who refuses to believe will be condemned. Signs like these will accompany those who have
believed: in my name they will cast out demons and speak new languages; they will pick up
snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous, they will be unharmed; they will lay their hands
on the sick, and they will be healed.”
Reflect
“To be changed by God's word.” Before his conversion, St. Paul was a persecutor of Jesus’s
followers. On his way to Damascus, as recounted in the Acts, he encountered the Lord. This
encounter is characterized by his falling to the ground and his rising. It is only when Paul
experienced falling to the ground that he was able to hear Jesus’ voice. Prior to his conversion,
perhaps, Paul’s life was characterized by selfrighteousness, only to be confronted with the fact
that everyone can only rely on God’s righteousness. He might have been thinking all the while that
he was hearing God’s voice but in reality, he was just hearing his ego, trying to prove that he
could accomplish his duty as a Pharisee. Through God’s righteousness, Paul would become the
Apostle to the Gentiles. As Christians, we are mandated by the Gospel to proclaim the Good
News to all creation. But before we are able to do such mandate, we first need to be changed
by God’s word. In our faith journey, it is when we experience falling that God would take us up by
the hand and that we may rise again as new persons.
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