Did God change Saul's name to Paul?: Difference between revisions

Saul is a Hebrew name. His mother probably named him after King Saul. Paul is a Greek name. Why two names? Because of the ethnic melting pot of the first century, many Jewish mothers gave their sons both Hebrew and Greek names at birth. That is probably what happened with Paul. We know that Saul was also known as Paul from Acts 13:9 as follows:

:''Then Saul, who was also called Paul...<ref>The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ac 13:9.</ref>

It is interesting to note that Saul used his Hebrew name until he began to do ministry in the part of the world that was mostly populated by Greeks. It was when he started his missionary journeys that he used the name Paul. That would have been a better point of contact between him and the Greeks. It would have helped the Greeks to know that he was not trying to make Jews out of them. That name would also be accepted by the Jews in the Greek-populated world, for most Jews in the Greek-populated world also used their Greek names.

The name Paul literally means little. It is possible that his mother named him Paul because he was a small baby. Some writers do describe Paul as a short man.

It is also possible that Saul gave himself the Greek name Paul as a self-imposed symbol of his humbleness. He saw himself as the least of the apostles and the chief of sinners (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15). But those descriptions should not cause us to feel that Paul had an inferiority complex. Quite the contrary. He saw himself as someone who had been specially called by God. He saw himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus.<ref>Knofel Staton, Second Corinthians: Unlocking the Scriptures for You, Standard Bible Studies (Cincinnati, OH: Standard, 1988), 18–19.</ref>