Why did God use unusual circumstances to convert Paul but never such a miracle in modern times?
Paul did not repent of his persecution/deaths of early believers. Scripture plainly says to repent of our sin before proceeding into salvation through Christ's blood. Paul was not described as having done this but had a miracle performed in his life in ensuing days only after conversing with the Saviour. It seems he was or is the only man to have received eternal life by such a method. Why Paul and not others?
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Asked February 05 2020
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Russell Leggore
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Tim Maas
I would say, first, that only God in His omniscience would definitively know whether there have been other such events that have occurred anywhere in the world in the two thousand years since New Testament times, but that (for whatever reason) did not receive the same exposure as Paul's conversion. Also, I would say that the circumstances of Paul's conversion may have been a unique case of being the only means by which God could overcome the pride that Paul took in the elite religious schooling that he had received (as Paul himself recounted in Philippians 3:4-6, in which he also stated his perception of himself as having been perfectly righteous with regard to his obedience to God's Law). Coupled with Paul's qualifications (based on his learning and his ability to expound on both the Law and the gospel in both preaching and writing), and his preparation for missionary work at that specific, crucial time in world history (which included three years of solitude in the desert (as Paul recounted in Galatians 1:17), as well as the visions of heaven mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10), it may very well be that the specific means by which God brought about Paul's conversion were a never-again-possible and never-to-be-repeated -- and also (in God's omniscience) never-NEED-to-be-repeated -- event in terms of both its unique confluence of circumstances, and also its world-changing results, which continue to the present day.
Ben Jones
Paul had to have received Christ as Lord and Savior because that is the only way the scriptures say that we can be saved, it is just not recorded. There are thousands of things that happened while Christ walked the Earth that were not recorded (see John 21:25). Paul spent three days (Acts 9:9) blinded by Christ and apparently during that time he repented and received Christ. Paul also went to Arabia after he was saved. Galatians 1:17-18 "Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days." One can do a lot of repenting and praying in three years! Some believe that Paul met with Christ in Arabia and He dictated to him the 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. If the church was founded on an apostle as the Roman Catholic Church teaches, it would have been on Paul not Peter. Peter wrote two books.
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