What’s In A Name?

Have you ever had this heart wrenching feeling that comes with discovering that something you’ve believed in your whole life isn’t actually true? Well, I have – sort of. My belief systems were vigorously shaken when sometime during my childhood, I discovered that there were other people in the world who bore the name “Jesus”.

It was a difficult piece of information for my then young mind to come to terms with, because everything I’d learnt (from Sunday school, sermons, etc.) up until that point, had reinforced only one idea; that the name “Jesus” was so powerful, able to make all knees bow to, and all tongues confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:10-11): the “original Jesus” (as far as I was concerned). It didn’t make sense to my nascent self that a random hombre from Mexico could bear the name “Jesus” without having any special powers.

Things got even more interesting (so to speak) when I found out that Jesus (my “original Jesus”) wasn’t even the first to bear His name. Jesus was the Hellenized, and then Latinized form of the Hebrew name Yeshua (or Joshua or Hoshea) which means “the Lord saves”.

Yeah, it was a pretty common Israeli name.

I would later go on to learn that what made Jesus special wasn’t necessarily the name itself. It was who He was and what He did that made Him special. Philippians 2:6-11 elucidates this clearly.

I got to learn that it’s not the mere verbal mention of the name of Jesus that makes things happen (“mention” is even mentioned [lol] in Philippians 2 at all); it is the authority inherent in the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ that makes things happen.

I didn’t have cause to think about this in another way until recently, when I was reading a scholarly work on the Pharisees. The first chapter of the book discussed the possible etymology of the name “Pharisee”. I assure you that it wasn’t a very exciting read, but something in the discussion caught my attention.

The author was discussing how that names (especially those derived from historic figures or everyday words) often lose their lexical meaning and become purely referential. In simpler terms, the definition of a person’s name would not necessarily describe the character or skills of a person.

To further simplify things, a Captain Cook might not mean the bearer of the name would be an excellent cook – he could well just be an explorer discovering new islands.

I couldn’t help thinking how this applied to the name “Jesus”. More importantly, I couldn’t help but think how the word “Christian” has undergone this transition from lexical to referential.

When the disciples were first called “Christians” in Antioch (Acts 11:26), it was because they did the things Christ Himself was said to have done. If there were Merriam-Webster dictionaries in circulation at that time, “Christian” would have been a word with lexical meaning.

“Christian” does feature in current dictionaries as a word with lexical meaning. But over the years, it’s acquired a referential status with people who bear the name “Christian”, AND with people who claim to be Christians but (unrepentantly) continue to do the opposite of what Jesus Christ would have done.

“So I… appeal to you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called [that is, to live a life that exhibits godly character, moral courage, personal integrity and mature behavior- a life that expresses gratitude to God for your salvation].”

(Ephesians 4:1, AMP [Paraphrased])

Are you a Christian? Does the name mean something to you, or is it merely your “get-out-of-hell” ticket? Does the word “Christian” refer to the box you tick to denote your religion of choice, or does it define your day-to-day actions and decisions?

What does it mean to you?