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SUMMARY:Saturday 24th January Conversion of St Paul 11.30am Holy Eucharist
DTSTART:20260124T113000Z
DTEND:20260124T123000Z
DTSTAMP:20260410T200851Z
UID:9981122026-01-24 11:30:00+00:00achurchnearyou
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DESCRIPTION:At the end of January we remember the Conversion of St Paul\, 
 who\, once fiercely anti-Christian\, met God on the road to Damascus. We a
 ll know the story. Paul\, or Saul as he was then known\, was a member of t
 he Jewish establishment\, bent on persecuting this new Christian religion.
  And one day\, on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus\, he was struck down
  by a bright light and a loud voice\, saying\, “Saul\, Saul\, why are yo
 u persecuting me?”\n\nAnd he makes the oddest of replies: he doesn't say
  ‘who's that’? or ‘what do you want?’ Instead he says: “Tell me 
 who you are\, Lord?” It’s a bit like when you half recognise someone. 
 They are no stranger\, but you are seeing them in a different way. Saul se
 es God in a new way\, in a new light: but they are already acquainted.\n\n
 But when he gets up\, Saul is temporarily blinded because the change - the
  whole dynamic crushing and rebuilding of everything he had ever thought o
 r known - is simply so dramatic. So his system goes into shutdown. He neit
 her eats nor drinks\, and it is not until 3 days later that he realises th
 at it was Jesus who appeared to him on the road to Damascus\, his eyes are
  opened and he is baptised and christened Paul.\n\nSo it wasn’t the conv
 ersion from one religion to another\, like changing electric suppliers fro
 m one company to another. But rather the realisation that the God that he 
 was now persecuting was the same God that he had always known\, from his m
 other religion\, Judaism\, a God who was above and engaged in both religio
 ns….which meant that God was not small or confined or narrow or partisan
 \, or locked up in one set of religious words. On the contrary\, he was a 
 God above\, and much bigger than\, all of it.\n\nIt was a dramatic moment 
 that changed his life around in a radically new direction. Following his c
 onversion\, he became the leading proponent of the Chrisitan faith of his 
 time\, and went on to write at least 11 of the 27 books in the New Testame
 nt. \n\nThe image of St Paul above\, dated c380 AD\, was found under layer
 s of white calcium deposits in the 4th century catacombs of St. Tecla in R
 ome.
GEO:-4.298266529747012;37.12525560245366
LOCATION:Salinas Anglican Congregation
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/8488/service-and-events/events/9
 98112/
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