I want to lighten things up a little with this rather long post. I enjoy word games and puzzles, like scrabble and crosswords, to keep my vocabulary intact and my mind active. I learned to spell phonetically, so there are a whole lot of exceptions in English to remember. One of the things I found interesting when I studied German was that if you can correctly pronounce a German word, you can spell it correctly too. At any rate, the older I get, the more I thank God for spell check. Although, there have been times recently when I have stumped spell check because I couldn’t get close enough to the correct spelling. Some of the suggestions I got were hilarious.
My father-in-law used to make up words. I never did figure out if he was playing around or when he couldn’t remember or pronounce a word he would just insert one that sounded OK to him. Carol would come up with a word once in a while you couldn’t find in a dictionary, but she always did it with purpose. My favorite was the word she used for hors d’oeuvres. Her father would have called them horse divers, but Carol called them appeteasers. I always thought that was such a good name for those little tidbits. I tried it once myself recently. Going to the noon service on Sunday, I normally have a late lunch/early dinner. I figured if a late breakfast/early lunch was called brunch, my Sunday meal must be linner. Sadly, that has not caught on, but it draws some weird looks when I use it.
In addition to the names we give things, sometimes the names we call each other can also be interesting. The King James translators Anglicized the names of New Testament characters, including the Son of God, who was not called Jesus during his physical lifetime on earth. I was talking to a dear friend recently about baptism of the Holy Spirit and prayer language. She told me that for the longest time she was only given one word. She had no idea of its meaning, but she felt God’s presence when she used it in prayer. One day she heard someone at church say it and she learned that Yeshua is the Hebrew name given to Christ at birth. She also told me how she received the rest of her prayer language, but that is a story I will share at another time, with her permission.
A purist will tell you that Instead of Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the Nativity of Bethlehem; they were actually Miriam, Yoseph and Yeshua. Does that matter? Have we been worshiping and praying using the wrong name since the year 1611? Of course not! Jesus is just as much the name of God’s Son as Jim is my name, even though it doesn’t appear on my birth certificate. As a man, He understood and spoke the language of those around him. As the Son of God, He understands and speaks the language of every person on earth (even my version of English). The proof is found in the countless changed lives, answered prayers and miracles that have occurred in Jesus’ name. I love these words of a song, “If you feel that no one loves you and your life is out of hand, I know a man who can. Some call him Savior, the redeemer of all men. I call him Jesus because he’s my dearest friend.” His Holy Spirit has never corrected me when I pray in the name of Jesus and there has always been a response to my prayer. It hasn’t always been the answer I was hoping for, but my Abba (Heavenly Daddy) always responds to a prayer in the name of Jesus, His Son and my Savior.