By drawing wrong conclusions from comparisons of what is and isn’t mentioned in the various accounts in Acts, many have come to faulty conclusions about apostolic evangelism.
Whether repentance was preached in a particular evangelistic encounter or not is a key aspect of apostolic evangelism that has been misunderstood through such mishandling of Acts.
Holding that repentance was not preached in any recorded encounter in Acts if the summary record of that encounter does not explicitly say that repentance was preached is a profoundly wrong handling of the book of Acts because comparing certain accounts of apostolic evangelism to other statements about apostolic evangelism shows us that such was not the case, as follows.
The earliest accounts of Pauline evangelism in Damascus do not have any explicit statements about his proclamation of repentance:
Acts 9:20 And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.
Acts 9:22 But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.
Acts 9:29 And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him.
Concluding that he therefore did not tell anyone to repent in these evangelistic encounters is refuted by Paul’s own emphatic statements at a much later time in his life that explicitly mention what he did in Damascus:
Acts 26:19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: 20 But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
Based on the multifacetedly comprehensive nature of what Paul testifies in these verses about his practice everywhere throughout his apostolic lifetime, the correct approach to understanding what he did in his evangelistic encounters in Damascus and in every subsequent Pauline evangelistic encounter recorded in the book of Acts is to hold that Paul did tell those people to repent and do works fitting for repentance—regardless of whether the report in the book of Acts says that he did that or not.
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