Nov 14 - Acts 8:1

 And Saul approved

of their killing him.

Acts 8:1

Throughout history, many people -- for one reason or another -- have changed their names.

Nowadays, it seems like athletes do it most.

• Football player Chad Johnson tried to market himself by changing his name to match his jersey number. His new "brand" was Chad Ochocinco -- which is a butchered form of Spanish for number 85.
  
• When I was a kid, basketball player Lloyd B. Free changed his first name to "World." Get it? World B. Free. That was kind of clever.
  
• Another basketball player -- Ron Artest -- recently changed his name and in similar fashion. I thought it was, "Man of World Peace," but it's actually "Metta World Peace" -- "Metta" being the Buddhist word for kindness.

In the Bible, God changed several people's names ...

• Abram and Sarai each got an "H" from Yahweh, becoming "Abraham" and "Sarah" as they cut a covenant with God.
  
• Jacob became "Israel."
  
• Jesus started calling Simon "Peter," which means "the Rock."
  
• And Saul -- see our verse today -- became known a "Paul."

Saul was Pharisee. He was a persecutor of the church. Indeed, the first time in scripture we see the eventual apostle (Acts 7:58 and 8:1), he was cheering on the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian Martyr.

He's how Paul described his old self, "Saul": "If anyone ... has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." -- Phil 3:4-6 

In the next sentence, however, the former persecutor begins to explain his new identity: "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ" -- Phil 3:7.  

What's your real name?

Many of you have commented that you like the way I sign my name at the end of each devotion. Each day changing my name -- if even only momentarily -- to reflect what who I hope to be in Christ's name. What's your real name?

In Christ's Love,

a guy who does not have

multiple personalities

-- just many names with one goal:

"Deeper Faith"