Saul, Saul And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). When God calls someone by name twice in Scripture, it is always at the moment that matters. Abraham, Abraham, with the knife raised (Genesis 22:11). Moses, Moses, at the burning bush (Exodus 3:4). Samuel, Samuel, in the dark of the temple (1 Samuel 3:10). The repetition is the sound of being known by someone who has known you all along. Saul, Saul. The most feared opponent the early church had, addressed by name, twice, by the risen Christ. This story is not in Scripture so we can marvel at how far Saul was from God. It is there because every one of us has been Saul on that road. Not necessarily violent. But certain. Saul was not a man who had never heard of God. He knew the Scriptures better than almost anyone alive. He kept the law, by his own account, blameless (Philippians 3:6). He was zealous. He was sincere. He would have said, with complete honesty, that he loved God and was defending Him. What he did not know was what God looked like. He had the law and not the face. He had the commandments and not the One who had come to fulfill them. Everything Saul knew about God was true, and none of it had shown him that God would wash feet, or weep at a grave, or die for the people Saul was hunting. He knew a great deal about God. He did not know that God was love, because he had never met the love in person. That is what the light on the road gave him. Not more information. A face. And with the face, everything he already knew rearranged itself around something he had never seen. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8 While we were still sinners." That is the return address on every conversion. Not “once we were ready.” Still. Saul was not looking. He was running the other way with murder in his mind, and the light found him anyway. (From Bible Portal)