polloi you know for the lower lives you know for him too which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction the more things change the more they stay the same huh as they do the other scriptures graphe what did peter just say that there are these letters that have been gathered or collected and he refers to them as having wisdom but they're also difficult to understand

and the ignorant and the foolish twist under their own destruction as they do the other scriptures so from our very first pope and not just from his lips but from his pen we discover that paul's letters had been written had been gathered and collected and though there was no formal canonization just yet nevertheless peter can just characterize them as scripture

wow i mean that is glowing testimony to be sure and so again we can ask ourselves the question why is there this space or this distance between ordinary catholics and saint paul's writings because they're not easy and because they've been hijacked they've been misrepresented they've been weaponized you know by heretics who tried to divide the church

going back to the first century the second century and really from there on and so i i think we have to recognize something that frank sheed another convert catholic apologist in the 20th century said you know he he speaks about the reformation in particular and how the bible was used as a kind of anti-catholic weapon soul of scripture the bible alone you

know and how the attack on catholic doctrine did not destroy the catholic attachment to the doctrines but it sensibly weakened the catholic attachment to the bible a man can never feel quite the same about even the nicest book if he has just been beaten around the head with it i think i think frank sheed knows what he's talking about

and so he goes on he concludes the scriptural insufficiency of catholics is the last heritage of the reformation still to be liquidated but liquidated it must be for how necessary indeed is scripture for the life of catholics as saint jerome indicated long ago with his phrase ignorance of scripture is ignorance of christ so i want to invite you as catholics and

perhaps as non-catholics to rediscover saint paul to reappropriate him to allow him to sow the seeds of god's word the power of that word that comes through the holy spirit to really reignite the rocket fuel of grace within your soul so that you can begin to experience conversion not only in an ongoing way but an ever

deepening more and more deeply and i think you can do this by drawing closer to saint paul to his life in the book of acts and the three missionary journeys that lead to his house arrest there in rome in the final chapter of acts 28 where even under house arrest he's using that as an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the jews first

and then to the gentiles as well and inevitably to share the gospel with the household of caesar himself you know it's very exciting but besides the the life of saint paul described by saint luke his companion i also want to encourage you to kind of get down and dirty in these letters that are admittedly difficult

he's not a biographer of jesus like matthew mark luke and john he really is the first theologian and the only theologian of the first century to write you know some say 13 maybe 14 of the the 27 books so over half possibly you know but he's you know he's taking these things deeper and deeper you know i'm reminded of a professor i had who

was himself a graduate of harvard with a phd in theology and and he said that if paul had applied his mind to say philosophy he would have surpassed plato and aristotle and at the time you know i'm thinking oh that's just exaggeration now in my early 60s having spent about 50 years of my life studying all of this i realized that may be an understatement it really is a remarkable thing

for this treasury of divine wisdom to be available to us in the writings of paul but i want to end on a practical note because i must say that paul has become not only my inspiration and that goes all the way back to when i was turning 14 and i got a set of tapes on first corinthians by addison leach this brilliant biblical scholar theologian who just walked us through the book of

first corinthians and he just made paul come alive and so i entered into a conversation a dialogue a kind of friendship that over the years has deepened and matured so i really do see him as my hero i mean not alongside of jesus he's not on par with him of course he would be the first to forswear that but really i mean he could say to the

corinthians imitate me as i imitate christ and so he really is a model but you know i'm reflecting now upon the friendship that was struck up between saint paul on the one hand and luke on the other you know there was a recent movie paul apostle of christ one of my favorites and i wasn't really expecting to like it because you know i come with low expectations to

religious movies or catholic movies but this one was really something special jim caviezel starred in that too as luke in fact but as i reflect upon the friendship of paul and luke i just want to draw two or three points before we conclude because it starts really in chapter 16 of acts where we begin the we section of acts where suddenly you know luke begins to use the first person plural

pronoun we it's subtle but it's stunning in its subtlety because he just kind of introduces himself into the narrative but it's a clear marker of the beginning of a very special relationship a friendship in fact paul for his part mentions luke fairly frequently the earliest mention is in philemon where he ends up by speaking of luke as among my

fellow workers that's high praise but nothing like what we find in colossians 4. in colossians 4 he refers to luke as his dear friend and the physician or we sometimes summarize that as luke the beloved physician i love that you know you also hear in second timothy 4 verse 11 luke alone is with me here is paul in prison you know even his

