Category: Scripture

7 min read

Scripture

Changing Names

Eddie O'Neill

April 5, 2019 10:30 am April 5, 2019

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7 min read

For the average student of the Bible, who starts his or her study ‘“in the beginning” with the book of Genesis, it doesn’t take long to realize that names play…

For the average student of the Bible, who starts his or her study ‘“in the beginning” with the book of Genesis, it doesn’t take long to realize that names play a significant role throughout sacred Scripture.

They reveal a certain characteristic, or mark an event, in the lives of people and the history of places. Names are sometimes changed as well. In fact, it only takes 17 chapters into Genesis before the great patriarch of Israel, Abram, becomes Abraham.

Why is that? Why does God change people’s names?

The short answer to that question is that a name change signifies a new call in life. It is symbolic of a new identity.

From Abram to Abraham

In the case of Abram, whom God would make Abraham, the change in names reflected a new status. At age 75, Abram is called by the Lord to go forth from his native land and begin a new nation (see Gn 12). He is told that he will receive a plot of land as far as his eyes can see and given descendents as numerous as the dust of the earth (Gn 13:15-16).

He was attentive to the Lord’s directives throughout his journey in the land of Canaan. When Abram is the age of 99, the Lord calls him and says, “no longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations” (Gn 17:5).

In Hebrew, the name Abram means “exulted father,” while Abraham means “father of a multitude.” The name change became a benediction of sorts. God memorialized Abraham’s obedience and faithfulness and blessed him for the road ahead. As the saying goes, behind every great man is a strong woman. Abraham had Sarai. God changed her name to Sarah, or “mother of multitudes,” and thus a new calling. “God further said to Abraham: ‘As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai; her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations, and rulers of peoples shall issue from him’ ” (Gn 17:15-16).

God appointed a royal couple in Abraham and Sarah. The patriarch now has a matriarch, and she will give birth to a noble son, Isaac, who will continue to bear witness to the Old Covenant.

Also in the Old Testament is the story of Jacob, who becomes Israel. Jacob means “deceitful one” (literally, “leg-puller”), and the son of Rebekah lived up to his name sake. His older twin brother, Esau, points this out when he explains that Jacob took away his birthright and “now he has taken away my blessing” (Gn 27:36). However, God turned the deceitful Jacob into the “prince of God” as he is given the new name Israel just five chapters later. God says to him, “You shall no longer be spoken of as Jacob, but as Israel” (Gn 32:28). Under his new name, he is called to be the leader of the 12 tribes of Israel and becomes a key Old Testament patriarch.

In with the New

In the New Testament, two notable name changes are those of Peter and Paul. Peter is the second-most mentioned name in the New Testament after Jesus. However, he wasn’t born Peter. His birth name was Simon son of Jonah (see Mt 16:17). He and his brother Andrew grew up together fishing on the Sea of Galilee. They were among the first disciples chosen by Our Lord.

“Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Kephas’ (which is translated Peter)” (Jn 1:42).

Why did the Lord call this man “Rock?” Because of the mission he was about to receive. The Lord said to him, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it’” (Mt 16:18). The fisherman from Bethsaida had become the rock, or the building stone, of the Church. God had chosen him with a new mission. He was now a fisher of men. His new name gave him his identity as the first pope and leader of the Church.

A name change took place as well to Saul, who became Paul. However, it wasn’t God who changed this Jewish man’s name. Not unlike his contemporaries of the time, it is believed that Saul, a Hebrew living under Roman rule, would have acquired more than one name. The story of Paul’s conversion is narrated three times in the Acts of the Apostles. However, in none of these stories is God mentioned as the one changing Saul’s name. On the contrary, it is Jesus who says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). His new name is mentioned briefly in Acts 13:9: “But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him.” While the name change from Saul to Paul doesn’t exactly fit the same mold of Abraham and the others, it can be reasoned that it signified his new identity as the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Devotion to the Holy Name

Reverence to the Holy Name of Jesus began in the early Church. The apostles and the first disciples were the first to cultivate devotion to the sacred name of Jesus.

