TAPE-PAUL (Acts 22:11): The brilliance of the light has blinded me!
TAPE-PAUL: (Romans 8:22) The whole creation is groaning. The whole creation is groaning.
TAPE-JACOB ALLEN: (Acts 7:57) At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at Stephen, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.
TAPE-MARYL MCNALLY: Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
TAPE-JACOB ALLEN: While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed,
TAPE-ARAM MONISOFF: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
TAPE-JACOB ALLEN: He fell on his knees.
TAPE-ARAM MONISOFF: Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
TAPE-JACOB ALLEN: When he had said this, he fell asleep.
PAUL: And I was there, giving approval to his death. I guarded the clothes of his killers. I guarded the clothes of his killers.
TAPE MARYL MCNALLY: On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.
TAPE-STEPHEN’S FRIEND: You were my hope Stephen…My only joy…Someday he’ll understand.
PAUL: But I began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, I dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
TAPE-PAUL (Future): We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men!
(Flash)
TAPE-BRENDAN MARSHALL-RASHID: (Acts 9:4) Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
PAUL: Who are you, Lord?
TAPE-BRENDAN MARSHALL-RASHID: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.
PAUL: (Romans 8:22) The brilliance of the light has blinded me.
(Sound)
TAPE-BRENDAN MARSHALL-RASHID: This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. I will show him how much he must suffer …(trails off)
TAPE-GOD: (overlay) I will reveal to him the joy of pure faith, the struggle of life, and the meaning of love.
PAUL: . . . and scales fell from my eyes.
(receiving light…)
PAUL: I am one abnormally born.
TAPE-FRED GAINES: Faith.
PAUL: I will be poured out like a drink offering.
TAPE-FRED GAINES: Life.
PAUL: (1 Corinthians 9: 22) I will become all things to all people.
TAPE-FRED GAINES: Love.
PAUL: I will delight in weakness.
TAPE-FRED GAINES: Love.
PAUL: (Acts 20:24) I will consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race. If only I may feel the depth of his love.
TAPE-PAUL, BRENDAN, JACOB, ARAM, EMMA, MARYL: (layered, beneath Paul’s statements above) Dragged to the edge of the city to be stoned. Escaped over the city wall in a basket. Prison, flogged more severely, exposed to death again and again. Five times the forty lashes minus one. Three times with rods, once stoned, a night and day in the open sea, three times shipwrecked, constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, riots, bandits, my own countrymen, city, at sea. Toiled without sleep; known hunger and thirst; cold and naked.
(Space)
TAPE-PAUL, ARAM, BRENDAN: Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
PAUL: And I do not inwardly burn?
TAPE-MARYL MCNALLY: (Acts 14:29) The crowd stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, leaving him for dead. Groaning.
TAPE-ARAM MONISOFF: (replayed from earlier) Lord do not hold this sin against them.
TAPE-STEPHEN’S FRIEND/PAUL: (replayed from earlier) Someday he’ll understand…
TAPE-ARAM MONISOFF: Who guards his killer’s clothes?
TAPE-JACOB ALLEN: (Act 14 and Gal 6:17) But he got up and went back into the city. . . bearing on his body the marks of Jesus.