What’s In a Name?

There are two hundred and fifty-six names given in the Bible for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I suppose this was because He was infinitely beyond all that any one name could express.  Billy Sunday

If you were to take every single, solitary grain of sand off of every square inch of beach on the face of the earth, you wouldn't equal the number of stars in the galaxies of the universe. And your God made them all! More amazing still, He named them all! The psalmist declared, "He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names" (Ps. 147:4).  Sam Storms

I was researching biblical names and their meanings.  I sometimes get confused when I am studying the Bible because I will come across a verse where a person’s name will be changed.  There were times when God changed a person’s name and gave him a new name.  God changed Abram’s “high father” to Abraham, “father of a multitude and his wife’s name from “Sarai,” meaning “my princess” to “Sarah,” “mother of nations”.

Jacob’s name meaning “supplanter” was changed to “Israel,” “having power with God” and Simon’s “God has heard” was changed to Peter, “rock”.  There are times in the Bible where Jesus would call Peter “Simon” after he changed his name to “Peter”.  I often wondered if this was because Peter would turn to his old ways and it was a reminder of what he used to be.  Even though God renamed Jacob, Israel, he would sometimes call him Jacob maybe as a reminder that he had power with God in his new name Israel. 

I decided to take this a step further and look up some other biblical names and their meanings.  I found it interesting that Job’s name means “persecuted, oppressed.” He actually lived the meaning of his name.  Then I ran across Dorcas which means “gazelle” and near that was Damascus, which means “swift camel”.  I am not sure I would want to live up to the name Damascus.  I then found Sharon which means “a plain flat pasture”, and Tekva meaning “pitching of tents.”

I then was curious as to why we have middle names.  The only thing I could find was that it started in Europe with the aristocracy.  I guess you were considered upper class if you had many middle names. 

What I learned from all this is that each of us is unique and important to God no matter what our name is.  We might be a “swift camel” or “a pitcher of tents” on earth but our most important name should be “child of God”. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I sometimes am confused when I read in the Bible where the same person is called by two different names.  I think in many cases a new name was given to someone to remind them of their new mission in life as a child of God and that Your  mission would be fulfilled in them.  I just want to be called a child of God and to fulfill whatever mission You set before me.          

Scripture:  One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone). John 1:40-42