As we know, Paul didn’t covert until 50 or so years after the death of Christ. All the followers of Christ during Christ’s life and immediately after were undoubtedly Christians (interestingly, of course, they were the earliest Christians but yet they didn’t have any of Paul’s writing which seem to be the centerpiece of so many fundamentalist Christians today). History suggests that these early Christians–those closest to Christ–did not agree with much of Paul’s teachings and on that basis (and not his conversion which would have been relatively common in the early days) rejected him.

Indeed, one need not look to far to see that Paul’s writings diverge significantly from Christ’s. The love expressed in the sermon on the mount is quite different from the fire and brimstone Paul used. Of course, the most famous disagreement was between Paul and Peter was the incident of Antioch (which Paul describes at Galatians 2:11–14) and of course Paul’s interpretation won out in the end, even though Peter was most likely correct that Paul’s view was not consistent with what Jesus’s would be.

In sum, I think it’s relatively clear that Pauline Christianity has “won out” based not on Paul’s true calling, but rather his political savvy. Sorry for the rant, but I think this is often ignored by Christians. Those expousing to be like primitive early Christians (like Mary, the mother of Jesus, for example) would do wise to distance themselves from Paul and his invented version of Christianity.

I believe that this story records the first disownment or excommunication from the first community of Jesus’ followers. We know that the Essenes excommunicated using a mock burial ceremony, relying on Deuteronomy’s famous formula for choosing life in the covenant, versus death outside it. Even today, some orthodox Jews say that relatives who marry Christians “are dead to me.” Further on the Essene theme, we also know that “Damascus” was their code word for a center somewhere in Transjordan or southern Syria (though not in the city of Damascus itself, apparently), after the destruction of Qumran. So it’s intriguing to me that Paul may have been planning to visit this very Ananias all along, since he would have been a valuable informant: someone who knew the leadership well and had no reason to like them. Why else go so far away to gather information for your pogrom against the saints?

Then there’s The Ascension of Isaiah. This is perhaps the very first document showing signs of Merkabah mysticism, the devotional study of Ezekiel chapter one as mystical practice. The movement did not generate its own literature until sometime in the third century, if I remember correctly, but The Ascension has all the essential elements, and Paul himself is sometimes cited as the first known proto-Merkabah mystic, since his own mystical experiences follow a very similar pattern. The Ananias mentioned in The Ascension is one of three masters of the ‘techniques’ of ascension named in the book. Could it be that Paul was taught by the very first Christian heretic, and learned the emerging techniques for heavenly ascension that this early master was teaching, then went on to reconfigure the character of his ‘ascension’ experiences in the light of his own experience of Christ in the truly innovative context we now know as Pauline Christianity?

It is a good reminder to us, as you state, that God can use us, even with our baggage, and we need to be prepared for God to use others, even those we deem beyond his reach.