What's in a name?

My favorite sermon to preach is about names. It is about God's name and its meaning and the names of those in the Bible and the meanings behind those. Biblical names are often like Native American names. Names like "dances with wolves" or "stands with a fist" are common Native American names. In the Bible, names are also often sentences with unique meanings in their original language, and maybe more interesting is all of the re-naming that takes place in the Bible.

People's names shift in meaning and purpose, but are closely related. I'll give one example. Peter's (who denies Jesus 3 times) is named Simon when we meet him. Simon in its original language would mean "shifty sand." Not exactly a firm foundation. His name, when God changes it becomes Peter, which means "rock." Peter becomes the foundation of the church and is recognized even by his name as having a firm foundation. I could go on and on with biblical names, but I'm not writing for that purpose.

Culture has lost a lot of its naming in America. Our names are often meaningless, except that they sound good, and are just labels we are known by. For the most part, they bear no significance outside of distinguishing us from each other. Though, there is still some significance in naming when, for example, a woman takes a man's name in marriage. Now, on with what I want to talk about.

I'm excited in talking about naming in a biblical sense, not just because there are cool facts that open up the Bible story if you understand them, but because it leads us to an understanding of what God thinks about us. The name God would give me is far different than just a label, or what the world names me. Naming still happens today. Most prevalently maybe in junior high school where you can be labeled, stupid, fat, ugly, or numerous "positive things." It is our ability to hold on to true names (those which come from God) and our ability to ignore false names that is often the problem.

Remember this, no one has the power to speak identity statements about you except for God, your creator. Sometime, have a conversation with me about names. I truly leave each of these conversations encouraged. I'd love to talk to you sometime about the names of your life, and the name God wants to give you.