Let me say, first of all, that Saul is not my real name. Saul is an idea, a character, a spokesman. He advocates approaching the Bible in a non-conventional, non-reductionist, non-self-centered way, with a large dash of grace mixed in. Saul’s name is taken from the Bible, and is meant to be a superposition (a fuzzy mixture) of Saul (the extremely promising, internally conflicted, but ultimately unsuccessful first king of Israel) and Saul (the uber-legalistic, super-zealous Jewish religious religious leader who spent significant time persecuting early Christians but then, in a twist of extreme irony, got struck blind, became a Christian, and changed his name to Paul).
At the risk of being reductionist – which I always weigh in against, but constantly give in to, in an ongoing internal death-match between idealism and pragmatism – I think that these two characters join forces to make several important points about human nature, why we should spend time reading and pondering the Bible, and how we really need to continually learn and grow in order to become more like God.
- We all have potential and gifts.
- The saddest things in the world are unrealized potential and wasted (or misused!) gifts.
- We all have times of success and times of failure.
- We lack insight – or, at least, foresight – into which of our fails (Saul is cool enough to make use of the most recent nouns!) are the most damaging and far-reaching.
- We love being right. We love being part of the group that is right, and lording it over the group that isn’t. This is because we are insecure, and being right (Right?) gives us (a false sense of) security.
- Sometimes we must lose all of our bearings (or eyesight) in order to realize just how blind we have been. This can be disorienting and scary, but can ultimately pay big dividends.
So, who is Saul really? It doesn’t matter. Some of you may know Saul’s true identity. Please don’t openly share it. This is not out of some desire for cloak-and-dagger secrecy (however, I think it would be awesome to own a man-sized safe and have my house’s whereabouts blotted out from Google Earth); rather, this pseudonym conveys a desire to keep the focus on the Bible and off of Saul and his ego.
The real, everyday Saul is not exciting. The real Saul is not a movie star, a professional athlete, or a politician. He is (appropriately) not a theologian or pastor. He does not claim to know everything – or even anything – about the Bible. He is there to read it, comment on it, raise questions, and admit the biases and baggage he is carrying into the endeavor. Saul’s real identity does not add anything to the message he brings. The onus is on YOU the listener to sort out truth from nonsense. Saul believes that he has been fed plenty of truth mixed with plenty of nonsense by books, teaching, and sermons about the Bible. Saul has discovered one truth, though. Taking his cue from the Bereans, the only way to figure out ANYTHING worth knowing is to go back to the source and read it for oneself.
