The Name of God

God actually has many names. In the Old Testament, the Israelites refused to call God by name at all, for fear of being found guilty of taking the LORD's name in vain. The name that they knew God by, even though they refused to speak it, is usually translated as Jehovah. That's not really a correct translation: The Hebrew word has only four letters, and is referred to as the Tetragrammaton. Properly translated, the Tetragrammaton means, "I Exist" or "I Am", in reference to what God told Moses, when Moses asked, "Who shall I tell Pharaoh hath sent me?"

In the New Testament, however, Jesus tells us that He came in His Father's name. Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus ever use the name, "Jehovah." Further, Paul writes in Ephesians 3:15 that the whole family in Heaven and earth is named for Jesus (or, maybe, he's saying the whole family is named for the Father of Jesus, which would include Jesus as being named for the Father, which would make the Father's name Jesus, also. Sorry about that. I promise not to write anything else that confusing in this post). In Acts 4:10-12, Apostle Peter refers to the name of Jesus, saying that there is none other name under Heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. That makes that name pretty important. In Colossians 3:17, Paul writes that we should do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Interestingly enough, when the angel appeared, he told Jesus' parents to name the child Jesus. Two verses later, it says that the child's name shall be called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Some have criticised, saying that this is a contradiction. It's not. The angel said to name the child Jesus, but people who later came to know who Jesus actually was called Him Emmanuel (God with us).

The point is, that the family of God has one name, and that name is Jesus. We are called Christians because we follow Jesus, and we try to live the way He did, or at least, the way He would if He were walking around as a flesh-and blood being today. In doing so, we lift Him up, and by lifting Him up, we draw men (and women) unto Him.

The Temple of the Holy Ghost

In First Corinthians 6:19, Paul makes an interesting statement: He tells us that our bodies are each, individually, temples of the Holy Ghost. When I was young in the faith, I had someone try to misread this scripture to me. He was trying to make the point that our souls are spiritual bodies. Not bodies in the sense of flesh and blood, but bodies in the sense that they are self-contained, distinct entities. I couldn't grasp that concept at the time, and some of the things that people said to try to explain it to me really didn't help. Anyway, he said that Paul wasn't talking about our physical bodies, he was talking about our spiritual bodies; he said you could tell, because it says, "...your body, which is in you..." except it doesn't. It says, "..the Holy Ghost, which is in you..." So, even though his point was correct, and my thinking was wrong, the fact that he misused that scripture just further convinced me that I was right, and deepened my confusion.

There are other, similar references: First Corinthians 3:16, 2 Corinthians 6:16... Peter refers to the body as a tabernacle in First Peter chapter 1. Personally, I find it interesting that in First Corinthians, Paul tells us in chapter 3 that our bodies are the temples of God, but in chapter 6, the temples of the Holy Ghost. Jesus also prophesied His resurrection, referring to His own body as a temple in John 2:21. I think that it's important to note that we, as fleshly beings, have a hard time (at best) discerning spiritual things. So the people that walked with Jesus saw His physical body (His temple), but couldn't perceive His Spirit. In John 10:38, Jesus said that the Father was in Him. In Colossians 2:9, we are told that in Christ dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. Jesus knew our limitations, and understood, that we, as humans, saw Him as human, with a flesh and blood body much as our own, but we should not worship that flesh, in any form (not the babe in the manger at Christmas, or the thirty-three year old man on the cross at Easter...); we should worship the Spirit of God.

By the way, a little side note, here, I know that a lot of people have taken John 2:21 as a prophesy that must be fulfilled before the Lord returns. Books have been written about how Solomon's temple must be rebuilt before the rapture of the church. Read John chapter 2. It specifically says that it isn't talking about Solomon's temple, it's talking about Jesus' resurrection. "Oh, but I think there are some Old Testament prophesies about the temple being rebuilt, too." Yes, there are, but where was Jesus when He was talking about His temple being rebuilt? Look back up to verse 14: He was in the temple. Actually, the temple has been rebuilt, more than once. Look, I'm not saying that the temple won't be rebuilt (again) before Jesus comes again; what I'm saying is that if you get caught up looking for signs, you may find out that the things that you were looking for have already happened and you haven't noticed them (possibly before you were born, and the people that should have noticed them then, were asleep at the switch). Even if they haven't happened yet, who's to say that you will live until Jesus comes again, anyway? You have no promise of tomorrow, so do your best to be ready today.

