From Saul to Paul: A Revelation of an Atheist

"He demanded Christians live like Jesus...until Jesus called him to do the same."

He called himself an atheist.
Not because he studied theology and denied

it,
but because what he saw of Christianity
didn’t look like Christ.

He watched people wear the name Christian
like a sticker-
easy to peel on, easy to pull off.
But their lives didn’t match their label.
And that disturbed him.

Odd, right?
That an atheist would be the one upset about
people not living according to the Bible.

He wasn’t quiet about it either.
He spoke up every time someone claimed to
believe but didn’t behave.
”If you say you believe in Jesus, “he’d argue,
”then live like Jesus.”

That’s what made him different.
He didn’t hate the idea of God-
he hated the way people misrepresented Him.
And maybe, deep down, he didn’t hate Jesus at all.

In his frustration he began to read the Bible.
Not to believe.
But to prove Christians wrong.

He studied it to expose hypocrisy,
to call out contradiction.
He started teaching Christians how they
should live,
even though he didn’t believe in the Christ
they claimed.

But the Word doesn’t go out void.
Not even for an atheist.

What he didn’t realize was that the very act of
reading and teaching was changing him.
He was becoming a student of the One he
didn’t know he needed.
And the more he studied,
the more the Bible stopped being a book he
used against others-
and started becoming a mirror showing
himself.

Until one day, a whisper broke through:

“What about you?”

That was the moment.
Like Saul on the road to Damascus,
he was confronted by the One he never
expected to meet.

It wasn’t a harsh encounter.
No lightning bolts.
Just Light.

He had spent all that time demanding that
Christians walk like Christ….
only to discover he was being drawn to Christ
the whole time.

He went from an accuser to a believer.
from teacher to follower.
From Saul to Paul.

Now, he calls himself a man of faith.
Not because he planned to be….
but because the Word he tried to use as a
weapon
became the sword that opened his heart.

Because no one is too far.
Not even the ones who say, “I don’t believe.”

Sometimes they’re closer than anyone thinks.

Sometimes they’re just waiting to see what
Jesus really looks like.

And sometimes….
He shows them in the pages they once read
to criticize.