While doing a study on the life of the apostle Paul, I began to wonder if he was actually named Saul after the 1st king of Israel. I began to make comparisons between the two and found several things that they had in common. The name Saul means "desired" while the name Paul means "little". It's interesting to think that Paul started off as Saul, or the one to be desired, but when God got a hold of him, he became Paul the little one. Sounds like the words of John the Baptist when he said of Christ, "He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30
Last night, Paul Grady, one of the young men of God in our church, preached a powerful message from 1Samuel 28 on "Doing a Good Thing Instead of the Right Thing." He showed how King Saul had done a good thing by putting away the witches and wizards out of the land of Israel (1Samuel 28:3). However, he had not done the right thing in obeying the law by putting the witches and warlocks to death (Exodus 22:18). As a result, he eventually went to the witch of Endor himself (1Samuel 28:7-8). Using, the witch as a type of the flesh, Brother Grady showed how we will eventually be conquered by the flesh if we will not put it to death. We must do the right thing; not just a good thing.