St. Paul, in his Letter to the Colossians, writes, “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (3:17).

During the time of the Council of Lyons in 1274, Pope Gregory X issued a call to the universal Church to take up this devotion to the Holy Name. Soon after, the Dominicans took up the Church’s pleas and began preaching on the virtues of the Holy Name.

Why Do Religious Change Their Names?

In generations past, it was the norm that religious nuns and, at times, orders of priests or brothers ran Catholic grade schools. The presence of these dedicated women was regularly recognizable through their distinct religious habits, and quite often the nuns carried unique names.

For any third- or fourth-grader who had Sister Mary of the Cross as his or her teacher or Sister John the Baptist in the classroom across the hall, the question might have arisen of where did she get that name from? Didn’t her parents know she was a girl? Why did they name her John the Baptist?

The answer lies in the fact that the taking of a new name symbolizes the entering of a new state in life. Think of marriage. When a woman marries, she normally drops her maiden name and takes on the name of her husband. She is no longer a maiden, but rather is now a married woman.

While this tradition was most prevalent among female orders, it was not un-common for male religious, particularly monastic orders of men, to change their names when they professed vows or were ordained.

Customs varied on what a newly professed name could be. Sometimes the women were allowed to suggest a new name. In other instances, sisters were assigned a name. In either case the ultimate decision was in the hands of the mother superior

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2 min read

Scripture

The Tree of Life In Genesis

Father Ray Ryland

April 2, 2019 2:56 pm April 2, 2019

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2 min read

Genesis 2:9 introduces us to the tree of life: “Out of the ground the Lord God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food,…

Genesis 2:9 introduces us to the tree of life: “Out of the ground the Lord God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life also in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” According to Genesis 2:16-17, God told Adam, “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden [evidently including the tree of life] except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die” — that is, become subject to death.

Why did God make Adam and Eve subject to this danger? For Adam and Eve’s wills to be free, there had to be the possibility of misusing them. Otherwise, our first parents would have been mere automatons.

The tempter, the father of lies, persuaded Eve (and through her, Adam) that eating the forbidden fruit would confer divine status on them. Indeed, the tempter spoke the truth, but with an entirely different, ominous meaning. By this act of disobedience, she and Adam certainly would know good and evil. But how? By themselves, actually becoming evil, disobedient to God.

Note that the fruit of the tree of life, which was believed to confer eternal life, was not forbidden to Adam and Eve not prior to their fall, but after their fall. Only then — and for Adam and Eve’s ultimate benefit — did God forbid them to eat the fruit of the tree of life (see Gn 3:22-24). In their condition of disobedience they would eternally have been cut off from God. It was an act of mercy for God to prevent them from plunging themselves into damnation. God had in mind the new Adam through which he would restore to the human race the possibility of eternal life lost in the fall of Adam and Eve.

What became of the tree of life after the fall? God drove out our first parents, “stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gn 3:24). Again, God took precaution against fallen humanity being eternally separated from Him. We know now the new Adam reopened the way to eternal life.

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4 min read

Scripture

Jesus’ Secrecy In The Gospel

Elizabeth Scalia

March 22, 2019 10:25 am March 22, 2019

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4 min read

It has always puzzled me, in the Gospels, to find Jesus urging secrecy upon those He has healed. On the other hand, it never surprises me that the beneficiaries of…

It has always puzzled me, in the Gospels, to find Jesus urging secrecy upon those He has healed.

On the other hand, it never surprises me that the beneficiaries of his favor, like the two blind men in Matthew, ignore him and go off telling everyone about the wonderful thing that has happened to them. Their behavior seems wholly human, doesn’t it? It strikes me that Jesus was asking a lot of these men — to return to their families and friends with perfect sight and no explanation of how this had come about.

Jesus does it again, in the Gospel of Mark, when He heals a deaf man, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (“Be opened!”). Immediately, the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more He ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.

This time He orders not just the object of His healing, but the people with Him, to keep quiet about His miraculous favor. In fact, the text suggests that Jesus several times asked them to pipe down about it, but to no avail.

