the role of the lukan parables in terms of the purpose of luke's gospel

the crowd in Jerusalem and Agrippa. Acts 26:1-23 denotes most apparently the purpose of
Paul’s conversion, that he is sent by God to open Gentiles’ eyes, to turn the Gentiles from
darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of
sins. This drastic transformation in Paul’s life is also an experience of salvation along with
the calling which is apparent in Paul. 24
Against the contention that Paul was not converted
24. J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Atlanta: John Knox, 1959), 24-35, claims that the experience
of Paul on the Damascus road should be understood as the story of a call, because common factors with the
experience of Paul on the Damascus road are also found in Gal. 1:15 where Paul explains his own call in the
light of the prophetic call in Old Testament (Isa. 49:1-6; Jer. 1:4-5). K. Stendahl argues a different view that
Paul’s experience on the road is not a conversion from the works of righteousness of Judaism, but a call to be
the apostle to the Gentiles. That is why understating Paul’s experience on the road as inner experience of
conversion is the Western understanding of Paul, which is compelled by the reading of Augustine, Luther and
Calvin. According to him, Paul comes to a new understanding of the Law through his Damascus Road
experience. K. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (London; SCM Press, 1977), 7-23,
especially 11-12. But it is untenable that conversion, as Stendahl has stated, is a change of religion, namely,
“Here is not that change of religion that we commonly associate with the word conversion.” In the New
Testament, even though there are Gentile converts, the emphasis never rests on changing religions, but rather on
turning to God or finding who Jesus is. For more on contradiction to Stendahl’s argument, see Richard V. Peace,
Conversion in the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 1999), 27-
29; J.M. Events, “Conversion and Call of Paul,” in ed., Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G.
Reid, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 156-63. On the other hand,
seeing the experience of Paul on the Damascus road as conversion, S. Kim holds that Paul’s conversion on the
road offers the source for both his apostolic call and his theological understanding of the Gospel. In other words,
Paul indeed received his gospel as part of his conversion experience and all of his theology is resulted directly
from that experience. Along the same line, A.F. Segal also tried to link Paul’s conversion experience to his
theology, because Paul’s understanding of the Law is derived from his conversion experience. He goes further
by arguing that Paul’s conversion experience also plays a crucial role in his understanding of the Christian
community. See S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); A.F. Segal, Paul the
Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University, 1990). Since the
experience of Paul on the Damascus road occurs in contexts of the stories of conversion and that of a polemic, it
is taken to be both conversion and call. Acts 9:11-18 seems to have more emphasis of conversion in connection
with chapter 8-10 surrounded with the stories of conversion of the Ethiopian and Cornelius. In contrast to Acts
9:11-18, Acts 22:1-16 and 26:1-23 lie in polemical situations in which he must advocate himself as the apostle
to the Gentiles before the crowd in Jerusalem and Agrippa. For the above contention, see Charles W. Hedrick,
“Paul’s Conversion/Call: A Comparative Analysis of The Three Reports in Acts,” JBL 100 (1981), 415-32;
Events, “Conversion and Call of Paul,” 156-63; Robert G. Hoerber, “Paul’s Conversion/Call,” Concordia
Journal (1996), 186-88; W. Rordorf, “Paul’s Conversion in the Canonical Acts and in the Acts of Paul,” Semeia
80 (1997), 137-144; Peace, Conversion in the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve, 17-101; Philip H. Kern,
“Paul’s Conversion and Luke’s Portrayal of Character in Acts 8-10,” TynBul 54 (2003), 63-80; J. Rius-Camps
and Jenny Read-Heimerdinger, The message of Acts in Codex Bezae: A Comparison with the Alexandrian
Tradition (London; New York: T & T Clark International, 2006), 165. Analyzing Paul’s conversion in Acts 9, 22
and 26, Gaventa, summarizes it in three main points: 1) Paul’s conversion has divine initiative. 2) Conversion
itself is not an end, but rather a means for the growth of the gospel. 3) Paul’s conversion is not an individualistic
conversion, but an individual conversion, since Paul’s conversion is always concerned with his calling to
witness the gospel. Gaventa, From Darkness to Light, 52-95. On the other hand, Peace, Conversion in the New
Testament: Paul and the Twelve, 17-101, enumerates three aspects as the core pattern of Paul’s conversion. That
is to say, first, there is insight that Paul is aware of the truth about what his true state really is before God, and
who Jesus really is. Second, there are the turning from persecuting the church to joining the church, and a
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