Everybody, what is going on? You know what time it is. You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining. I am in the podcast studio with today's Devo writer, Melissa Yale. Hi, Emma. Thank you for having me.

Melissa, it's so glad to have you here today and to meet you. And as we typically start, I would ask you

about your story, but I know that we're going to get to that as we work through the chapter.

And so to start us off, would you just give us a little bit of a setup, Acts 26? We're jumping

in in the middle of a story. What's going on?

Absolutely. Well, this is the end of a story, what's going on? Absolutely.

Well, this is the end of the beginning that started in Acts 25.

And now we have Paul's response to King Agrippa.

And it's his testimony of his defense of what he's done or not done in terms of preaching Christ to the Jews and Gentiles.

It's his conversion story as he walks through when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus.

And it's then his final challenge to King Agrippa and Festus on whether or not they, what they believe, on what they believe. That's great. In the middle of that, you mentioned we get Paul's story about when Jesus

met him. And I would love to hear just, what are some similarities and differences you see

between Paul's story and your own?

Well, first of all, you know, we know Paul's story, his moment on the road to Damascus,

where Jesus met him with a light from heaven and brought him in and said,

why are you kicking against the goats?

Or it is useless for you to fight

against my will. And Paul then chooses to follow after Christ and to share his message. And so I don't know

that I had a conversion moment on the road to Damascus.

I can't say that I did either.

But I definitely know that God has worked in my life.

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