Maternal Instinct

We are taught, generally from a fairly young age, that mothers have a natural instinct to take care of their children. Of course, there are ways to suppress it; in today's society the obvious way would be with drugs: A strung out mother will sell her baby to get money to buy drugs. In this time of year, when we always think of Mary and the Baby, I thought I would share a little bit about what the Bible says.

In First Samuel chapter 1, we are told about a woman named Hannah, who very much wanted children, but couldn't have any. She went to temple and prayed, and ended up later giving birth to Samuel, the prophet for whom the book is named. In Genesis 30, Rachel became distraught that she didn't have children. Now, in both of these cases, the woman in question was one of two wives, who had no children, while the other wife bare children. Interestingly enough, in both cases, the barren wife was actually the favored of her husband; I'm not sure if there's any significance to that.

In Judges 11, Jephthah's daughter bewailed her virginity. Of course, I should point out that she was in trouble for celebrating her father's return from a victorious war (it's complicated); but, if she had not been a virgin, she would not have been celebrating her father's return, she would have been celebrating her husband's return, and would not have gotten into trouble. The end of this story has been interpreted many different ways, but, my reading is that she died, still a virgin.

I think that we are all familiar with King Solomon's famous exercise in wisdom in First Kings 3: He had to rule in a case where two mothers both claimed the same child, and he depended on the the maternal instinct to determine which woman was the child's mother (the other woman was willing to let the king kill the child).

In Second Kings chapter 6, there is a rather gruesome story that shows that it doesn't take drugs to override maternal instinct, just a very desperate situation. It's hard for me to imagine such a situation, but that may just be because I'm spoiled.

Security of the Believer

A lot of people think that once you have made a profession of faith, that you can never fall from grace. Still others seem to think that the 'old man' waits around every corner. Let's spend a little time examining these two philosophies.

One passage that is commonly referred to in support of the idea that God will never allow one to fall from grace is Romans 8:35-39. This is an impressive list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, nor any other creature... Let's contrast this list, though, with a statement that God made in Isaiah 59:2: "...your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you..." The difference is that in Romans Paul lists things that could happen to us, while in Isaiah, it talks about things that we have done. Now, I realize that some would say that the bigger difference is that we are under a new covenant, God doesn't deal with us the way He dealt with Israel in Isaiah's time. That's true, but it's also true that God doesn't change.

Let's consider some other scriptures: Paul said, in Hebrews Chapter 6, that if one falls away, there is no way to renew them again unto repentance. Now, some have said that the word 'if' there denotes a hypothetical situation; it could never really happen. Seems like Paul spent an awful lot of time preaching about something that could never really happen, if that's the case. Wouldn't he have been more concerned about teaching us what we need to know? In Romans 3:3, Paul asks the question, "...what if some did not believe?" Does the word 'if' denote a hypothetical situation there, too; is it impossible for some people to not believe the gospel message? In Romans 4:24, Paul uses that word again, saying "...if we believe on him..." so, apparently we can't believe, either. In Hebrews 10:26, Paul uses that word again, but this time in very much the same meaning as in Hebrews 6. Was this a waste of ink?

Apostle Peter tells us in 2 Peter 2 that it is better to have never known 'the way of righteousness' than to know it and then turn from it. That would be pretty meaningless if one couldn't fall from grace, wouldn't it? He is clearly referring to the parable that Jesus taught in Luke chapter 11. So, did Peter misunderstand Jesus? I don't think so. Let's look at what else Jesus had to say:

In Luke 8, in explanation of the parable of the sower, Jesus compares different types of people to different types of ground, and he says the the rock represents people that, in time of temptation, fall away. In Matthew 24:13, and Mark 13:13, Jesus said that one must endure to the end to be saved. That doesn't sound like something someone would say if they believed it was impossible to fall away. In Matthew 25, Jesus taught a parable about ten women that had kept themselves pure, and yet, when the bridegroom came, five of them needed oil, because their lamps had gone out. It doesn't say that their lamps were never lit, it says that their lamps had gone out. If He wasn't talking about falling from grace, then what do you suppose that was about? I know already that there will be some people that read this and say, but those were just parables, it's not like those things actually happened. Keep in mind that Jesus told those stories to help us to understand how God's judgment works. He got to choose the details in order to make His point. Don't sell parables short.

