[Note: This is the prepared text for a sermon given to The Dalles congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, November 16, 2024.]

As we return from the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the thoughts that we have in mind at the end of this annual festival is the conversion of large amounts of mankind to God’s ways, and the great harvest of souls that brings many people into God’s family who never, in the course of their lives, understood God’s ways. Even here and now, when we know that God’s Church has always been relatively small compared to the large mass of humanity who does not even try to live according to God’s laws and ways, we often wonder what it would be like to help in the process of God calling someone. What I wish to do today is to tell the story of several conversion stories in the Bible, discussing them as they appear in scripture, and then drawing from each of them a lesson in conversion that shows some of the necessary conditions that exist that help the Kingdom of God be better known and better regarded around other people. I should add a caveat that we do not know in all of the cases whether the people who were praised ended up fully converted or whether they stayed as believers for the rest of their lives. But all of these stories provide us with insights into what conditions are necessary for people to be open to the call to follow God’s ways.

The first example I would like to look at today is the story of Rahab the Innkeeper of Jericho. This story is told in Joshua 2:1-21. Joshua 2:1-21 reads: “Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there.  And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.” So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country.” Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.  And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went I do not know; pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.”  (But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof.)  Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the fords. And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate. Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and said to the men: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.  For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.  And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.  Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father’s house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.” So the men answered her, “Our lives for yours, if none of you tell this business of ours. And it shall be, when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with you.” Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall; she dwelt on the wall.  And she said to them, “Get to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you. Hide there three days, until the pursuers have returned. Afterward you may go your way.” So the men said to her: “We will be blameless of this oath of yours which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household to your own home.  So it shall be that whoever goes outside the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless. And whoever is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.  And if you tell this business of ours, then we will be free from your oath which you made us swear.” Then she said, “According to your words, so be it.” And she sent them away, and they departed. And she bound the scarlet cord in the window.”

First, let us deal with the elephant in the room as to what kind of person Rahab was. In most translations of the Bible, Rahab is labeled as a harlot, which is a somewhat old-fashioned term for prostitute. Yet properly speaking, she was an innkeeper. What accounts for her questionable reputation? Even in the contemporary world, where tourism is well-developed, hotels have a reputation for being the sort of place where one engages in adultery or fornication as one is not sleeping in one’s own bed. This was even more the case in the ancient world, and especially in cases where unattached foreign men spent time in places with unattached females who ran the inn as a business. Any secluded location where men and women could meet in private was a place where the women involved were viewed as having a bad reputation, and Rahab’s hotel in Jericho was no different. Interestingly enough, though, for the purposes of our message, is that Rahab’s ability to meet people traveling from other areas had given her a great deal of insight into what was going on with Israel, and the threat that she and her family faced. Rahab had no husband to protect her–indeed, in her line of business it might have been difficult for her to marry–and she faced the challenge of fearing what would happen to the people of Israel and securing survival for herself and her family.

How did she do this? How did the conversion of Rahab take place? How did Rahab secure her place in the Hall of Fame of heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 where she is recorded as one of the superstars of the biblical faith? It started with her knowledge of Israel’s advancing power along with hope that she could somehow secure a place for herself in the post-Canaanite world that Israel was bringing. It was this hope in her own survival that led her to protect the lives of the Israelite spies and to defy her city’s king, who wanted the spies killed. By protecting the spies and getting them to promise to save her own life if she would put a scarlet cord in her window–scarlet being an interesting symbol of sexual sin and sin in general in the Bible and literature in general, as it happens–she received a promise that her and her family would live even as the rest of the city was put the sword. We see from this story that immediately after the spies left, she put the scarlet cord in the window. She wasn’t wasting any time with that.

What was the result of her faith? If one examines the references to Rahab in the rest of the Bible, which I encourage you all to do on your own time, you will find that Rahab was the mother of Boaz, that noble ancestor of both David and Jesus Christ, and in the Matthew 1 genealogy of Jesus Christ Rahab is one of five women listed, as a Gentile woman of questionable reputation whose faith led her into the people of God and into the ancestral line of the Savior Himself, which was the dream of many women going all the way back to Eve–but that is another story for another time. What lesson can we learn from this conversion: it is not enough for people to know the truth for them to convert to God’s ways, but people need to hope that they can participate in the bright future promised by God.

For our next example, let us look at another notable conversion experience, that of Naaman the Syrian, told in 2 Kings 5:1-19. 2 Kings 5:1-19 reads: “Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.  And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife.  Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.”  And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.” Then the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.  Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy. And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.” So it was, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.” Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house.  And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”  But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’  Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”  So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive nothing.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused. So Naaman said, “Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord.  Yet in this thing may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing.” Then he said to him, “Go in peace.” So he departed from him a short distance.”

