¹“Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you.” ²And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet; and he said, ³”I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. ⁴I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, ⁵as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.”

Paul’s testimony is summed up in twenty-one verses, easily read in three minutes. His opening words echoed those uttered by Stephen, the first martyr, back when Paul (then called Saul) approved of the persecutors’ actions: “Hear me, brothers and fathers” (Acts 7:2). The sting of those words on Paul’s lips must have been mixed with the honor of being counted worthy of dying for Jesus’ sake, the same as Stephen.

At the same time, the words, “Brethren and fathers, hear my defense,” express Paul’s identity and fellowship with the people of Israel. He was speaking as one of them. He went on to emphasize the orthodoxy of his rabbinical training under a recognized and respected teacher, Gamaliel. Paul was trained “strictly according to the law of our fathers.” Later he would emphasize the established Jewishness of Ananias (Acts 22:12), who was zealous for the Law. In other words, he was influenced both in his training and in his conversion by men of the highest Jewish caliber, with the result that he himself was “zealous for God just as you all are today.” Paul didn’t tiptoe around the Law, but proclaimed publicly and in no uncertain terms that he was devoted to the Law of Moses and the God of Israel.

His zeal for the Law, Paul went on to add, extended to hunting down the people, here identified as a movement known as the “Way.” He describes his actions as “binding” the believers and putting them in prison (see also Acts 9:14), the same word the Holy Spirit used to describe Paul’s own coming persecution at the hands of the Jews (Acts 21:11). That which he inflicted on others in his misguided pre-conversion zeal would be inflicted upon him by his fellow Jews, who were acting in unconverted, misguided zeal against him.

Paul was building a case that he had once been just like his persecutors. He could identify with them; he knew how they thought. So what he was about to say had the ring of credibility; he was once one of them, but something had changed. His actions were not the result of a lack of zeal for the Law.

Lord, help me never forget how You converted me to the Lord Jesus Christ.