When something great has happened in our lives, we want to share it with others, and this Jesus acknowledged in Luke’s Gospel, when He spoke about the woman who had lost her coin: “Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost’” (Lk 15:8-9).

This makes more sense. Something lost and then found is worth exclaiming over, and we are called to be witnesses to the Good News — to tell the great workings of God in our lives.

A few months ago, I made a general confession. It took over three hours, during which time I experienced such an abundance of genuine healing — at one point, I could literally feel a heaviness that had resided upon my chest for decades simply depart — that I urged anyone who would listen to do the same. I had swept my house and discovered something I had lost, and I wanted everyone to “rejoice with me.” Jesus would understand my behavior.

For that matter, Jesus himself acknowledged that keeping secrets is eventually a futile undertaking: “For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light” (Lk 8:17).

Perhaps the first chapter of Mark sheds some light on Jesus’ reticence; Jesus heals a leper, and urges him to tell no one, but to show himself to the priests. The leper spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside, in deserted places, and people kept coming to Him from everywhere.

There it is.

We’ve read stories of lottery winners who find themselves besieged by long-lost friends and family members seeking to benefit from the windfall. Those they help often come back for more assistance — all expectation, with little appreciation.

The “lucky” winner begins to feel like little more than a walking ATM, his humanity undervalued, his personhood no longer seen by people who have become blind to everything but what he can provide, until the cash runs out.

Jesus’ healing gifts could never run out, but perhaps He was trying to prevent needy crowds from seeing Him only as a means to an immediate end, devaluing His humanity and completely missing His message. Such behavior kept Jesus from entering “a town openly. He remained outside” (Mk 1:45).

Urging people to tell no one was a futile wish on Jesus’ part. He knew humanity too well to count on it. All He wanted, though, was to be able to walk openly among the people He meant to redeem, and to not be forced to remain outside, away from us.

A need for secrecy is past. Let us bring Jesus openly into our cities and towns and families, telling what He has done for us.

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1 min read

Scripture

Inside the Holy of Holies

Father Ray Ryland

March 21, 2019 8:35 am March 21, 2019

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The Bible says that when Christ died, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (see Lk 23:45). This curtain referred to in the Gospels enclosed the Holy…

The Bible says that when Christ died, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (see Lk 23:45). This curtain referred to in the Gospels enclosed the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the Temple. The original Temple was constructed in the reign of Solomon in the 10th century B.C. The Holy of Holies housed the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments had been inscribed by God, and the Ark remained in the Temple for approximately 400 years. When that temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the Ark of the Covenant was lost. Seventy or so years later the Temple was rebuilt. From that time on, however, the Holy of Holies was a bare room. The Jews must have repaired the curtain after it was torn at the crucifixion of Our Lord. Until the Romans finally destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D., the high priest — and he alone — continued to enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on the solemn Day of Atonement. There he offered intercession for the people of Israel.

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2 min read

Scripture

On Killing Isaac

Michael R. Heinlein

March 21, 2019 8:10 am March 21, 2019

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2 min read

When God reveals himself to Abraham, he lavishes the promise of many gifts upon him. In return, Abraham is invited to worship God. God does not impose himself, nor does…

When God reveals himself to Abraham, he lavishes the promise of many gifts upon him. In return, Abraham is invited to worship God. God does not impose himself, nor does he have any need to enter into this covenant for any reason other than love. And so, God lavishes his love upon Abraham and in return seeks his faithfulness in true freedom.

From the outset, however, it could be considered that Abraham’s intentions might not be the most sterling. Obviously, he only needed to say he worshipped God and would receive God’s abundance in return. It seems like an easy, and maybe even selfish, deal for him initially. But then God gives Abraham a defining challenge to prove his commitment to the bargain.

The episode where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is not the story of a vengeful, twisted God. Rather, God is asking Abraham to worship him in thanksgiving and sacrifice. Abraham knew that the abundant blessings God bestowed upon him would be fulfilled through his promised son, Isaac. Later in the Bible, the prophet Samuel sums it up succinctly: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to the LORD’s command? Obedience is better than sacrifice, to listen, better than the fat of rams” (1 Sam 15: 22).