Let’s take a few minutes to ponder some aspects of this conversion. First of all, let us note that the conversion of Gentiles to God’s ways in the Bible could be a bit complicated. Naaman was a general in the Syrian army, who were mortal enemies of Israel at the time, and for him to realize his need for God he would need a massive problem that could not be dealt with by power or money–enter the leprosy, which made him a social outcast and removed him from the intimacy he would have wanted with others. But with that leprosy also came knowledge of how he could be healed on the part of a young girl who was kidnapped by some Syrians in a raiding party and given to the general as a servant who just happened to know about Elisha the prophet who lived in Samaria. How did this girl know about Elisha? We do not know, but the fact that she did is what gives Naaman the push he needs to go to Samaria in order to obtain this healing. When he goes to the king, we wonder why the prophet could not be found in the court, for surely a mighty prophet who lived in a capital city of a nation would be respected and honored publicly.

One of the most notable barriers to Naaman’s conversion was his pride. He was, after all, a gallant general, a trusted advisor to the King of Syria, and the prophet of God refused to even see him face to face but communicated with him through a servant. This was a major blow to his pride. Even worse waws the thing that the prophet Elisha asked him to do, and that was to bathe in the Jordan River seven times. He was, again, a brave and gallant soldier, and he was being asked to bathe in a pathetic creek like the Jordan? It was nothing compared to the much greater and more important rivers of Damascus that he knew back home. Yet he was still converted anyway. What was able to break through the barriers brought up by Naaman’s pride? It was his servants. Just as a servant girl had informed him about Elisha’s existence as a prophet who could heal leprosy in the first place, so it was a servant who reframed Elisha’s direction from something that was contemptible and humiliating to something that was easy to do. Once the requirement had been reframed, Naaman did as the prophet had instructed and he was healed from his leprosy as promised. And, even more importantly, his bathing in the Jordan River had acted as a type of baptism that showed his changed character and his commitment to follow Israel’s God in future. This was not merely a healing miracle, but the conversion of a powerful general to God’s ways, which in many ways saved him from the damage that his fellow general Hazael suffered in assassinating the Syrian king and taking his place on the throne. What lesson can we learn from this conversion? Living God’s way often requires others around us who give us good advice and encouragement when God’s instructions offend our natural pride.

The next three conversion stories I would like to talk about come in the Gospels, and deal with perhaps unexpected situations where Jesus Christ dealt with people concerning God’s ways. The first of these can be found in John 4:1-30. John 4:1-30 reads: “Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.  But He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.  Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”  For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?  Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?” The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”  Then they went out of the city and came to Him.”

There is a key aspect to this particular interaction that is easy to miss in the discussion that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman about worship as well as about her life. Jesus came to Samaria in the middle of the day–which if you have ever visited the Middle East is often oppressively hot and requires much water to make it through safely if you are a frequently dehydrated person like myself. The vast majority of people, like those women who got water from the town well, either got their water in the cool of the morning or in the (relative) cool of the afternoon. That is when women socialized around the wells and engaged in their usual chit chat. But this woman was at the well in the middle of the day, a sign of her social isolation from other women. Jesus’ account of her life–that she has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband, indicates that her bad reputation had clearly alienated her from the company of her other Samaritans. Yet despite knowing all of the problems of her lives and the disasters of her failed marriages and relationships, Jesus Christ is remarkably gracious with her, pointing out her honesty and also showing a willingness to engage with her about the importance of worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Many people would have written off the Samaritan woman at the well as an obvious sinner, and Jewish readers would have been quick to see the well as a place where marriage is frequently a matter of discussion (as it is here), but Jesus Christ saw the woman as a potential daughter of God, and His graciousness in dealing with such a woman that it would have been easy to condemn and insult–as no doubt the high-minded women who rejected her did–led her to serve as a missionary in drumming up the support of the other people of the town as being a witness of His messianic work. What lesson can we learn from this conversion story? Sometimes it is very worthwhile to be gracious and tactful in discussing unpleasant truths with other people. A little tact and respect often go a long way.

Let us now examine an example of conversion that demonstrates the sort of people that Jesus Christ was often accused of associating with. We find the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector in Luke 19:1-10. Luke 19:1-10 reads: “Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.  Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.  And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”  So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.  But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.” Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him,, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.””

