Acts 26:9
““I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.”
What does Acts 26:9 mean?
Paul is reflecting back on his days as a persecutor of Christians, before his dramatic conversion. He's being honest about how passionately wrong he was: he genuinely believed he was serving God by opposing Jesus and his followers. This isn't Paul trying to excuse himself—it's him acknowledging how thoroughly convinced he once was of the opposite of what he now knows to be true. There's something both sobering and hopeful in this admission: it shows how completely a person's understanding can be transformed, and it reminds us that even sincere conviction can be sincere about the wrong thing. If you've ever realized you were deeply mistaken about something that mattered, you might recognize the vulnerability in Paul's willingness to say this out loud.