We do not know the names of his mother or father. All we know is that they were part of the diaspora that existed before the birth of Jesus. He was born in Gentile lands in Tarsus a city of Cilicia. His parents had to be people of financial means because they sent him to Jerusalem for special Torah training in the school of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was the greatest Bible teacher of the Jewish religion, knowing perhaps more than any man then living. To be trained under such a teacher was an honor. In reflecting on his education in this school he told the mob in Acts 22 that he learned the most perfect manner of law interpretation that had been known by the fathers. He confessed he had developed a zeal for God and for those things he had learned, so great he felt a personal responsibility to destroy Christianity. To destroy this new Jewish Judaism he went to the grass-roots core of poor people and persecuted them. He was friends with the High Priest who gave him letters of authorization to apprehend, arrest, and to transport these to Jerusalem for trial. According to his own testimony he persecuted Christians with great hate. He put men and women in jail and gave testimony against many who were put to death (Acts 22:4-5). Saul as his name implies was a ruthless man who believed he was doing God a service by destroying Christians. Saul was also of the tribe of Benjamin (Philip 3:5). King Saul was from this tribe (1Sam 9:1-2). This was the man Saul was named after. And just as King Saul hated David and tried to kill him, Saul of Tarsus hated Jesus the son of David and wanted to destroy Christians who believed in Jesus as the son of David.
This man Saul was after Gamaliel, the greatest Pharisee that ever lived. He was as smart if not smarter than his teacher. He became a Pharisee of Pharisees (Acts 23:6). No Jewish sect hated Jesus and Christians more than the Pharisees. Now it is important here to know something about this Babylonian sect. There are no Pharisees in the Old Testament. Where did they come from? They were invented in Babylon. The name Pharisee is the same as Pharsi which comes to us from the Persian language. Pharis and Pharisee means simply of Persian origin. When applied to a group of religious Jews who lived in the Persian empire but as a separated people, we get the name Pharisee and the meaning "separated" attached to it. But simply to say Pharisee as the name of a Jew meant a "Persian Jew." The religious beliefs of these Persian Jews is what they brought back to Israel sometime between 200-100BC. They came to Jerusalem and worked their way into religious power against the existing religious leaders that remained of the rebuilding by Ezra and Nehemiah. They developed a political influence in Israel and in Jerusalem that put them in control by the time Jesus was born. These Pharisees brought back to Israel the secret Kabbalah mystical teachings which were called the "traditions of the elders." Modern Kabbalist credit the Pharisees with having their secrets in the first century. They also mention a secret sect called the Iscarri (from which Iscariot comes): who were secret assassins to kill anyone they decided was a threat to their power structure.
Saul was a member of all this. He was on the inside of the most powerful religious party ever known in Israel. He was close to all those in authority. He was used by the Pharisees against Christians. He wanted to be used. He volunteered. He lived for one purpose and that was to make sure Phariseeism survived and Christianity was destroyed.
Behind the mystery Pharisee cult was an ancient god known among the Gentile nations surrounding Israel. This god has several names and titles and this makes it confusing for people to grasp. Even as the true God has different introductory names and titles, so this ancient god has many of the same. I speak here of YHWH which the Babylonian Jews inserted into their newly translated Aramaic scripture scrolls around 500BC known now as the Targum (the Dead Sea Scrolls are an example of the Babylonian Targum Aramaic text).
ARAMAIC LANGUAGE AMONG THE JEWS – ...Considered Foreign by Ancient Hebrews. Of all Semitic languages the Aramaic is most closely related to the Hebrew, and forms with it, and possibly with the ...Assyrian, the northern group of Semitic languages. Aramaic, nevertheless, was considered by the ancient Hebrews as a foreign tongue; and a hundred years before the Babylonian exile it was understood only by people of ...high officials of King Hezekiah not to speak in Hebrew, but in the "Syrian language," which they alone understood (II Kings xviii. 26; Isa. xxxvi. 11). In the early Hebrew literature an Aramaic expression occurs (Jewish Encyclopedia).
