[Paul speaking]
“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities. On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me.

--Contrasting verse:
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭8‬:‭15‬
But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

Obedience requires a level of humility to understand that you are not the ultimate authority. Paul had this type of humility, even before he believed in Jesus as Lord. He obeyed his religious sect and in some warped, sinful way, thought he was honoring God by persecuting the Christian church. When Paul was faced with the undeniable power of Christ, which blinded him with a great light and spoke to him without appearing to him and his company, he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And then he obeyed.

In contrast, Pharaoh, in the time of Moses, was not a humble man. Instead, in his pride, he allowed plague after plague to happen to his people and himself, and he would not recognize God. He gave lip service to listening to God, saying he would let the Israelites go. But he did not follow through. He instead allowed his heart to turn hard time and again. Finally he led his army into a God-sized trap, the parted waters of the Red Sea. Once inside the parted waters, God caused the waters to crash down on Pharaoh and his army and they were destroyed.

As I listen to Paul make his appeal to King Agrippa, it is like he is pleading with him to hear the truth and obey it. To not have a hard heart like the Pharaoh of old. By addressing King Agrippa here in this way, he is calling out to him to receive the truth, repent, and turn to God from his sinful ways. What a bold thing to do!

Will I in humility turn to God when he shows me my sin? Or will I, like Pharoah, give lip service to following God, but then allow the things of this world (power, greed, and popularity) to harden my heart?

God has changed my heart, forgiven my sin, and redeemed me for his purposes. I must use this transformation in my life as a witness to others. I must tell them of their need for Jesus with my story.

Lord, thank you for Paul’s boldness here and his humility. He humbly admitted he was wrong and when you reached out to him on the Damascus road, he repented and turned to you in faith. He boldly proclaimed from that moment on Jesus Christ as Lord!