None of you were violent persecutors like Saul the persecutor. Or were you? I'm going out on a limb to say the answer is no, which means none of you have the same weight of guilt on your shoulders that he carried with him all his life. Of course all sin is equally offensive to God, but there's something about a history of violence that would make us nervous around someone, even a penitent converted man like Paul.

Why did Jesus make a special post-ascension appearance to Paul to call him to be his special Apostle to the Gentiles? Obviously the past wasn't enough to dissuade Jesus from choosing Paul, though it probably would have turned us away. We can guess that it was because Paul would put that same drive into preaching Christ that he had put into attacking him.

Regardless of his past Paul was obedient to the Lord and went about preaching Jesus. Proof that his call was from God not man. Paul wasn't persuaded by men to follow Jesus, much less to become his chief Apostle (Galatians 1:1). But his call to us is through the word proclaimed by his apostles. Will we listen and obey?