From Saul to Paul

One of the most significant episodes of the New Testament was the conversion of Paul the Apostle.  Prior to his conversion, Paul was a highly educated Jewish Pharisee by the name of Saul.  Believing the followers of Jesus to be dangerous heretics, Saul launched a violent campaign against them.  However, God had other plans for Saul.  In a remarkable turn of events, Saul had a powerful encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and became not only became a follower of Christ, but he became one of the New Testaments greatest evangelists.  Paul was the first persecutor who became a believer, but he was not the last.  Throughout the course of history, former persecutors of the faith all over the world have become believers.  One amazing case that I read recently was that of former al-Qaeda terrorists, a man by the name of "Ahmed."

In the early 1990's Ahmed was a poor young man in his early 20's.  He was frustrated by his ongoing poverty, Ahmed sought refuge with a group of people who met regularly at the library of a local mosque.  These men were Jihadist fighters, who recruited Ahmed to join them.  As he was trained, Ahmed was taught about he necessity of Jihad, that only through Holy War could Islam effectively spread.  It was their sacred duty to either kill or be killed for the sake of Islam.  For years, Ahmed was taught that the Christians were the servants of Satan, and that all nations in which Christianity dominated were "Kafir" (Against God) and had to be fought.  However, he was also taught that there was a group of people even worse than that "Kafir's" of America and Europe, and those were the "Apostates."  Apostates were those who left Islam.  Ahmed's terrorist leader confessed to personally killing several Apostates.  For a time, it looked like Ahmed would soon be embarking to Afghanistan to become a new soldier of Jihad, but then the unthinkable happened: Ahmed found out that his brother had become a Christ.  

For Ahmed, this was unthinkable.  He had always looked up to his brother, he loved him more than anyone.  Now, according to his leaders, he was his enemy, and it was Ahmed's duty to kill him.  Ahmed pleaded with his brother to return to Islam, but seeing that his brother had his heart sent, Ahmed decided that the only way to save him was to study the Islamic scriptures in depth and prove to his brother the Islam was true.  Ahmed returned to his mosque library, but instead of meeting with Jihadists, he began reading the Qur'an and Hadith.  When he read Surah 4:171 he was astonished to see that this verse was actually proclaiming that Allah sent his Word to Mary.  While the Surah was trying to deny the divine nature of Jesus, it nevertheless said that Jesus was the Word of God, which could only mean one thing, Jesus was divine in nature.  How could Jesus be the enemy, when he was in fact of God?   For six months Ahmed studied the Islamic writings and he also began examining the Bible.  During his studies, he began to have powerful dreams where he could hear God calling to him.  His studies, and his dreams convinced him of the inescapable truth, Jesus was the way.  Instead of going to Afghanistan to fight the "Kafirs," Ahmed became a believer and an evangelist, much like Paul.  Ahmed eventually married a Christian woman and together they helped plant churches throughout Algeria.  Ahmed's conversion came at a price.  His life has been continually threatened, most of his family abandoned him (except for his Christian brother and one other brother who also accept Christ), and he has had to relocate seven times due to persecution.  Yet through it all, Ahmed remains faithful to Jesus.  He prays for his enemies, as Jesus taught him to, and remembers that at one point in his life, he was just like them.