Episode 6: Saul before Christ

Selfishly, I wish I was told more about Paul before his conversion on his way to Damascus. What we are told largely appears in just a few chapters in Acts. We are told that he brutally heads up the persecution of the early Church—dragging men and women from their homes to prison for the even the slightest association with the Church (cf. 8:1-2; 9:13-15). Heck, he was apparently so nasty that Ananias verbally questions God when he is told to go and heal Paul after his Damascus Road experience. As if to say, “Um…God? Seriously?! I know that you have heard about this guy…and you want me to seek him out?!”

Later in Acts, in two locations (chs. 22 and 26), Paul himself recounts what he was like before his conversion. Yet the way he does it is very interesting. Furthermore, it really becomes his modus operandi on the topic: speaking to his past only to emphasize the dramatic nature of his conversion. And we see other examples of this in the New Testament (for example, Galatians, Philippians, Corinthians, etc.). So, on the issue of Paul pre-conversion, the New Testament, as a whole, largely discusses the topic only when it needs to. It certainly does not dwell on it. Nevertheless, given what we know about Paul as a missionary and preacher of the gospel—how bold, convinced, and decisive he was—it is a worthwhile endeavor to consider what he was like before his conversion. Consequently, I applaud the writers and producers of AD: The Bible Continues for devoting so much time in episode 6 to Saul as a Pharisee and persecutor of the Church.

I thought the portrayal of Saul was creepy good. As I watched it, I felt his conviction, his passion. I saw a man who was utterly convinced that this fledgling movement was heretical and posed such a threat to the traditional institutions of the Jewish faith that it had to be squashed...violently if necessary. Throughout his monologues, the camera kept focusing on his eyes, and boy did those eyes cut right through the TV screen. There was one scene that was particularly effective in communicating Saul’s obsession. When Saul visits Caiaphas, who reluctantly grants him audience, Saul begins to confess his opposition to the movement. Very quickly Saul flirts with loosing emotional control. He begins to move his fingers uncontrollably, his eyes become fixated on Caiaphas’ desk, and he has trouble stopping his diatribe. At this point, Caiaphas, and the audience for that matter, knows who sits there. This scene, perhaps more than any other, visualized the passion and conviction that consumed this man—both as a persecutor and later a missionary.

There was another telling scene in the episode that I thought was effective. Early on in the episode Paul and Peter have a rhetorical sparring match. Paul tries to reason with the crowd, for he thinks they are being intellectually victimized by the Apostles. However, Peter counters by appealing to life of Christ. On the one hand, this gives us another snippet of what will come to mark Paul’s ministry. Yes, he was passionate, focused, and convicted, but he was also educated and intellectually gifted. Paul was a rhetorician, and he thrived on making arguments for his positions. For example, Paul will later find himself in the Agora of Athens reasoning with the Greek elite over the significance of Christ. On the other hand, reason alone is not the totality of the Christian faith. As exemplified by Peter, experiencing Christ is the other half of the equation. What secures the logic and reasonableness of the faith is one’s experience with Christ.

Again, there was so much artistic freedom exercised in this episode, and I can see how people may be getting fed up with how the miniseries has unfolded. Yet before one gets too bent out of shape, he or she must consider how that artistic freedom is being utilized. Simply, "How is the freedom being used to push the flow of the episode and overall miniseries, and is that flow honoring the message of the biblical text?" Overall, I cannot complain too much. By the end of this episode, we have been introduced to a man who is passionate about destroying a new movement that he believes threatens the core of the Jewish religion. Sure, none of this is in the Bible, but we have a better of understanding of the type of person who would later experience a world-altering encounter with Jesus and who would later channel those same traits for the glorification of God and edification of the Church. And that is true to the message of Acts.