We can easily see how the Pharisee Babylonians were believers in this YHWH god. This tetragrammaton god became their god. This name of four letters was held in high honor. They developed a religious mystery around them and only allowed the knowledge and pronunciation to those initiated into their secret orders. We can easily see this within the secret teachings of the Kabbalah. We now know this YHWH is a name for the moon god. This same god went by other names such as Ah, Ia, Ya, Ja, Yah, Jah, Iah, Yahwe, Jave, Jove, Yabe, Yave, and so forth. Any combination of these letters fixed on the end of a name would signify this moon god. These letters were added to names of individuals in the Bible to make it appear they also believed in and held this god to be their God. Take Jeremiah for instance. In the Greek Septuagint this name is Jeremias and and in the English KJV he is called Jeremy (Mat 2:17). We can easily see that Jeremy is the same as Jeremi with the "y" having an "i" sounding. Why would Jewish scholars in 280BC write the name of this prophet as Jeremias and then in the Aramaic Targum it comes out Jeremi-ah? By adding "ah" they then formed "iah" which nearly all the scholars claim refers to Yah. It is then we know they have attached an ancient name for the moon god to the name Jeremias (Jeremy). This is the case with all the names ending in "iah." I bring all this out, because Saul of Tarsus was a defender of this YHWH god when he chose to attack Jesus Christ and Christians. Behind his hate, his anger, his zeal to hurt, imprison, and put to death: was his religious love for this YHWH god. Christians were worshipping Jesus as God and he was insane against what he believed was idolatry.
It is impossible for Saul of Tarsus to have hated Jesus and Christians and behind his bigotry was not his YHWH god. And Christians were not giving his god the same honor and respect he and the Pharisees did. Instead, Jesus was their God. Unless the world understands this Saul of Tarsus and his YHWH god, they will not understand why his conversion to Christianity was the greatest Jewish conversion after the day of Pentecost. The greatest Pharisee rabbi departed from his YHWH god and fell on his knees to the Lord Jesus Christ as his God. If this single occurrence is omitted and ignored, they will not understand why Paul was so hated by his former religious organization. They will not understand why he never once used YHWH as a name to be praised, worshipped, or honored. Saul's conversion was a total change out of the old for the NEW! Now that is a real conversion right there.
The conversion of Saul over to Jesus as his Lord and God was dynamic. It was life changing. He was no longer a Pharisee in the sense of a YHWH Aramaic Babylonian worshipper. On the road to Damascus he had an encounter with Jesus God. When Paul raised ask toward heaven: "who art thou Lord?" He got his answer: "I AM Jesus." The voice from heaven did not say "I am Jehovah." It did not say "I am Yeshua." It did not say: "I am Yahweh." It did not say: "I am Yahshua." It did not say: "I am YHWH (yod hey waw hey). Right here Saul learned that Jesus was Lord. From this moment on when he spoke of the Lord Jesus or the Lord Jesus Christ, it was because of who spoke to him from heaven.
After this Saul preached Christ straightway. What is so beautiful here, is that he used the names and titles "Jesus, Lord Jesus, Christ, and Lord Jesus Christ" 315 times in his preaching, his trial, and his Epistles. To him there was no other name. He did not preach any other name. Who will join Saul in this one Gospel which includes ONE NAME? Or do we go back to Saul's old buddies, the Pharisees and their Aramaic perversions, and try to learn about this YHWH bisexual god and act like we are getting closer to heaven? Why not skip these devils, these serpents, these hypocrites, these who did not know Jesus or his Father, and go straight to Calvary. And there get our name of Jesus God from the Cross. And take up our cross and follow him. If you do this, you will be a Jesus name only man or woman, boy or girl.
Many of you need a conversion. You are religious. You may even be Oneness and Apostolic, but you are still mixed up, deceived into accepting false and fake invented Catholic monk guess names. Or you went back to those devil inspired Jews to get an Aramaic name for Jesus. Or you chose to accept some other substitute fake name for Jesus because some perverters deceived you about how smart they were in the Aramaic Babylonian language claiming it was Hebrew. If any of you believe Aramaic is Hebrew you were deceived right there.
Saul no longer wanted to be named after his tribal forefather king Saul who hated David and tried to kill him. Saul had hated the seed of David Jesus. Saul hated Christians who believed in Jesus as the Messieh seed of David. Something clicked in him around Acts 13:9 and he changed his name to Paulos (Paul---meaning little). And he who considered himself at one time a great defender of the YHWH Pharisee cult, was now a defender of the name of Jesus. And being an Apostle out of due order, past the time of the choosing of Apostles, he considered himself less than all the other Apostles and chose to name himself "little." Now that is humility.
Now we know Saul as Paul and we know he gave up his YHWH Pharisee religion to be a follower of Jesus God only. If you want to know the name of the God Paul hoped to see in the future read Titus 2:13.
I join with this great servant of God. I want to raise my eyes to heaven and call Jesus Lord. I want to straightway preach Jesus as Christ (Messieh) and convince many mightily. I just want to be a little guy. Maybe that is why my mother prophetically called me Gary "PAUL" Reckart. It's ok ya'll to think I am a little no body. I really am. I am the least of all. Because of this I want to be a servant to all. Just ask me to serve you up a delicious meal of Truth and I will do my best to feed you. I promise I will not try to sneak any lies and false names of God on your plate. I will not feed you poison. I want you to be healthy children of God.
Bishop Reckart