I was a Jihadi and ended up writing half the New Testament.

It’s interesting to note the goings on of Islamic jihadists in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Dhaka, Baghdad, and now, most recently, in Nice. Interesting, because I think I know exactly where they’re coming from, being an ex-jihadi myself. Not of Islam but of Judaism.

Of course, we didn’t call ourselves jihadis; we were known as zealots. Tomayto—Tuhmaato; it’s still the same concept of being a religious militant.

Not that Judaism and Islam are the same; they aren’t. But what I’m referring to is the idea of being motivated by religious ideals to such an extreme that you start persecuting others because they don’t follow your religion or because they don’t follow your religion with the same zeal as you.

But here are a few things that I’ve learned having been a religious militant myself.

a. Zeal alone counts for nothing without truth. You can be sincere and zealous. And yet be sincerely and zealously wrong.
b. There is only one God; the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; the God of the nation of Israel; and there is only one Messenger of His — His Son, Jesus Christ, the Anointed One (another name for Messiah).
c. Unless you worship God through His Messenger and Son Jesus Christ, your worship is false. Sure, you may claim to love God and worship Him by different names. But if your worship is not offered via Jesus Christ, it is false worship that is unacceptable to God. I know this because I thought I was worshipping God by persecuting His Messiah. Go figure. But in His grace, He led me to the truth by giving me a vision of Jesus Christ.
d. You cannot please God with what you think are “good works” because in His eyes, they are filthy rags. The only way you can please Him is by acknowledging your rebellion against Him and by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf. We thought we were crucifying Jesus for being a blasphemer. But what was actually happening was that He was willingly offering Himself to die in order to take upon Himself the punishment due to every sinner born in the past, in the present and in the future. And that includes every Jihadi – past, present, and future; including myself.
e. God does not grant people salvation to give them 70 virgins in paradise. He grants them salvation (to both men and women) so that they can be holy like Him.

But let me back up a step and apologise for not first introducing myself. And in the process of doing so, I will explain why I have come to the conclusions noted above.

I’m Paul. I also used to go by the name Saul.

To give you a brief background about myself, I was born a Jew in Tarsus of Cilicia, was brought up in the city of Jerusalem, and was educated under Gamaliel (1), one of the leading first century authorities in the Sanhedrin, which was the highest council in the nation of Israel.

I was circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.(2)

To put it plainly, and without blowing my own trumpet too hard, I was a rising star in the field of Jewish law. I was passionate about my heritage. I was proud of my intellect and knowledge. What’s more, I practiced what I preached to the very extreme possible! If there ever was a model of ethics and morality, it was me. I knew all that there was to know about the law of my people. I practiced it with all my heart and mind and strength. So, naturally, I wanted others to do the same. I wanted everyone to practice the law as I did; after all, being law-abiding is a good thing, right?

So where does jihadism come into all this?

Well, to put it mildly, I persecuted followers of a movement called “The Way” to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons (3). FYI, these followers of “The Way” were followers of some guy called Jesus who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. I mean, what gall! This guy was just a carpenter from a small hick town in Galilee and he fancied himself as the Messiah; the messenger of Yahweh! What a joke. Anyways, the high priest and all the elders of the Sanhedrin did what the law commanded — they held a trial and brought witnesses to see whether the charges of blasphemy against this guy Jesus were actually true. The witnesses testified that the charges were indeed legitimate. The elders then gave Jesus the opportunity to retract his claims, but he didn’t. So having the heard the blasphemy from the horse’s mouth, we had to do what the law prescribed — we crucified him. Had him whipped and bashed as he deserved, then hung him on a cross to be made an example of.

But the example didn’t work because thousands of people started following this guy Jesus claiming that he had risen from the dead! I mean of all the ridiculous things — what a bunch of hogwash! These religious fanatics will believe anything.

But I digress. I took it upon myself to teach these fools a lesson. I would beat them (4) and gave my full permission to having them stoned to the death, as was the case with one of their leaders called Stephen. Whilst the people around me were stoning him till he died, I watched over their cloaks (5) and looked on in great satisfaction as the earth was rid of this blasphemer.

