One of my aunt’s and my mother had struggled with each other for years. My mom had said that my aunt had said that she had the “first” born grandson on purpose just to spite her. Not sure of what was actually said, but that’s what my mom heard. I was that first born grandson. Now my son is the last one in the line to carry the family name. On my mom’s side, there are no sons to carry the family name. The name will have died with my only uncle on that side. That conflict between mom and aunt has since been resolved so no worries there, but I thought it was interesting that on both sides of my family….. my son is the last of the Mohicans as far as carrying on any sort of name. Poetic justice or just random coincidence? Not sure.
This article will be long, but I think the punch line will be worth it.
So what’s in a name people may say. 10 fingers, 10 toes - other than that - who cares? I guess when born in America our names really don’t mean anything. I have learned over the last year that this is not so with the Hebrew language. Everyone’s name means something it seems.
Let me first start with a rather crude joke that will help bring more depth to the concept of meaning in names. Yes it is crude, but there is a purpose so please forgive me.
An American Indian boy is in his tepee talking to his mother. He asks his mother… Mom - why is grandfather named Great Brown Bear? She says to him… well the day he was born, his father got out of the tepee and the first thing he saw was a great brown bear - so they named him Great Brown Bear.
Well, what about my father, Hawk Who Soars? Well, the day he was born, your grandfather stepped outside the tepee and the first thing he saw was a Hawk flying high in the sky.
His mother then says to the young lad…. Why do you ask Two Dogs Mating?
What a name to get stuck with eh? Reminds me of the boy name Sue of Johnny Cash fame.
There has been a lot of argument going back and forth over the use of the name Jesus, Yeshua, Yahushua, in some believer circles. Right now, it seems that there are several major camps here.
You’ve got what I may call,
1.) ordinary folks who seem to use Jesus but may say YHWH or their favorite derivative on occasion
2.) some who are absolutely against any of these silly name arguments - as though arguing over spelling and pronunciation is no better than the yeast of the Pharisees,
3.) Those who are so hard core on it, that it is considered sacrilege to refer to God as the the LORD since they say it is actually referring to LORD Ba’al aka Satan, and that his name has been replaced in the scriptures with something else.
4.) People who are clueless about any of this - and perhaps have the simple faith like a child.
Now all of this said, I have found several passages that say that in the latter times things will be said of the Gentiles - our fathers have inherited lies and they will cling to those who know God, then there was David calling on the name, etc.
Even in the oldest pre-Constantine manuscripts we have - there are “placeholders” for the divine names. That is, since certain Hebrew terms would not be accurately transmitted, the idea is placeholders were used instead to represent the divine names. In the dead sea scrolls, I am told that the YHWH name is present 7000 times. 7 is after all, one of God’s favorite numbers.
Now what is the significance of all this? Well, as perhaps a former member of group 4, then moving into group 3, then moving into somewhere between 1 and 2 - I do know that truth seems to be lost without the names, but I also realize we still need to be able to communicate with people in a manner that they will understand.
Each person seems to have a different measure of Spirit given to them, and you can’t just go in like a bull in a china cabinet and start shooting people in my opinion. It seems to be a very fine art. I’ve heard that Jesus… come on Shohn, just say Yeshua, you know you want to, had only about a 50% success rate with witnessing. The big man himself was only batting .333 ?
So what does all this have to do with a name? I’m getting there… it will take awhile so just hold onto your boot straps. I’m sort of blending two things at once here to get to this point. Yes this will be convoluted.
Now if you’ve read the Bible, you may recall a passage that talked about the master reaping where he had not sown. You know, where he talked about giving one servant 10 talents, another 5, and another 1 talent. All but the guy with one talent produced more talents. The 1 who produced nothing because he was scared (remember fear = opposite of love) got blasted. The fearful servant said he was scared of the master because he had reaped where he had not sown. The master then took away what was given to him, and gave it to another. Yikes. If you haven’t read this, then go find it. Google is great for this.
