Conversation then Conversion

21 May 2026  Acts 22:30; 23:6-11

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

“And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn in pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them….” (Acts 23:10)

It is anybody’s guess whether Paul knew how bitterly divided and polarized the Sanhedrin was. He was certainly aware of the disagreement between the Sadducees and Pharisees on the matter of resurrection, but may have been completely surprised that the mere mention of it would cause a riot (cf. Acts 23:6-10).

In any event, aware of the potential for further violence, Roman officials took Paul up the coast to Caesarea  so that he could get something like a fair hearing (cf. Acts 23:31-35).

Martyrs, however, heroic and virtuous as they are, do not create culture; conversations do. Paul went to Rome to keep the conversation going – he wrote and he talked, people read and listened. It was his conversation and his writing that created the New Testament and Christian culture, and it is Christian culture that is still changing the world.

Call it, “Paul Derangement Syndrome.” Sometimes reason is on the far side of rage, and the rage is so unnavigable that reason never gets a chance.

There was a Lincoln Derangement Syndrome, too. Despite the fact that Lincoln was the most moderate candidate in the 1860 election, The Charleston, SC Mercury said he was a “horrid looking wretch…, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect – a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the nightman [who empties the privies].” The Tarboro, NC Southerner called Lincoln’s legislative agenda a “declaration of war against Southern rights and institutions,” and predicted that if elected, “the Constitution would be a dead letter” and a “signal for revolution.”  The “fire-eaters” of the South preferred a war that would kill about 700,000 Americans to even considering the possibility that they could be wrong.

Paul wound up appealing his case to the emperor, rather than face the polarized nut-jobs in Jerusalem, and so he and his case were transferred to Rome, where Paul spent two years, and wrote four of the books of the New Testament – Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon (and maybe also II Timothy). It is possible that other New Testament books were written there, too – I and II Peter, Hebrews, and the Gospel of Mark. The times and places that have created “derangement syndromes” have produced martyrs, but not the kinds of conversations that have changed the world. Rome, at least for a little while, was the kind of place where people could speak and write about challenging things, and changing your mind was at least a possibility. It didn’t stay that way, of course, and that wound up being one of the reasons that Rome finally didn’t last.

“Conversation” and “conversion”  are etymologically related – they both derive from a Latin verb that means “to turn all the way around.” Part of turning all the way around involves exploring ideas all the way through without any interference from rage, or bigotry, or fear. It involves listening all the way through, resisting “gotcha” in favor of “I get it.”

Sometimes conversation isn’t possible because too many people put rage before reason, and at times like that faithfulness involves martyrdom, and evangelism involves examples of courage and sacrifice. Martyrs, however, heroic and virtuous as they are, do not create culture; conversations do. Paul went to Rome to keep the conversation going – he wrote and he talked, people read and listened. It was his conversation and his writing that created the New Testament and Christian culture, and it is Christian culture that is still changing the world.

Churches need to be places of conversation and culture, where people are still trying to turn all the way around, still trying to keep the conversation going, and listening carefully to people like St. Paul who spent their lives and witness trying to help them.