In my bible study, one of the things I like to do when I come across a name is look up what it means. I love that there is so much rich meaning to be unpacked at a deeper level. For example, have you ever looked into the names of the different “ites” that the Israelites fought to gain their promised land? It isn’t just an intellectual exercise; I have found it helps me glean more of the treasures that are available in the bible. I have used a variety of websites to help me in this but here is one that I have found helpful when looking at names of people and places link, also a website called www.biblestudytools.com, and www.biblehub.com which gives you the capacity to look at the original Hebrew or Greek.
In the bible there is great emphasis on names, to the point where God tells several people what to name their children, including his son, Jesus Christ, whose name points to his mission on earth. God renames several people at significant moments in their life (Abram becomes Abraham, Jacob becomes Israel and Sarai becomes Sarah to name a few) and Jesus renamed some of his disciples. God who managed to think up names for myriads of stars (Psalms 147:4), knows who we really are and according to Isaiah 43:1 he calls you by name.
In Genesis, God instructs Adam to name the animals. Adam had been given authority over them. Someone in authority over them, a father figure, who has the authority to speak into their identity. So much of our identity is bound up in our name. I think the fact that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were renamed when they were taken to Babylon was an interesting strategy, also for Joseph in Egypt. Names are important to us and in many cultures, the honour of the family name is important. Written into the law given to Moses are instructions to ensure that the family name does not die out, for example when a woman’s husband dies there were instructions about other family members taking her to be their wife so that the family name continued (Deuteronomy 25:6), as well as the fact she would be cared for of course.
I am reminded of the story of Ruth where Naomi returns to Israel in her grief and loss having lost her husband and her two sons, and when people greet her by her name, she tells them not to call her Naomi, meaning ‘my delight’ or ‘pleasantness’ but to call her Mara, which comes from the word for ‘bitter’. (Ruth 1:20) The story has a beautiful ending where Boaz takes on that role of kinsman-redeemer, marrying Ruth and providing for the family.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” the chant went when I was at school, but it just is not true. Many of us have been given names over the years that have added to or detracted from our identity, speaking things over us that have influenced our lives. How many of us have struggled to escape from the labels that have been put on our lives? I know there are people reading this that will have be called stupid, ugly, weird, fat, or much worse. Having worked in schools, I have experienced the sometimes, unholy creativity of children in renaming each other and I have seen the impact of those names on the recipients. Some of them are harmless and are creative plays on words around people’s names but ultimately, it is how we receive the name that impacts our identity. As a teacher, contemplating a class list of names, I have also wondered what some parents were thinking when they named their child!
I grew up with a family nickname. I was always known as ‘Bean’ amongst the wider family, apparently a label given me by an uncle when I was a baby, because I was ‘small and round’. When I was explaining my nickname to people, I used to add “and I haven’t changed much” until God challenged me one day to stop speaking that smallness over myself. As I talked with a friend recently, she made a comment, in the context of an organisation, that the wrong name can limit you which got me thinking some more about this issue of names and gave a context to why I had felt to stop using my childhood nickname as it pulls me back into something I have walked away from.
I went through a process of throwing off some of the identity I had taken on with that nickname, I am no longer that person, and stepping into who I am called to be by embracing and using my proper name. Equally, many of the other unhelpful labels that people have given me, or I have given myself, over the years needed to be discarded. This process has involved forgiving those who have labelled me wrongly, even if it was not necessarily negative. Sometimes, people try to label us as something that does not fit with what God calls us.
A key has been the encouragement, healing and strengthening that has come to me as I have listened to God talk about what he calls me. There are hundreds of verses where God declares who we are and gives us his “labels” which include things like, “Chosen”, “Beloved”, “Precious” and many more. A study in Ephesians about who we are “in Christ” yields much that God declares over our identity. Some of the things he calls us we may have to choose to accept since they don’t feel like who we are yet. When we became believers, we were born-again into his family and we took on his name (Ephesians 3:15). We are adopted as family members, we become his children. We bear not only his image but his name. I am a Christ-ian. I want to bring honour to that name and not bring it into disrepute by the way I live my life.
A cursory study of scripture tells us that God thinks names are really important, particularly his own. Honouring God’s name is right up there in the ten commandments. God’s name is the essence of who he is as Exodus 3:13-14 shows us: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’
Some of the myriad of names for him in the bible are titles rather than names, describing a role that he has. Rather like my children call me Mum because of the role that I play in their lives. I am their mother, their mum; it is the title of my role.
For many of us, we can get stuck in a rut with how we experience God, but He invites us to get to know him more and more, in all his different dimensions, not just as Jesus Christ our Saviour. My prayers used to always be addressed to “Lord” or “God” reflecting a degree of formality and distance in my relationship. In recent years, I have got closer to him and have experienced him as Good Shepherd, as Teacher, as Deliverer, as Provider, and many more aspects of his character. My knowledge of who he is has expanded, not just as intellectual understanding from verses in the bible or a printed list of “The Names of God” but experientially. He is so unlike any other, so magnificent we will be singing his praises for all eternity, there is always more to explore of who he is and how wonderful he is.
In recent years, what people call God in worship songs, and in prayers has developed, in part reflecting revelation the song writer may have received of who God is. However, I have felt uncomfortable with calling him Papa or Daddy God as others do or singing the songs that verge on talking of “my mate Jesus” in their tone. It feels too familiar and too weird on my tongue. That may just be me and the fact that I am on a journey into “sonship” but although he calls me right into the throne room, it IS still a throne room, and He IS still God of the universe.
There is a degree of respect and honour given and received in the use of names. I work in an office and I can often roughly guess people’s age by how they introduce themselves on the phone. Those who are older, or from other cultures, often introduce themselves as Mr or Mrs ‘X’. Increasingly this is disappearing in our society as everyone freely uses first names, from the man arranging the electricity contract to the dentist. The moment when you move from calling someone “Mr Smith” to “Fred” indicates a shift of relationship.
A few weeks ago, as I sat with the Father, I heard him say “Call me Abba” which touched my heart deeply, humbled me, and opened up a whole other realm of intimacy and depth of relationship to explore, as I contemplate the implications of calling him ‘Abba’. There’s a shift that is taking place in our relationship.
As if to confirm this topic today, I have just had a conversation with a friend who asked me to stop calling her by the version of her name I have known her as since she was a child and embrace the version of her name she has been using for a while, because “that person is not who I am today”. Names really do matter.
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Another Good one. 😀
Thank you! 😃