So, yeah — I was a Jihadi. But it wasn’t enough for me to go after these infidels in Jerusalem. Oh no! That just wouldn’t do, for these blasphemers who followed The Way had spread far and wide, way beyond Israel. So I got letters from the High Priest and all the Council of the Elders asking permission from the synagogues in Damascus, Syria to hand over these vermin to me so I could take them back to Jerusalem and have them punished for their disobedience.

That’s when my life changed.

I was on my horse, on the road to Damascus around noon when I saw this bright light flashing (6). Now, you’re going to say — dude, it’s high noon in the middle-east; of course it’s going to be bright!

But without a word of lie, this was different. This wasn’t the sun; it was different. Not only did this light blind me and literally knock me off my horse, the light spoke to me. This is what I heard. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And I answered, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said to me, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.” (7)

Can you imagine that? I was persecuting the followers of The Way because I thought Jesus was a blasphemer. But now Jesus was talking to me! Moreover, He made it sound as if by persecuting His followers, I was persecuting Him! My brain went into overdrive as I started to process what was happening. The people I was persecuting said Jesus was the Messiah; they cited His resurrection as proof of this. I dismissed this as bunkum. But now here was a blinding light speaking to me claiming it was Jesus Himself!

I would’ve asked the other men who were with me if they heard what I heard. But they only saw me fall and they saw the light. They even heard the voice. But they couldn’t understand what was being said. (8)

Anyway, if this was Jesus, the Messiah then boy, was in trouble. So with all the strength I could muster, I managed to feebly ask, “What shall I do, Lord?” And the Lord said to me, “Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.” But since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. (9)

Now I could have accepted this incident as some freakish accident of nature but then guess what. About the same time, a disciple of the Lord in Damascus named Ananias had a vision. And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (10)

So Ananias, good man that he was, obeyed and came to me while I was still blinded by that light on the Damascus road. Standing near me he said, “Brother Saul, receive your sight!” And at that very time I looked up at him. And he said, “The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear an utterance from His mouth. For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard.” (11)

That’s when Jihadi Saul was laid to rest. Because I understood how wrong and blind I had been about the Messiah. Despite having all the knowledge. Despite having all the zeal. I was blind to the truth despite having everything you would think was necessary for coming to an understanding of these things. I thought I was the devout one chasing the infidels, but actually it was the other way around. That’s what false religion can do to you.

It can make you think that you’re better than others just because you adhere to some spiritual formula that others don’t. So you end up arrogant and proud instead of being submissive and humble. And that’s the problem I see with these jihadis of IS. There is no humility or submissiveness about them. There is no servant heart that gives evidence of being changed by God. There is no evidence of holiness. And most of all, there is no recognition of Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

After all, if the Saviour of mankind was willing to offer Himself as a sacrifice, how can His followers sacrifice the lives of others?

Am I making this up? Well, would I make up a story and then stick to it if people mobbed me and beat me up for preaching it? Would I go to prison (which I did) for a story that I made up myself? Plus what about the guys who were with me who saw me become blind for three days? They saw what happened, didn’t they? They saw me receive my eyesight back, right? They saw the radical change that changed me from a jihadi to a missionary, didn’t they?

This is why I preached Christ wherever I went in Europe and Asia Minor. I established churches wherever people believed in the good news of Jesus Christ and then wrote letters to them to encourage them in their faith. These letters went on to form a large part of what is known today as the New Testament.

Sure, I know these letters are not very philosophical or intellectual or clever. They’re quite simple actually. But I know it’s the only way how sinners can be saved; or else they will face the wrath of God. I know because it changed me from being a persecutor of the church of Christ to being a loud advocate for it.

References
1 Acts 22:1
2 Philippians 3:5
3 Acts 22:4
4 Acts 22:19
5 Acts 22:20
6 Acts 22:6
7 Acts 22:7-8
8 Acts 22:9
9 Acts 22:9-11
10 Acts 9:11-16
11 Acts 22:14-15

NOTE: This post is not the work of the Apostle Paul. Neither does it intend to masquerade as his authorship. However, it has been written to address the specific problem of Jihadism from a Gospel perspective. Biblical references have been cited wherever they have been used.