Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, my dear son:
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (2 Timothy 1:1-2)
The Jews commissioned Paul to hunt down Christians in various cities and to arrest them. He would then cast his vote against these Christians to have them put to death (Acts 26:9-11). Our attention is often focused on what happened on the road to Damascus, but to derive an accurate picture of Paul’s condition before he was converted, it is important to realize that he participated not only in the murder of Stephen (Acts 7:58, 60), and that Damascus was not the first place he went to in order to persecute Christians (Acts 9:2). His own testimony tells us that he arrested Christians and voted to put them to death on multiple occasions (Acts 26:10), and the Damascus mission was only one of the many journeys in which he pursued the believers in foreign cities (Acts 26:11-12).
As he approached Damascus, the Lord Jesus appeared to him in a flash of light and confronted him. The account in Acts 9 might give the impression that the encounter was brief. It takes under ten seconds to read verses 3-6, but it is likely that the conversation lasted much longer. The conversations, sermons, and discourses recorded in the Bible are almost always summaries and not full transcripts of what was said. They are accurate summaries, but summaries nonetheless. It would be absurd to think that none of the speeches and interactions of the early believers lasted for more than several seconds. In Acts 20, Luke writes that Paul spoke to some people and kept talking until midnight. He talked for so long that someone fell asleep and fell to his death. Paul raised him from the dead, and kept talking until daylight.
In the case of Paul’s vision of the Lord at Damascus, there is direct indication that we are given only a summary, and that the encounter was a conversation that lasted longer than several seconds. Acts 22 records Paul’s testimony about the incident. The words used are similar, and the length is about the same as the account in Acts 9. But when Paul relates the event again to King Agrippa in Acts 26, the number of words attributed to Jesus is multiplied by several times. His initial statement now includes, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” And verses 16-18 consist of statements that are absent from Acts 9 and 22.
The proper explanation is that Acts 9 and 22, and even Acts 26, are only summaries of what happened. They include the essential points of the event, and additional details are included when they are relevant to the context or the situation. This is, of course, not unusual, and it is the way that all of us summarize events and interactions. I could have a two-hour conversation with someone on whether American or Japanese cars are better, and the summary of it might be, “I said, ‘I think American cars are better,’ but my friend said, ‘I disagree. Japanese cars are better.'” It could be as simple as that, and as far as an essential summary goes, it could be accurate and sufficient. But if I am relating the conversation in a context that requires more details, then I would recall additional statements made by either or both of us. Still, I would probably not repeat all the words spoken, but only the relevant ones.
Thus we do not know how much transpired in the vision on the road to Damascus, but we can be sure that much more was said than what we have recorded in Acts 9. It is possible that the Lord Jesus took the time to explain the gospel to Paul in great detail, and also the role that he was to take in proclaiming it to the nations. We do not know exactly what was said in this vision, and it would be wrong to speculate. However, it would not be wrong to say that the Lord himself taught the gospel to Paul, since this is what Paul claims in Galatians 1:12.
In addition, it would not be wrong to say that the Lord taught at least some of it to Paul by direct appearance in visions, since we see a pattern of this in the Acts of the Apostles. Acts 18 says that Jesus spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” Again, this is probably a summary – we do not know whether Jesus spoke to Paul for ten seconds, two minutes, or three hours. But there is no warrant to assert with certainty that the vision was brief. Then, Acts 23 says that one night “the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.'” And again, it is possible that the Lord appeared to Paul, took two seconds to speak this statement, and then disappeared. But it is also possible that he appeared and stayed for two hours.
Whatever the case may be in individual visions, the biblical account is that Paul had an astounding life of revelation in which Jesus himself occasionally appeared and talked to him, taught him theology, and encouraged him in his ministry. There seems to be a pattern of Jesus’ personal appearance in Paul’s life. Although we cannot say whether other apostles experienced the same, we do know three important points. First, Jesus had already taught the other apostles for about three years. Second, the other apostles continued to receive revelation. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would continue to teach them and lead them into all truth. Sometimes extraordinary means are used. For example, God gave Peter a lesson in theology when he showed him in a vision, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15). Third, although we do not see a pattern of Jesus’ personal appearance in the life of the other apostles (as we see in the life of Paul), we know that it could have happened, and did happen to John when Jesus appeared to him in a glorious form, dictated seven letters to him, and showed him the visions recorded in the Book of Revelation.
Thus in the life of the apostles, including Paul, there was a history and an ongoing pattern of direct, personal, and spectacular revelations. This helps us in understanding and appreciating the basis of apostolic authority, and by natural and necessary extension, the authority of the Holy Scripture. The inspiration of Scripture was a distinct operation of the Spirit, in which he carried along the writers as they produced the text, and this occurred to ensure a perfect and permanent record of the history and message of the Lord Jesus, preached by apostles who were directly, personally, and spectacularly, taught by God himself.