We Want What We Want

I've done a lot of things in my life. Most of the things I haven't done, you don't talk about in polite company (some of the things I have done, for that matter). One of the things that I have done is work with vending machines. I had a soda machine (or pop machine, depending on what part of the country you are from) for a while that had one double-capacity lane. Five lanes held 24 sodas, one lane held 48. Now I'm independent, I don't work for Coke, Pepsi, RC, 7-Up/Dr. Pepper, or Cadbury/Schweppes, so I can load anything I want in my machines. It didn't take long to determine that Coke sold the fastest out of any of the different sodas (sorry, Pepsi fans), so Coke always went in the double-capacity lane. You would be surprised how many people that found out I was doing that, tried to talk me out of it. I even had one young man, who had worked in the business before, try to tell me that Pepsi sells twice as much as Coke; therefore, I should put Pepsi in the 'big' lane. "Why," I asked him, "so that I can load up Pepsi every other week and Coke twice a week?" He just could not comprehend that I loaded 48 Cokes in that machine every week, and usually 19 or 20 Pepsi's.

But. a lot of times, we as individuals, fall into the trap of thinking that we are average. We tend to think that other people think the way that we do, and that they have similar tastes. Sometimes even when people start to get the idea that they are surrounded by stupid people, that most of them still think "pretty much like me."

I'm not sure that there are any 'average' people. God didn't create us as individuals to just be part of the crowd. Apostle Paul wrote at some length in 1 Corinthians 12 about the make up of the body of Christ. He talked about how some people in the church want to be something that they are not, and misunderstand their own importance in the church. If God didn't call you to preach, then you shouldn't preach (and if He called you to preach, then He also gave you the gift of preaching, and without that gift, you're not going to preach well, anyway). I am sometimes surprised at how many people think that they are called to sing in the choir, but they definitely don't have the gifts for it. The point is, though, God has an important job for you. It may not be the job that you think you want to do, but if you'll give it a chance, you may just find that you really enjoy the task, and find great fulfilment in it.

I have mentioned before that I teach electronics. Some years ago, I was working under contract through a college to teach electronics to young sailors (which was appropriate, since I learned electronics in the Navy), and I had a student that just wasn't getting it. It clearly was not for lack or trying: He paid attention in class, he asked good questions, he seemed to be spending a disproportionate amount of his life in extra study, and he just couldn't grasp it. I put in a recommendation that the Navy find another job for him; I just couldn't see the point of letting him beat his head against the wall with no success. Much to my surprise, it went all the way up the chain of command, and everybody agreed with my assessment. He went from being an electronics technician trainee to being a gunner's mate trainee; in most people's eyes, a considerably less glamorous position, but an important one, nevertheless (what would the Navy be without people to operate and maintain the ship's guns?). When he found out that he was becoming a gunner's mate on my recommendation, he wanted to talk to me about it. He wasn't happy, and I felt for him. He had enough wisdom that he didn't make any threats against me, but I felt an undercurrent in his words and body language that indicated that he would like to. Three weeks later, he came back to talk to me again. They checked him for weapons before letting him close to me, but all he wanted was to shake my hand. It seems that, much to his surprise, gun school came to him much easier that electronics school did. For the first time in a long time, he felt that he was gaining valuable knowledge. Several weeks later, I saw his picture in the base paper; he was being honored for graduating gun school with the highest average in his class. Imagine if we had given him chance after chance to be an electronics technician, and he had finally graduated at the bottom of his class, and gone out to the fleet doing a job that he no longer loved... Instead, he found that he had a real talent for working with guns, and that's an important talent in a military organization. What a waste that could have been.

