Thursday, February 2, 2006

Good Morning

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:12-17; read pages 109-110 in Barclay; stop before "Letter to Thyatira"

 

-- ending our reading on Pergamum, a short read today.

 

-- one of the things that Barclay does that I do enjoy is the identification of patterns or ideas in the Bible that I had not noticed before.  There is one of those in this section -- the idea that a change in name often accompanies a change in status.  He uses the idea of Abram becoming Abraham, etc.  He focuses on the Old Testament, which has to be the only reason he didn't mention Saul becoming Paul.

 

-- That said, the idea that we will be so thoroughly transformed when we go to heaven that even our name would change is unsettling to me, at least now with my first exposure to the idea. Again, this is somewhat speculation on Barclay's part, but there it is in black and white in the verses we are studying.  The idea that when I go to heaven that I might not be Jay is weird, but then again, the name I would get would be given to me by Jesus, so how can that not be great?

 

-- And the thought occured to me that there is a very common occassion for your name to change, which is when a woman gets married.  That's your last name, not your first name or whole name, so that doesn't seem to be the exactly the same as what is being talked about here, but a huge change it seems to me.  Maybe in class on Sunday some of our married women can share with us their thoughts and feelings about changing their name when they got married.

 

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about the practice of women changing their name at marriage:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_name

 

-- One other perspective I did gain from the Wikipedia article -- one of the modern knocks about women changing their name is the implication that they belong to the husband, the idea that changing the name signifies the husband's ownership of the wife.  We can debate that point of view either way, but that made me think about this -- of course God can change my name if we wants to --- he does own me -- I am his.  The more I think about it, from where I was at the beginning of this post, is that it is arrogant of me to be put out that God might give me a new name when I get to heaven.  Everything I have belongs to God, and that includes my very name.k

 

 

Today's Scripture

 

The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

John 10:3

Today's prayer requests:     Corey

Corey is one of Megan Douglas's students, and yesterday they found a tumor on his brain.  Don't know yet the course of treatment, but we need to remember the family in our prayers.

Today's class member prayer:

Ron Ray

Have a great day.

Jay