The first mention that we have of Paul, or, rather, at that time Saul, is in connection with the scenes that led up to the murder of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. When the Christian religion began to spread in the very center of Judaism, Jerusalem, great disputation arose between its followers and the Jews. And Saul, who belonged to the strictest sect of the Jewish religion, the Pharisees, and was a man of strong feeling and enthusiastic in temper, soon became involved in these discussions, and so we find that when the mob took Stephen and ignominiously stoned him to death, it says of Saul: "He was consenting unto his death," and that the murderers "laid down their clothes at a young man's feet named Saul."
Nor did he stop here. His whole being was so aflame with religious zeal that he knew only one purpose of life, and that was to blot out the name of that detestable Founder of the new religion and His followers. Accordingly, we read in Acts that "Saul made havoc of the Church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison." And not satisfied with his work at Jerusalem, he began to extend his persecution to distant cities. The opening verses of this chapter read: "And Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem." Damascus, in Syria, now the oldest city in the world, had opened its gates as a refuge to the Christians, and provided with legal papers from the high priests, he set out at the head of an armed and mounted force to bring those Christians at Damascus to terms. But he did not. In the affairs of men it ever remains true: Man proposes, God disposes, and most wonderfully did He dispose in the case of Saul of Tarsus.
It was high noon in Syria, the sun standing in its zenith. On the road leading from Jerusalem to Damascus could be heard the clattering of horses' hoofs. The horsemen could already see the beautiful city rising upon their sight and its gates swinging open, when, suddenly, there came a flash from the sky, and "a light above the brightness of the sun" shone round about them, with such overwhelming effect that it struck the chief with blindness, smote him to the ground, and filled every man with terror and dismay. And to this brilliancy of light was added a clear and distant voice ringing through the air, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"