I've been thinking about the significance of names in the Bible. For a while, I have been frustrated that God told Moses and all generations thereafter to call Him "Yahweh", but Bible translators call Him "LORD" instead. I think the enemy tricked them into concealing His name.
Speaking of the enemy, it is ironic to me that he tricked the Bible translators into obscuring God's name with the noun "lord" (from Strong's H113 - adon - which means "master" or "ruler"), while a noun (Strong's H7854 - satan - which means "opponent" or "adversary") was elevated to a proper noun "Satan". I'm not sure we should dignify him with a name; perhaps we could simply refer to him as "the enemy". On the other hand, he likes to hide in the shadows, so maybe we should call him out "by name". Alternatively, Beelzebub (Strong's H1176 - lord of flies) or Beelzeboul (Strong's G954 - lord of dung), etc.
Jesus grew up in Nazareth (Matt. 2), so he was called a "Nazarene", which is like "Nazarite" (Strong's H5139 - naziyr - which means a person devoted or consecrated to God). It seems ironic to me that Jesus's first public miracle was turning water into wine.
I also wonder if it would be helpful to call Jesus by his Greek (Strong's G2424 - Ἰησοῦς - "ee-ay-sous") or Hebrew (Strong's H3091 - יְהוֹשׁוּעַ - "ye-ho-shoo-a" - which means "Yahweh is salvation") name instead of the English name.
Father, thank you for the privilege of calling you by name. Jesus, thank you for being personal. Holy Spirit, thank you for your patience with me. I love you.
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