There are a lot of beautiful touches in this story. For one, Zacchaeus being so short that he couldn’t see Jesus Christ in the crowd and had to climb into a sycamore tree in order to see Him. This adds a really humble touch, in that it might be considered a bit undignified for a grown man (even a short one) to climb trees like a boy to see someone else. It is also interesting that the conversion of Zacchaeus involves him paying a pretty serious price, including the offer to restore fourfold if he has made a false tax requisition on someone, along with giving half of his (considerable) goods to the poor. He was not only making a conversion with his lips, but making a costly one that others would be able to recognize as demonstrating a change of heart. Yet despite this, there were still many people who did not like seeing a former tax collector repent under any circumstances. What lesson can we learn from this? Conversion can be costly, but it also comes with a clean slate.

The next example is not necessarily a conversion story, but it is more a surprising recognition of someone’s converted or at least near-converted status. We see an example of this in Mark 12:28-34. Mark 12:28-34 reads: “Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The ^[k]first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  This is the first commandment.  And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.  And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But after that no one dared question Him.”

This story is particularly interesting because we tend to think of the scribes and Pharisees as the bad guys in the Bible, especially in the Gospels, and here we have a tense but respectful interplay where both of the people talking are impressed with the wisdom of the other. This story, unlike the others we have talked about and those we will talk about next from the book of Acts, does not involve change–as one would expect from a conversion scene, but is really more about recognition. One of the key problems for Jesus Christ in the Gospels was that many Jewish leaders were unable to recognize Jesus Christ as having been sent by God because He did not show up in the way that they expected. Just as we have negative preconceived notions about the scribes and Pharisees, not least from the frequent condemnation they are given in the Gospels, so too Jesus Christ was viewed by many of the Jewish leaders with negative preconceptions that kept them from seeing Him as He is. What lesson does this story tell us? Those who are wise and godly recognize other people who are also wise and godly, and are able to rise above prejudices to do so.

We now come to our final three examples of successful conversion, which we will take from the book of Acts. The first example is the conversion of the bureaucrat from Meroe, a civilization that existed during the time of Christ and for hundreds of years afterwards in the area of what is now Sudan, which is near the nation called Ethiopia, a more common name for the Cushitic peoples of the area. We find this story in Acts 8:26-40. Acts 8:26-40 reads: “Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert.  So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.  Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.  The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”  Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.  Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.  Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.  But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.”

This is a pretty fascinating story, it must be admitted. Philip the deacon is given direction to engage in this conversion process by an angel of God who tells him where go to, and he finds a powerful bureaucrat, who is studying a scroll of the prophet Isaiah and puzzling over the meaning of a messianic prophecy. To Philip (and to us), the meaning of this passage is clear and points to the way that Jesus Christ, although perfect, accepted an unjust punishment that He did not in any way deserve. Of course, the eunuch did not understand this passage, and openly admitted that one could not understand the Bible unless someone who knew the Bible explained it to them. Philip did so, and the man believed what Philip had to say and was immediately baptized, happily returning as a new convert to his homeland while Philip went to preach throughout the countryside near the coast of what is now the Gaza Strip and the areas immediately around it. What lesson do we learn from this conversion? Sometimes someone is so ready for conversion that God brings the right person into their lives to lead them the last small bit into His family.

We find a similarly fascinating story about the conversion of Paul. Paul’s conversion is a particularly difficult one because it demonstrates how hard it is to convert someone who thinks that they are already doing what is right in God’s eyes. Let us first introduce Paul as he was immediately before conversion, in Acts 8:1-3, where he is known by his Hebrew name of Saul (Paul was his Roman name). Acts 8:1-3 reads: “Now Saul was consenting to his [that is, Stephen’s] death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.  And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.” We read of Paul’s conversion in the next chapter of the Bible, in Acts 9:1-9. Acts 9:1-9 reads: “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.  Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.  Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.  And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”

This conversion experience was probably the most striking and drastic of all of the conversion experiences we read of in the Bible. One minute Paul was persecuting the Christians, thinking that he was serving God by doing so, and the next minute he struck down off of his high horse, so to speak, blinded, and is personally confronted by Jesus Christ for having sought to harm His people. At that moment, he entered a serious crisis that was not immediately resolved by his baptism, which took place when he arrived in Damascus and was baptized by a member named Ananias who lived there. What we see with Paul, and why this conversion is so drastic, is the difficulty of converting someone whose ways are so hostile to God but who believes himself to be serving God loyally. It is far easier to convert those who are aware that they are not living in the right way and know themselves to be in some respect living the wrong way, even if they do not fully understand God’s ways. It is extremely hard, though, to get through the thick skull of someone who thinks they are doing right when they are doing very wrong, and Paul’s dramatic conversion is evidence of just how drastic an intervention God has to conduct on someone who is so blind and so lacking in self-knowledge. The blindness that Paul experienced was an external manifestation of the blindness that he had long shown inside. What lesson do we learn from this conversion? Sometimes it requires drastic intervention to bring someone to a knowledge of the error of their ways and their need to repent.

