What does First B Jackson teach about paul's conversion?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on Paul's conversion starts with the man himself. Before getting to the road to Damascus, Pastor Mark (in his January 2025 message) and Pastor Carl both spent time building a full picture of Saul of Tarsus: a man with a world-class education, a blameless public record, and a consuming ambition to be the best among his peers. Drawing from Philippians and Romans, the teaching pointed out that the sin eating at Saul from the inside was coveting, something nobody around him could see. He was not simply a religious bully. He arrived at the journey to Damascus planning to do God a favor, full of confidence, uttering threats with every breath, expecting to arrest followers of the Way and drag them back in chains.
When the light came and the voice said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?", both Pastor Mark and Pastor Carl paused on that word "me." Jesus did not say, "Why are you persecuting them." Whatever Saul had done to those believers, he had done to Jesus. Pastor Mark connected this to Matthew 25 and gave it a plainly human image: a big brother who doesn't mind his siblings arguing among themselves but will not stand for an outsider coming after his own. The man who had been hunting the church was already chosen to carry the message to Gentiles, to kings, and to Israel, and the education and zeal that had been aimed in the wrong direction were exactly the tools God intended to use.
The other half of the story, as Pastor Mark taught it, is Ananias, a disciple in Damascus who already knew Saul's reputation and whose objection to the Lord's instruction was reasonable and honest. But the Lord's answer was short: go, Saul is my chosen instrument. Pastor Ray's message picked up from there, following Saul into Damascus where, within days of staying with the very believers he had come to arrest, he was preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. The reaction was amazement, then argument, then a murder plot. Pastor Ray also paused on the fear the Jerusalem believers felt when Saul arrived there, and asked whether we believe Jesus can redeem anyone, or whether there are people we have quietly written off. Barnabas stepped in, told the apostles exactly what had happened, and that testimony brought Saul into their fellowship.
Taught from Acts 9:1-20 · Philippians 3 · Romans 7 · Matthew 25 · Isaiah 55:8
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 11
1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed you do bear with me.
2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
3 But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different “good news”, which you did not accept, you put up with that well enough.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- February 2, 2025 This week's Sermon @ First B Jackson January 26th A Jackson Hole pastor traces the conversion of Saul in Acts 9, showing how God humbled a zealous persecutor and transformed him into a chosen instrument.
- February 2, 2025 God Is On the Move Ahead of You Acts 9: Saul's conversion stuns Damascus, Barnabas vouches for him in Jerusalem, and Peter heals Aeneas and raises Tabitha as the early church spreads.
- January 26, 2025 Saul Is My Chosen Instrument Acts 9 traces Saul's dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and his sudden transformation from persecutor of the church to proclaimer of Christ.
Mentioned along the way
- April 30, 2017 By the Will of God The pastor walks through Ephesians 1:1-2, examining what it means that Paul was an apostle "by the will of God" and what God's will looks like in a believer's life.
- April 12, 2015 When It Pleased God Paul's autobiography in Galatians shows how God's grace transformed a zealous persecutor into an apostle, and why the gospel needs no additions or subtractions.