Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

A NAME CHANGE AT 99

This entry was posted on 02-12-2010 and is filed under STUDIES IN GENESIS.

Have you ever had the urge to change your name? Three of my classmates that I went to high school with in Illinois have changed their names ~ and I am not talking about your last name being changed by marriage. I am perfectly content with the name my mother gave me and have no intentions of ever changing my name. But one day God changed Abram's name. The big name change is found in our text today. "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations" (Gen. 17:5 NKJV).

Abram. Abraham. It doesn't seem like a significant change. But it really is a big change. "Abram" was given to him by his earthly father. "Abraham" was was bestowed upon him by his heavenly Father. "Abram" means "father of heights." In my book The Biblical Roots of Islam I write, "This could be in reference to the pagan practice of those who lived in Ur and worshiped the moon from the highest platform of the ziggurat (stepped pyramid), as high to the sky as they could get. Abram's father, Terah, was a worshiper of other gods (Josh. 24:4)." Now, when Abram is 99 years old (Gen. 17:1), God gives him a new name ~ "Abraham" ~ which can mean either "father of a multitude" or "father of many nations." This was because of God's covenant with Abraham, first given in Genesis 12, reaffirmed in Genesis 15, and now sealed with the rite of circumcision in Genesis 17, that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the skies.

Did you know that you also have been given a new name by the Father? If you have accepted Christ and are living for Him, you are now known as "Christian." God declared that one day His people would "be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD will name" (Isa. 62:2). I believe that new name was revealed for the first time in Acts 11:26 ~ "And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." My Greek teacher in college, Donald G. Hunt, writes in his commentary on Acts (Simple, Stimulating Studies in the Great Book of Acts) that the Greek word for "called" is chrematizo and could just as well have been translated were divinely called. God has given you a new name too!

Hymn: "What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart! I have light in my soul for which long I had sought, since Jesus came into my heart!" (R. H. McDaniel)