That passage has always troubled me. I used to think… God is mean. Shouldn’t he love the scared little guy who buried what he was given instead? Isn’t it all about LOVE man! Look at what I was doing… judging God. Not a good thing to do.
The trouble is that sometimes things are plain English - ha, but sometimes they have multiple layered depth and meaning - saying 3 or 4 things at once at least. I once read a book that said this passage was all about how God wants you to manage your finances - and it may be, but I think there is another jewel hidden here that I never found until the other day.
Let’s look again ….
Joh 4:37 “For in this the word is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
Joh 4:38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not laboured. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.”
Now on first glance, I thought this meant something about a mean master coming in and taking stuff that didn’t belong to Him. Then someone blended this into book about managing your finances. This principal does seem to ring true for business that help the poor and what not, but then as I read into it even more - it seems to say something about the Harvest of Souls. That is getting people to “Get it” - entering into the Kingdom of sorts. More than just going to church and stuff, but that divine relationship. One preacher comes along and get rejected, one wolf in sheep’s clothing comes along and pushes you away, another wold comes along and swindles you out of cash to pay for his leer jet, another “REAL” one comes along and says something that hits you. Then you almost die in a car wreck, almost get divorced, or your mom dies of cancer…… you almost die of drug overdose, ……..and then FINALLY you turn to GOD. That is sort of my path. Hard hearted as I have been in my life.
Sometimes someone says just one word to hit your heart and your are from there after touched and changed. That Epiphany moment. God is REAL! Jesus is REAL! Holy Moly! What have I done with my life…. or something like that. Thus, He reaped where He had not sown. Wow all of that just to lead up to the point that sometimes thing s can be obscured or even hidden in the scriptures until some great tribulation or you get to a certain age or whatever.
Now, I got that part over with. What in the world does all that have to do with a name? Well, it seems like it is another case of something being hidden and in there all along. You see, even from Genesis 1:1 it spoke of the Messiah, but you WILL not catch that in the English. From the git go is spoke of Jesus. Wow. The part that upsets me, is that if this simple truth were more well known…. well I think it would add tremendous credibility to the scriptures… why? It becomes prophetic - telling the future.
People can’t make the distinction between LORD and the Lord unless they happened to read that little primer put at the beginning of each Bible. Now here is the issue, what we call the old testament has what we now call Jesus, has Yahushua or Yeshua if pronounced using modern Hebrew as I understand it at.
Now what in the world does a name have to do with perspective? Well, in this case, as I understand it, the name Yahushua or YHWH is Salvation is pronounced Yeshua and could basically mean I AM SALVATION or something like that. There are plenty of arguments about this, so I’ll leave that one alone.
The thing is, that special name Yahushua… was talking about Jesus in the OLD Testament. It was there all along, but got masked with the erasing of the name and replacement with Adonai or as we call it in English, Lord. It hides redemptive truth! It is clear as day that Jesus was talked about from the get go and throughout the Old Testament, but my masking that with Lord….. in some ways the Bible became less clear and consequently subject to attacks by those seeking to prove it as just a series of made up stories and old superstitions.
So… does this matter when talking to your sweet sweet grandma about sweet Jesus? Probably not, does this matter for witnessing to suspicious minds like mine. It does. Where to draw the line? I don’t have the answers. Personally I’m just saying Praise Jesus, Yeshua our Messiah at the moment. Seems to communicate on two levels without making people too nervous.
Now that was fun with names, and hopefully my wife will continue to retain my last name (staying on the topic of this site - marriage ya know), but if you want to see something really neato… and this IS the punchline check this out ->
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/44/ (33 hits)
If you read slow, scroll to the bottom to get the punch line. Awesome stuff. Halleluyah! Thankyou Yeshua! Praise Jesus!
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. Don’t be that guy. See it from her point of view. She is building a case against you and every time you come to her expecting a kiss, or demanding this, or stating your case, or just being flat out annoying and selfish -… guess what you just lost a couple of points for the team. Keep it up and you’ll be benched for good or she’s going to find someone who IS willing to play ball.