friends have abandoned him some have turned against him luke alone is with me luke alone indeed that's friendship and again it isn't something that luke talks about anywhere in acts he just picks up in the wii sections in the second half of chapter but i want to emphasize how paul's friendship with luke was unique how do we see it well he refers to his companions titus and timothy as his sons

first timothy 1 18 and titus 1 14 whereas luke he calls a friend beloved loyal to the end he alone is with me and so there really is a sense in which you're seeing two sides of one coin luke alone remains together the two of them paul and his protege luke accomplish what no one man could ever do on his own for instance luke wrote two of the books in the new testament okay compared to 14 what is that we'll step back and analyze

because luke's gospel is simply the longest book of all the new testament books and in second place is luke's sequel the acts of the apostles i don't want to get bogged down in numbers but in fact you have luke's gospel weighing in at over 19 000 words in acts over 18 000 words for a grand total of nearly 38 000 and if you take all of paul's letters 13

or even if you add hebrews the foul the count only goes up to 37 460 and so luke writes the two longest letters or books of the new testament paul writes 14 the most in number and when you combine luke and paul you end up with well over half of the new testament written by two men the closest of friends this is true collaboration they didn't just travel together

they suffered together and as you look at the early church fathers they speak of luke's gospel as quote paul's gospel because of their companionship you know the friendship of luke and paul i think is the wellspring the source of grace not only back in the first century in a truly unique way but now up until the 21st century as well again i want to emphasize this through friendship paul and luke accomplished what no man could

do singularly separately this is the power not only of a particular friendship but this is the power of friendship itself when you think about what jesus told the apostles in the upper room he says i no longer call you servants i now call you friends john 15 15. friendship with god that was unimaginable for plato and aristotle and others well because it was unattainable it was

humanly impossible but what we can't do in the flesh is precisely what god has done through his son in the spirit katapanuma he's entered into the human race for us to enter into a share of divine life 2 peter 1 4 we have been made partakers of the divine nature that isn't just a creator creature relationship that goes beyond the master slave that becomes father's son but it also

becomes the firstborn among many brothers and sisters there's a fraternal bond there is divine friendship you know again if we could look at this through the eyes of ancient philosophers or if we could look at this through the eyes of post-modern thinkers we would watch their brains explode i mean this is mind-blowing seriously friends with god aristotle said

would have said you know that's metaphysically impossible because friendship requires equality but that's exactly what the incarnation and the paschal mystery of jesus life death and resurrection has brought about it adds nothing to him but it adds everything to us what is it we can say partakers of the divine nature but cut to the chase it's friendship and so if

friendship is the core of the gospel if friendship is the content of what is proclaimed as a result of what jesus has done then friendship ought to be the medium as well as the message and so we have exhibit a paul and luke this friendship becomes the launching pad not only for over half of the new testament but for the next 2 000 years a supernatural enrichment

of mind and heart of body and soul of male and female of jews and christians i mean everybody has something to draw including you so i want to encourage you not only to re-familiarize re-familiarize yourself with paul's you know thought through his writings or his life through luke's account in the acts of the apostles but beginning today and continuing beyond the feast

i want you to ask saint paul to enter into a friendship with him to help you to enter into a close friendship with him i believe that our lord wants this i believe that our lady wants this in the year of saint joseph i'm convinced saint joseph is invisibly present behind me saying amen share that scotch you know and so if you think about this friendship you know

in 3rd john verse 15 we discovered that the term friendship becomes practically synonymous for the church and for the faith and so live this out by deepening your friendships with other brothers and sisters in christ and those who are potential brothers and sisters in christ but also use this feast day as an occasion for entering into a deeper friendship with saint paul

and saint luke asking them through their prayers to teach you to fall in love with our lord through their writings in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen almighty god our father in heaven we thank you for your son and for the power of the gift of the holy spirit and how your son made himself known to saul and called him to become the apostle to

the nations called him to to write these inspired letters that are so deep so inexhaustibly wise practical and profound and through the intercession of his friends saying luke we ask you to conform us to christ just as you conform paul that way imitate paul as he imitated christ hear us on this special feast of the conversion of saint paul

and make us more and more pleasing to you for we ask this in the strong holy and powerful name of jesus in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen saint paul pray for us and saint luke the beloved physician pray for us also god bless you all and happy feast day you