I am reminded of the story of Uzzah in the Bible. Uzzah wanted to be one of the men who carried the ark of the covenant; but he wasn't. At one point in his life, he was part of an escort for the ark; probably the first time in his life he'd ever been that close to the ark. He was close enough to touch it, but he wasn't allowed to. That must have been driving him crazy, but then, the oxen shook the ark. Part in fear that the ark might come crashing to the ground, but, almost certainly, part of him thought that, finally, even God couldn't blame me for touching the ark now. So he reached out and steadied the ark, even though that wasn't his place, and God did blame him. There were a lot of other people besides Uzzah that did wrong that day; possibly some of the others were more wrong than he was, but Uzzah paid with his life. All because he wanted to something that God hadn't called him to do.

We should be about our Father's business, and we should seek His will for our lives. Don't ask God to let you do what you want, ask God to help you want to do what He wants you to do.

What Is Christmas?

Christmas is a holiday that has been observed for many years on December 25th. The prevailing reason being to celebrate the birth of Christ. Lately there has been some discussion along the lines of, "taking Christ out of Christmas."

I don't think too many people actually want to do that, although sometimes, we, as Christians, worry that we may offend someone else of another religion, or even an atheist. Certainly, we don't want to offend, but I think most people are harder to offend than that. I think that there is a difference between, say, putting up a Nativity scene, and shoving Christianity down people's throats. Please understand, I am not in favor of forcing Christianity on people.

I feel I should point out, also, that the selection of December 25th as the day of observance of Christ's birth has very little to do with historical fact. We really don't know when Jesus was born. We do know that the night He was born, the shepherds were out in the fields with their flocks. That's something that only happens on warm nights, like in June or July. In December, it's not that cold in Israel during the day, but at night, with no humidity to hold the warmth, once the sun goes down, the temperature drops rapidly. Generally, in the winter months, sheep spent the night in an enclosed area called a sheepfold, to keep them warm. So, unless December 25th was unseasonably warm that year, that's really not the right date.

Still, if we're going to celebrate the birth of Christ, we don't really know what the date was; so December 25th is as good a date as any. The point of Christmas is not so much when He was born, as why He was born; to save us from our sins. That's a good reason to celebrate.

Betrothed

One of the questions that I drove people nuts with as a kid was, "Why did Mary tell the angel that she didn't know a man, when she knew Joseph?" Of course, nobody wanted to explain to me that when they say 'know' in the Bible, they aren't talking about what I thought they were talking about.

Of course, as an adult, then I had people tell me, "Oh, well you have to understand what the word 'betrothed' means." I know what the word betrothed means, but the Bible doesn't say that Joseph and Mary were betrothed, it says that they were espoused. Espoused means exactly what it sounds like: They were spouses; husband and wife.

But that pretty much brings us back to the original question: Why did Mary tell the angel that she knew not a man? Why was she so sure that she was not going to bear her husband's child? My father actually put me on the right track for that one, a couple of Christmas's ago; he made the comment that marriage traditions must have been very different back then.

They were. Boys and girls, and even young men and young women, lived with their parents until they were married. Even then, once the ceremony had taken place, it was the man's responsibility to get a job, if he didn't already have one, and find a piece of land, buy it, build on it, and, when he had their home ready, then he would come back to his wife (who was still living with her parents) and take her to their home. In other words, he would go away, and prepare a place for her. This had the added benefit of additional proof, even if only to the young couple, that they actually married for love, and not for sex. So, even though Mary and Joseph were married when the angel came, he was away building a house. She didn't expect him back for many months, certainly not within the time frame that the angel indicated. How can this be? What will my husband say when he comes back and finds me pregnant (or perhaps a mother)? All legitimate concerns, but God had the answer. So, when Joseph came back, and found his wife pregnant, and knowing it wasn't his, he was nice enough that he was going to divorce Mary quietly, without making any accusations, but the angel appeared to him, and talked him out of it. So their neighbors just assumes that Joseph took his honeymoon a little early. At least they didn't think that Mary and Joseph had sinned, by getting together before their marriage, just that they had taken some liberties with tradition.