by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
Saul would become the saved apostle Paul, and his conversion from being totally against Jesus and his disciples to becoming a disciple of Jesus, from being a persecutor to being persecuted, is a remarkable account of what is involved in the process of conversion to Christ. Read Acts 9 and then later Paul’s own personal account of what happened in Acts 22. From these records we learn:<\/p>\n
Those who teach that are deceived and are deceiving others. He was not saved by grace through faith without baptism, as many today teach. In reading Acts 9:5-6,9, we find that even though he believed in Jesus after Jesus confronted him, Acts 9:9 shows he was still not yet a saved man. Someone in the city would tell him what he “must do<\/em>” (Acts 9:6), and in the meantime, as he waits in “faith alone,” he waits in the darkness of his blindness, “neither eating nor drinking<\/em>” (Acts 9:9), and this goes on for “three days.<\/em>” Does this sound like a man who is saved? He has “faith alone,” and neither “grace alone nor faith alone” has brought him any peace of mind that he is forgiven and saved. Ananias will come and tell him to “arise and be baptized and wash away your sins<\/em>” (Acts 22:16). For three days, Saul was miserable, lost, and still in his sins. If he still needs his sins washed away, then he is certainly not already “saved by grace alone through faith alone.”. That doctrine is proven false by the evidence of Saul’s conversion.<\/p>\n He would learn to suffer for Christ rather than cause others to suffer for serving Christ. He would have a mission for bringing light to the spiritually blind.<\/p>\n His eyes of understanding were enlightened. He would convert from a spiritually blind person who was not seeing Jesus at all in the prophetic word to a person who could see Jesus everywhere in the prophetic word, so much so that the Morning Star of prophecy could dawn in his heart (II Peter 1:19f). He would have his eyes opened about Jesus. He would move from being spiritually blind to seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He would have a treasure within that would give him light through every dark moment he would face (II Corinthians 4). He now would gladly suffer for Jesus and became not one whit behind the more noteworthy apostles. He went on to preach Jesus in three amazing missionary journeys recorded in Acts and wrote 13 of the books of the New Testament. He gladly suffered for Jesus as he knew Jesus loved and suffered for him. These are three great lessons we can learn from the case study of Saul’s conversion. We need to learn the treasures that Saul held in his heart.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton Saul would become the saved apostle Paul, and his conversion from being totally against Jesus and his disciples to becoming a disciple of Jesus, from being a persecutor to being persecuted, is a remarkable account of what is involved in the process of conversion to Christ. Read Acts 9 and then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[390,53,1008,1443,47],"class_list":["post-66578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-conversion","tag-faith-alone","tag-faith-only","tag-grace-alone","tag-salvation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7847,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/arent-you-misinterpreting-the-scriptures-unless-you-teach-faith-alone\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":0},"title":"Aren’t you misinterpreting the Scriptures unless you teach faith alone?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I agree with you on many points however I believe that you make many hasty judgments and contradict yourself many times over.\u00a0 Whether you are Nazarene, Pentecostal, Baptist Church of Christ, etc. it truly does not matter because salvation is not found in your denomination rather in Christ Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36760,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/by-grace-through-faith-with-the-washing-of-water\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":1},"title":"By Grace Through Faith with the Washing of Water","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Notice the prepositions: by, through, and with. The Book of Ephesians uses all three to describe what is involved with our salvation. It teaches we are saved by grace. It teaches we are saved through faith. It teaches we are saved with the washing of water\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":54501,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-show-my-coworker-that-it-is-not-faith-alone-that-saves\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":2},"title":"How do I show my coworker that it is not faith alone that saves?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I am in a discussion of the Bible with a man that I work with. He is Lutheran and I go to a church of Christ. His beliefs are that faith saves and continues to recite the verse from Ephesians 2:8-9. I'm sure you're very familiar with that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":618,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/doesnt-romans-51-teach-we-are-saved-by-faith-alone\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":3},"title":"Doesn’t Romans 5:1 teach we are saved by faith alone?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 11, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Doesn't\u00a0Romans 5:1\u00a0teach that we are saved by faith alone? Answer: Romans 5:1\u00a0says, \"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.\" This proves that justification requires faith, but your stated goal was to prove that justification was by faith\u00a0alone. There is no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13329,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-true-faith-mean-the-command-to-be-baptized-does-not-save-a-person\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":4},"title":"Does true faith mean the command to be baptized does not save a person?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I guess I would not mind seeing the other side of my argument.\u00a0 It is simply this: true faith saves you.\u00a0 I could go in-depth of what I mean if you would like me to, but I guess I just want to hit on the issue.\u00a0 I believe that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27997,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-baptism-unnecessary-for-salvation-because-every-conversion-in-acts-doesnt-mention-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":66578,"position":5},"title":"Is baptism unnecessary for salvation because every conversion in Acts doesn’t mention baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi. I received the below email and am having a tough time responding to these verses in regards to is baptism being necessary for salvation. I was hoping you might be able to help with these verses. Thank you Here are the places in Acts that you need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Truth changed his life and his mission (Acts 9:20).<\/h2>\n
The truth changed the way he handled the scriptures (Acts 9:22).<\/h2>\n