Following up on my previous post, here’s a fine example of Willimon’s thinking and writing. I stumbled across this just now as I am preparing for a sermon on Paul’s (Saul’s) conversion in Acts 9:1-9:
This sort of conversion involves a journey from self-confident independence toward child-like dependence. The one who knows so much must become as one who knows nothing, one who must be led by the hand, healed, and instructed by the very ones he once despised. In this painful, baffling interim we turn and become as a little child. We progress by regression and go forward by falling backward. Such turning and helpless regression accompanied by blindness, confusion, speechlessness, hunger, and childishness is, for this peculiar faith, the very beginning of wisdom.†
† William Willimon, Interpretation: Acts (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 78-79.