What’s In A Name
“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+32&version=EHV>
Call me Ishmael. That is how the novel “Moby Dick” begins. What is in a name? Biblical names all have an underlaying meaning. Native language speakers would hear or read a name and get a word picture associated to that name. “Ishmael” means God will hear in Hebrew. To give an analogy in the English language, it is much like rappers and /or pop culture figures taking names to project an image. (Here’s a list for your perusal…) However, when God gives you a name (or changes your given name)… Adam, Abraham, Sarah, Israel, Peter… That becomes something entirely different. What are the ramifications of trying to live up to that name? Is it even possible to live up to a name?
In Revelation 2, we read:
Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, which no one will know except the one who receives it.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%202&version=EHV>
What is the derivation of your name? Do you live up to that name? What name could possibly be on the white stone the Spirit gives you?
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
From <https://www.shmoop.com/shakespeare-quotes/whats-in-a-name/>
Deconstructing Shakespeare’s words from Romeo and Juliet, we see that “thy name” is the enemy, or more precisely: the perceived enemy; not the person. I have often wondered who I would be if I had a different name: is it possible that I “by any other name would smell as sweet”? St John tells us that we do have a new name: “children of God.”
See the kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! The world does not know us, because it did not know him. Dear friends, we are children of God now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he is revealed we will be like him, and we will see him as he really is. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself just as Jesus is pure.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%203&version=EHV>
Shakespeare goes on to ask, “What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man.” This brings to mind St Paul’s “Body of Christ” teaching from 1 Corinthians 12:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free people, and we were all caused to drink one Spirit. Furthermore, the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body. If the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2012&version=EHV>
“You belong to Christ.” Paul writes this earlier in 1 Corinthians (3:23). A child of God, the new name, given to you by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What’s in a name? Call me God will hear; just don’t call me Ishmael. Or call me EssTeeEeVeeEe, because I ran my name through a rapper name generator.
Trust the Promises
Steve Skiver