In this story, Abraham’s true worship of God is put to the test, and his obedience and trust in God is thoroughly established. Abraham is unhesitant to give God his obedience, even if he might not understand what God is asking of him. Abraham serves as a model of what it means to live obedient lives of sacrifice and thanksgiving in worship of God. Abraham’s story shows that God’s plans often defy human logic and show a divine logic at work. Since God is love alone, we have every reason to trust that what he asks of us is in our best interest. As St. Paul says, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28). Abraham’s story embodies this vision.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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4 min read

Scripture

The Bible Made Me Catholic!

Carl E. Olson

March 15, 2019 8:01 am March 15, 2019

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4 min read

“The Bible,” said Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), “is a stream wherein the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.” As a young evangelical Protestant, I paid no…

“The Bible,” said Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), “is a stream wherein the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.”

As a young evangelical Protestant, I paid no attention to Gregory the Great, but I would have viewed myself as an “elephant” when it came to the Bible. I had read the Bible and memorized verses from the age of three, taken correspondence Bible courses, attended regular Bible studies and earned a degree from a Bible college.

Truth to be told, I was a water skipper, barely touching the surface of sacred Scripture. Yet several verses puzzled me; some even bothered me. Here are five passages that stand out to me, 20 years after I began to seriously consider the claims of the Catholic Church.

• John 6: The entire, lengthy chapter is a brilliantly constructed theological tour de force. The final section (beginning with verse 51) contains a repeated claim, made by Jesus, that began gnawing at me (pun intended!) even while at Bible college: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (v. 53). Whatever could He mean? I consulted numerous Protestant commentaries, and they spoke of symbolic language and metaphors; some seemed more intent on what Jesus didn’t mean than on what He did mean! I was not satisfied, as those explanations made little sense of the obvious shock — and awe — intended. Then I discovered the early second-century Letter to the Smyrnaeans, written by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who denounced those heretics (the Docetists) who denied that “that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

• 1 Timothy 3:15: From an early age I had been taught that the Bible was the foundation of all truth, the final word from God on anything and everything of importance. The “Church,” I believed, was the entirety of all “true believers,” bound together by spiritual, invisible bonds. External bonds and signs of communion were fine, as far as they went — which usually wasn’t far at all. Catholics, it seemed, were always talking about “the Church,” while we were focused on Jesus and the Bible. Yet the apostle Paul, who preached Christ constantly, described the Church as “the household of God” and the “pillar and foundation of truth.” How had I missed that? In truth, I had read it many times, but without much thought at all for the deep implications of Paul’s words.

• Matthew 16:13-20: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (v. 18). Those words have been scrutinized, analyzed and parsed a million times. For me, they made more and more sense as I studied early Church history in detail. I found that not only was the authority of the Petrine office recognized and upheld very early, it was a truly catholic belief. Those who rejected it were usually those who also rejected core teachings about Jesus, salvation and the sacraments. Also, I saw how Jesus’ words fit into his identity as the Son of David, the Messiah-King whose kingdom would include offices and positions of authority, in part because the Church was both an invisible and visible Body.

• 2 Peter 1:3-4: As an evangelical, I usually thought of salvation as an escape from sin and death. The part I missed was the call to “become partakers of the divine nature” (v. 4, RSV). The apostle John wrote: “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (see 1 Jn 3:1-3). In short, the Catholic Church teaches that we can be filled with God’s actual, Trinitarian life. “Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life” (CCC, no. 1997; see also Nos. 460, 1996).

• The fifth verse is the one that doesn’t exist, the never-written Bible verse that lists the 46 Old Testament books and the 27 New Testament books. As Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa likes to say, “The Bible did not come with a Table of Contents.” It is true: “All scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tm 3:16). But what scripture? Who decides what is in and what is out? Through the study of history, I learned the truth of Blessed John Henry Newman’s famous statement: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com) and writes from Eugene, Ore.

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