Name Change

Why did Saul of Tarsus change his name? We can’t know for sure of course, but here’s a thought.

Like many Jewish boys before and since (to this day in fact), Saul’s parents named him for King Saul. Recall that King Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Samuel 9:1-2), and so was Saul of Tarsus (Philippians 3:4-6). By this time, with the Babylonian captivity and the Diaspora, it was something to brag about that you knew your genealogy, and Saul’s family did. So we see that it was a family name, although we can’t know how many Sauls there were in the family tree.

King Saul, we know, didn’t turn out so well. His spiritual ups (few) and downs (many) are detailed in 1 Samuel. We remember Saul’s one and only qualification: he was really tall (9:2, 10:23-24). He looked the part. The people were impressed…even when Saul hid in the baggage trying to avoid them.

From his anointing onward, Saul disregarded what Samuel instructed him to do. God gave him chance after chance, and Saul blew them one after another. After failing to do as God directed regarding going to war with Philistia, God directed Samuel to tell Saul his kingdom would not continue, and He had found a man after His own heart to lead the nation (13:13-14). After failing to do as God directed regarding the Amalekites, God directed Samuel to say to Saul, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel And the Lord sent you on a mission… Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?” (15:17-19) Little in his own eyes, still hiding in the baggage, trying to evade his responsibilities.

King Saul was designated by God to be the leader. He claimed in the Philistine debacle that he was doing the right thing by offering a sacrifice, but Samuel told him the obeying was better than sacrifice. Saul claimed in the Amalekite debacle that he was obeying the word of the Lord, when in fact what he did was far from what he was told to do. In the end, Saul was stripped of his power and position, the Lord stopped responding to him, and he died at his own hand.

Fast forward to the other Saul, named after the king. In the Philippians passage, we read that this one was staunchly Hebrew, “a Pharisee of the Pharisees”. Today we would call him ultra-Orthodox. He made sure he looked the part—right clothes, right education, right cleansings, so anyone looking at him knew instantly he was a Pharisee. He was so zealous, and so convinced of the rightness of his zeal, that he persecuted the church. And then, as we know, he found out just how wrong he was.

Here’s my thought. It seems likely to me that Saul of Tarsus decided being named after that particular king was not something to be proud of in his new life. He saw many parallels between himself and the king. From Benjamin, first of all. As a staunch Pharisee, to the point of being a persecutor, he had adamantly believed he was doing God’s will, but he was terribly wrong—and the parallel with his namesake was glaringly obvious.

When Jesus confronted Saul on the road to Damascus, he pointed out that Saul was hurting himself, “kicking against the goads”. Which seems to indicate that the Lord had been providing goads to steer him in the right direction, but he ignored them to his own hurt. Just as King Saul had ignored Samuel’s instruction, to his hurt.

I can imagine Saul of Tarsus seeing these parallels, and wanting to end them! He did not want to end up like King Saul, and in fact that old life was now dead. He wrote in another letter, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19-20) Saul was dead. Just as dead as King Saul ended up. His was now a new life—and maybe he decided he needed a new name for the new man.

But why “Paul”? The Greek name Paulos is derived from the Latin Paulus, and means “little”. Perhaps the new man thought a reminder was in order. Samuel had said to King Saul, “Though you are little in your own eyes…” Paul wanted to remind himself, maybe: Saul was criminally opposed to God’s will, contemptible, small, not as important as he fancied himself. True of the king and also of the Pharisee.

Now, you may remember that timing of the name change was when “Barnabas and Saul” went to Cyprus on the first journey, and spent time with a Roman proconsul named Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7-13). When they left, it was now “Paul and his companions”. The leadership changed there, simultaneous with the name change—and it’s possibly not a coincidence that the proconsul’s name was Paulus. We don’t know what went on, and my speculations may be way off.

It does seem to me, though, that we can find some instruction in the name change. How dead is our own “old” man or woman? Is there a tombstone in our minds marking his or her demise? Is he or she so truly dead and buried that we need a new name for this new creature? A literal name change may not be in order, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to think of ourselves in our own minds under a different name. “Old me is dead—there’s the marker on his grave. New me is called…” How do we choose a new name? Paul admits that he is prone to being “puffed up”. He names himself “Little” to help guard against it, perhaps. We might follow a similar line of thinking to rename ourselves with a reminder that, when we’re being honest, we know we need.

Which means I have a problem. I’m already named “Little”. I was named after the apostle—the new man. My “old man” is called Paul, but I strive to emulate the “new man” by that name. I guess I’ll figure something out.

Love, Paul (or whatever I decide my new name for myself is)