More About the Damascus Road
Wed., Feb. 17. 2010 2:56pm EST
ApologetiX lead singer and lyricist J. Jackson here again. I wanted to share something else concerning the road to Damascus (the one in Syria).
My oldest daughter, Janna, and I talked recently about where we each were in our Bible reading. Janna, who is 13, has read through the Bible once before and is making her way through it again. I first read it the whole way through in 1988 and have tried to read it through at least once a year since then (I'm currently in 2 Chronicles).
Janna mentioned that she had just read about Saul being chosen as the first king of Israel. I said, "Oh, that's in 1 Samuel 9. You want to know something cool? That Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. The Apostle Paul's name used to be Saul, too, and he's from the tribe of Benjamin, too. And the story of his conversion is also in a chapter 9 -- Acts 9.
Then Janna told me something cool: "And the Saul in the Old Testament started out good and ended up bad, but the Saul in the New Testament started out bad and ended up good." She hadn't read that anyplace; she just made that observation herself.
And then something hit me, which I shared with Janna: "And man in the Old Testament starts out good (in Genesis) and ends up bad, but in the New Testament he starts out bad and ends up good (in Revelation), because God cleanses him of all his sin and conforms him to the image of Christ."
As I've said before, no matter how many times I've read the Bible, I learn something new every time, and it's the only book that gets better every time I read it. I am so proud and blessed that my daughter loves the Bible, too, and I'm so thankful that God is revealing things to her as she reads it, too.
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