Ryan's Ramblings

But Saul, who was also called Paul… – Acts 13:9, ESV

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.

You know the tune—you can probably hum it without trying. Amazing Grace has been sung for nearly 250 years, and behind those familiar words stands a man—John Newton—who was blind in ways he couldn’t even recognize. A slave trader. Hardened. Adrift. Spiritually lost… yet rescued by mercy. His story gives weight to the lyric: “was blind, but now I see.”

Blindness… it isn’t just metaphor. It’s the human condition until Jesus arrives.

And that’s exactly what we witness in Acts 13.

Paul — still introduced as Saul here — confronts a sorcerer named Elymas who is resisting the gospel and confusing the Roman governor. Paul looks him in the eye and declares—in the power of the Holy Spirit—that he will be “blind for a time” (Acts 13:11). A mist covers Elymas’s eyes, and he reaches out for someone to lead him.

It’s impossible to miss the echo.

Just a few chapters earlier, Saul had stumbled around in the same darkness. On the road to Damascus, full of fury and self-righteousness… And then a light from heaven stopped him cold. He fell to the ground, blinded and helpless, and had to be led by the hand (Acts 9:8).

His blindness was mercy — a severe kindness that saved him — from himself.

Now, standing on the other side of grace, Paul speaks a similar blindness over Elymas—not out of cruelty, but as warning. A sobering signal—mercy’s final attempt. Like Newton centuries later, Paul knew what it meant to be stopped by a blindness that saved him.

And right here—in the moment that mirrors Saul’s own story—Luke, the writer of Acts, does something quiet but seismic. He writes: “But Saul, who was also called Paul…” (Acts 13:9)

From this point on, Luke never again uses “Saul” as Paul’s active name. Any later mentions look back on his former life. This is the last time Luke applies it to the man standing before us. He lets the reader feel the shift — as if Scripture itself is drawing a line in the sand.

The Saul who breathed threats…
The Saul who kicked against the goads…
The Saul who walked in his own darkness…
That Saul is finished.

He didn’t just see differently — he was seen differently.

Sometimes God brings us to a stopping point — a blinding moment — so that an old chapter can close and a new one can begin. When Elymas is blinded, Saul steps fully into his new identity. The persecutor fades. The apostle rises. God’s grace does what it always does — it gets the final word.

Elisabeth Elliot said it plainly and beautifully: “Suffering is never for nothing.”

In the Lord, our suffering is never wasted, never pointless, never without purpose. Saul’s blindness was mercy. Elymas’s blindness was warning. And the seasons that leave us blind — the limitations, disruptions, and confusions of life — may be the very places God ends one chapter… and begins another.

Even in shadow, we’re not abandoned. That’s where God can do His deepest work. After all, it was into our darkness that the Light first came — this is the hope of Advent.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12, ESV).

So when life leaves you in the dark, don’t panic. Look to Jesus — the source of Amazing Grace.

He sees the truest you — and in Him, you can finally say, “Now I see.”