Our final conversion story today took place in the city of Philippi, in what is now the area between Greece and North Macedonia, where Paul and Silas helped convert a jailer who had despaired of life. This story is told in Acts 16:25-34. Acts 16:25-34 reads: “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.  Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.  And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.  But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.  And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.  And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.  Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.”

Understanding this dramatic conversion takes some context to understand. When the chains of the prisoners were loosened by God’s providential provision of an earthquake, the jailer not unreasonably thought that all of the prisoners would take that chance to escape, and his life was at stake if any prisoners were missing. This jailer had beaten Paul and Silas the previous day when the two of them were brought into the prison and upon seeing the example of their religious hymnsinging and their model conduct as wrongly imprisoned Roman citizens, and their help in keeping the prison as a whole in good order after the earthquake convinced the jailer to listen to what Paul and Silas had to say about religion. And somehow, after what could only have been a few hours of late-night and early-morning conversation, the jailer and his entire household were baptized as a sign of their conversion by the time the night was over. By the time the magistrates of the city came the next morning to get Paul to privately leave the city, which he refused to do, the jailer was already a baptized Christian. It staggers the mind to think of such a thing happening nowadays. What lesson do we learn from this? Kindness shown when people are at their lowest state can go a long way.

Now that we have seen a wide variety of conversion stories, let us turn at last to the larger question of what are the necessary conditions for conversion? There are, of course, multiple perspectives that must be taken into account. First, let us look at the perspective of those people who serve as agents of conversion. While sometimes God the Father or Jesus Christ take a personal interest in the conversion of others, often people are used, godly people whose examples and wisdom can help guide someone who is interested in following God’s ways but does not fully understand what God’s ways requires for believers. We can see how this process goes in reverse order from what Paul says concerning the currently abortive conversion of Israel to God’s ways in Romans 10:14-15a. Romans 10:14-15a reads: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?  And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” Going backwards, we see that first God sends those who preach. Then those who preach speak to those who hear God’s word, which is meant to encourage belief in what God says and to call on God for salvation.

Looking from the perspective of the new converts themselves, we often see that their moment of conversion came to people and at times when these people were alienated from the ways of the world in some fashion. The Philippian jailer faced the death penalty for having allowed prisoners to escape. The Samaritan woman was a social outcast because the other women of the town hated her and viewed her as a likely homewrecker and no woman worth befriending. Naaman the brave Syrian general was a leper, which carried some heavy social penalties because of the contagious nature of the disease and the fear it was viewed with in the ancient world. Rahab was an innkeeper who worked as a single (probably relatively young) woman around unattached foreign men, and was viewed as being immoral by association. These were people whose social exclusion opened them to the foreign ideas that God’s people provided to them.

We can also see that one of the major aspects of conversion that runs through the stories is the unexpected compassion that God’s appointed missionaries had for the people who were being converted even while they were in a state of suffering or want. God’s people had something, and not only the truth, that these people longed for. The spies offered Rahab the chance to live in a city that had been condemned to total destruction otherwise. Elisha offered Naaman the chance for healing. Paul was offered the cure for blindness and a chance to overcome his self-destructive hostility to God’s people. The Philippian jailer was given the chance for an escape from the death penalty for dereliction of duty. The Samaritan woman was given the chance to be viewed as a person of honor for having been able to speak with a wise and kind prophet who knew her darkest secrets but who spoke to her kindly. Indeed, one of the things that stands out over and over again in these conversion accounts is the remarkable kindness shown by God’s people towards those who asked them about the meaning of scriptures and the purpose of life and who had a real appreciation of what God had done for them.

Just like the people of God in times past, we live in a world that desperately needs God’s help. We are surrounded by people who feel cut off and excluded from the social elites of this world, who feel judged by every eye for sins that they acknowledge to themselves even if they would never admit them to others. The world is full of broken people who need healing, who need hope, who need encouragement, who fear that God wants to judge and condemn them when God wants to heal them so long as they are willing to turn back from their wicked ways and repent and follow Him. To be sure, there are a great many people who refuse to turn back, who stiffen their necks and harden their hearts against what they know to be God’s righteous judgment, but there are others who are willing to repent, so long as they know that God truly does wipe their slates clean and give them a new start unburdened by the mistakes they have made before. Are we willing to extend graciousness to those who are willing to repent and seek after God? For that is perhaps the most important necessary condition of conversion that we have any power or control of ourselves.