What's In A Name - 1

In our modern western society, names are placeholders, identifiers. Your name may have a meaning in some language, but nobody cares about the meaning of your name. They just want to know your name so they can tell you apart from other people. But, the Bible was written in a time when the meaning of a name was an important indicator of who a person was and what they might do. That means that there is a richness in names in the Bible that we miss out on. There is another subtlety in the Bible that we gloss over and that is the use of nicknames. A nickname might add description to a person beyond the meaning of their given name. But, we modern readers miss out on that, too. For example, the patriarch Jacob (whose name rightly indicated a person who might deceive), was given a nickname by an angel that he physically wrestled with. That nickname was Israel. The meaning of that nickname is profound and is described in part 1 of this teaching. Yes, it was a nickname because it did not replace Jacob’s original name. There were two disciples of Jesus named Simon. One of them was given the nickname Peter, which comes from a Greek word that means rock or stone. We modern Christians read that Peter’s name was Peter and we read on. But, to the people of that day, when they called to Peter using his nickname, they heard the word Rock. Just like the actor Dwayne Johnson who is called the Rock. For, example, to his friends, he might have heard them say, “Hey, Rock, let’s go fishing.” Listen to the second part of this teaching to learn about the Apostle Shorty or Shortstuff. The Second part of this teaching also goes over some of the names of God in the Old Testament. Those were not exactly nicknames, but they were descriptors. Visit our website at www.cecmessiah.org. Also see videos on Rumble.com – search for “padre39”.