...When they reached the city center, Paul asked the Syrian merchant to lead him unto the First Christian Church of Damascus. "Sorry, stranger," said the merchant. "You're on your own from here. I've got a busy day." And he left Paul there, alone in a foreign city, to grope his way to the house of Ananias the Elder, whose name had been the first on Paul's alphabetical list of suspected Syrian Jews for Jesus (Acts 22:10).

When he had found his way to Ananias's house, Paul parked Karka Kartali at the front gate, knocked on the door and introduced himself, saying, "Hello, Ananias. I used to be Saul of Tarsus, the Persecutor, but I am a changed man. Now I am Paul of Damascus, the Apostle." (Here, Paul extended a friendly handshake in the wrong direction.) "But when I found Jesus, he also struck me blind."

"Good for him!" said Ananias, enthusiastically.

Not wishing to be arrested, Ananias hastily shut the door, not noticing that Saul's sandaled foot was across the threshold. Nor did Saul notice that the door was swinging shut. The Persecutor's left kneecap and three toes on his left foot got crunched pretty good, a mishap that took several minutes to clear up.

Ananias the Elder had long supposed the notorious "Saul the Persecutor" to be a giant of a man, with an evil countenance, wild hair, poor personal hygiene, foul body odor, and excellent eyesight. But this blind stranger from the North stood at just 4'2"; he had "crooked legs." "He had a bald head, with bushy eyebrows that met in the middle over a prominent nose" (Acts of Paul). This chubby baldpate blind man – "Saul of Tarsus," or "Paul of Damascus," call him what you will – did not look to Ananias like the twisted monster he really was, nor even like much of a threat. (I'm not going to paint a picture for you, but if you want a rough idea of what the historical Paul looked like as a person, as described in the first-century Acts of Paul the Apostle, imagine this: think "Bert" of Sesame Street, only blind, and overweight.)

Leading Paul into the kitchen, Ananias asked the stranger some tricky questions. Staring straight ahead, Paul frankly answered them, proving that he was indeed the infamous Persecutor: only now, he was born again, and blind, with a bruised knee and sore toes.

"Don't think of blindness as a punishment," said Ananias. "Think of it as amazing grace, that saved a wretch like you."

Ananias suspected that Paul of Damascus was probably the sort of stranger who will fake conversion and poor eyesight in order to spy on you while you are feeding him a free lunch, and then arrest you and kill you – because that's just the kind of person Saul of Tarsus had been for as long as anyone could remember: "Don't trust Saul," they said. "What a schmuck!" (Acts 9:26). Even his Tarsus neighbours and his tent customers used to say that. In fact, even the other Tarsus Pharisees and their wives used to say it: "That Junior Abbaskoptzi! What a momzer! What a schmuck!" But that was before Saul accepted Jesus Christ as his personal lord and saviour.

Resting there on the kitchen table was a large stone pestle, which Mrs. Ananias used for grinding meal. Ananias picked it up. Very suddenly, he tossed the stone pestle into Paul's lap.

Paul, to his credit, did not flinch. But neither was Ananias was a very good aim. The stone pestle clobbered Paul right between the eyes, on the bridge of his prominent nose, just beneath his bushy eyebrows, and nearly knocked him out cold.

Paul never saw what hit him. "Oh, God!" he cried. "What on Earth was that?"

Ananias, who was now suddenly ashamed of himself, said, "What was what?"

Holding his nose, which bled profusely, Paul rocked back and forth in his chair. He was in pain. "I've been hit by something!" he said.

"Did you see a bright light?" asked Ananias.

"Maybe," said Paul. "But I can't be sure, because I am blind."

"Do you believe it could it have been the Lord Jesus?" asked Ananias.

"Yes, I believe it could," said Paul.

That is how Ananias finally established that Paul was telling the truth. It is also why Paul believed to his dying day that Jesus Christ once nearly broke his nose with a hard object (2 Cor. 12:7, 2 Tim. 2:3).

Ananias had no ice for Paul's nose, but he did have something for Saul's impaired vision: he mixed together a little spit and mud, and he rubbed it in Paul's eyes, saying, "Brother Saul, in the name of Jesus, receive thy sight!"

And immediately, Paul's vision was perfectly restored! Paul then said, "My, you have a lovely house, for a Christian" (Acts 22:13).

The two men made small talk for a while ("Praise the Lord!" and "What's your favourite Bible verse?" – that sort of thing); but when he saw his opening, Paul said, "Ananias? Can you teach me that trick?"

"What trick?" asked Ananias.

"How to heal blindness!" Though he had been saved for only a few hours, Paul had already decided on a career in the rapidly growing industry of Christian evangelism; and he intuitively understood that the power to heal the blind would be an excellent Christ-like skill for him to have in his own repertoire.

"That was no trick, brother, that was a miracle," said Ananias.

"That's what I meant to say," said Saul. "Did I say trick? I meant miracle. But how did you do it?"

"You'll find out soon enough," said Ananias, mysteriously.

Early the next morning, Ananias fed Paul breakfast, and asked him, impatiently, "Why tarriest thou?" So Paul said farewell to Ananias, and mounted his camel, and rode off into the sunrise, out of Damascus, eastward into the Negev. And what he did for the next three years after that, God only knows (Acts 22:16).

– L.

(To be continued!)