All in a Name: Edition #2

Thursday, December 1st

All in a Name: Edition #2

Before I get into what I was gong to study, I read this and wanted to address it more from what I gathered and understood from the book.

From a friend:
He has been reading 2 books recently, one which is titled 'Cry of the Soul'.

He seems to agree with the statement above, that the goodness of God is revealed to BY the pain and suffering we are confronted with by God.

Please do not take the above statement of his entire context, which is necessary to understand his overall views on the matter of suffering.

He refers to the thorn in the flesh that Paul was given by God as a proof text.

I understand that children of God are chastened, and that may include physical suffering.

What I do not quite understand is that such a statement would apply to those without.

Those who have been exposed to the gospel, which is supposed to be the power of God unto salvation; and have rejected the offer of Christ's love: Does God sent such suffering and pain to show his goodness?

Or, is this not the message written by Jonathon at all?

Is Jonathon simply saying that God confronts us with the pain and suffering of the scriptures in order to show us His love and goodness and righteousness?

This I could grasp quickly, in that we see God's love in many situations in which God provided a way of escape for obedient servants, but did not for the wicked. An example you might think of would be the Israelites at the crossing of the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his army drowning in the sea as it closed behind the escaping Israelites. In this example, the suffering children of God were provided a route of escape, which they took; and the wicked Egyptians, thinking the same route was an option for them, taking it, were destroyed.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic?

I would be interested to hear from any of you on this matter.

I have seen folks, when confronted by pain and suffering, blame God.

When they blame God, sometimes they separate themselves from the fellowship with God; sometimes they divorce their mates, sometimes they commit suicide.

Others, especially faithful, studious Christians, will accept the unavoidable and pray diligently for the strength to endure in faith. Some will also be able to rejoice and praise God for the benefits they gained from their trial, as they look upon pain and suffering as a trial of their faith. Does the trying of your faith build patience when you endure and do not deny Christ because of your trouble?

What think ye?

Johnny’s response:
Well, I think this is a good topic… inspires thought and I think the answer can be fairly simple. Without suffering, without hardship and the disarray that life brings, there would be no need of hope. If life went the way I planned, the way I wanted, and everything was roses and no family members died, no pets died, I had more than enough money in the bank, never experienced a cut, cancer, pain, or loss, then would I ever even seek God? Would I want to have a relationship with God if my life was always peaches? How can I depend on someone or turn to someone for help if I don’t ever need help? Hardships should bring about learning and growth. And if I don’t experience a hardship, pain, loss, however you may call it, then how can I bring about God’s glory?

But I have had a thought about Pharaoh fairly recently. God hardened his heart. And then God struck him down. So are some people destined for hell? Did Pharaoh ever have a chance? Personally, I don’t know, maybe back in his day, God decided who was in and who was out, simply because there was a “chosen” people and then everybody else… I wouldn’t say that is the case today. The chosen people are those who accept the message and the message goes out to everyone. Anyway, I will be checking the messages on and off, what I do read; it is of a great conversation.

Now, onto what I will be studying out today.

Reading in the book “Dare to Dream Again,” there is a list of the names God calls us by. I found this rather inspiring. Here is the list:

• Ambassadors of Christ
• Anointed of God
• Appointed for eternal life
• Aroma of Christ
• Believers
• Body of Christ
• Branches
• Bride of Christ
• Brothers of Jesus
• The Called
• Children of God
• Children of Light
• Christians
• The Chosen
• A Chosen people
• Church of Christ
• Church of God
• Church of the firstborn
• City of the Living God
• Disciples
• Faithful followers
• The Faithful in Christ Jesus
• Family of God
• Friends
• Friends of Jesus
• God’s fellow workers
• God’s field
• God’s building
• God’s elect
• Heirs of God
• Holy and faithful brothers in Christ
• Holy nation
• Holy priesthood
• Light of the world
• Men sent from God
• People belonging to God
• People of God
• Royal priesthood
• Salt of the earth
• Saints in Christ Jesus
• Servants of Christ
• Slaves of Christ
• Soldiers of Christ Jesus
• Sons of the day
• Sons of the light
• Sons of the living God

So, even though my name can be translated into “A counselor who is like God and noted for his manliness, generosity and unselfishness,” my name is also listed above. My name is called “Christian.” It is also called “soldier of Christ Jesus.” But the one I love the most would be “heirs of God.” It’s like God has me in his will or something.

Heir (noun):

• A person who inherits or is entitled by law or by the terms of a will to inherit the estate of another.
• A person who succeeds or is in line to succeed to a hereditary rank, title, or office.
• One who receives or is expected to receive a heritage, as of ideas, from a predecessor.

And by the definition, I am a predecessor to God! But I think I would be comfortable with the idea of being one who succeeds him in rank, title, and office.

Succeed (verb):

• To come after in time or order; follow.
• To come after and take the place of.

Now, last night at midweek (and I am ashamed by not having been to midweek in a while), we talked about Ephesians 6 and then jumped over to Revelations 2. And what caught my eye and was discussed a little was the Nicolaitans. When I first saw the word, I thought of the Cable TV station Nickelodeon, and that Nicolaitans were obviously something to do with them…

Revelations 2:6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Now, I went to dictionary.com, and this is what is said of the word Nicolaitan.

Nicolaitan: \Ni`co*la"i*tan\, n. [So called from Nicolas of Antioch, mentioned in Acts 6:5.] (Eccl. Hist.) One of certain corrupt persons in the early church at Ephesus, who are censured in Revelation 2:6, 15.

So, if a Nicolaitan is one of a corrupted person, corrupted by Nicolas’ teaching at that (and this is not verified in the least, it is just opening up the study a little more), then this makes it a little more interesting…

Acts 6:1-7
1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."

5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

Note: I just find it interesting how it says “to” instead of “from.” Maybe I’m messed up and reading it wrong…

Nicolaitanes--IRENAEUS [Against Heresies, 1.26.3] and TERTULLIAN [Prescription against Heretics, 46] make these followers of Nicolas, one of the seven (honorably mentioned, Act 6:3, 5). They (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA [Miscellanies, 2.20 3.4] and EPIPHANIUS [Heresies, 25]) evidently confound the latter Gnostic Nicolaitanes, or followers of one Nicolaos, with those of Revelation. MICHAELIS' view is probable: Nicolaos (conqueror of the people) is the Greek version of Balaam, from Hebrew "Belang Am," "Destroyer of the people." Revelation abounds in such duplicate Hebrew and Greek names: as Apollyon, Abaddon: Devil, Satan: Yea (Greek, "Nai"), Amen. The name, like other names, Egypt, Babylon, Sodom, is symbolic. Compare Rev 2:14, 15, which shows the true sense of Nicolaitanes; they are not a sect, but professing Christians who, like Balaam of old, tried to introduce into the Church a false freedom, that is, licentiousness; this was a reaction in the opposite direction from Judaism, the first danger to the Church combated in the council of Jerusalem, and by Paul in the Epistle to Galatians. These symbolical Nicolaitanes, or followers of Balaam, abused Paul's doctrine of the grace of God into a plea for lasciviousness (2Pe 2:15, 16, 19 Jud 1:4, 11 who both describe the same sort of seducers as followers of Balaam). The difficulty that they should appropriate a name branded with infamy in Scripture is met by TRENCH: The Antinomian Gnostics were so opposed to John as a Judaizing apostle that they would assume as a name of chiefest honor one which John branded with dishonor.

Note: Now, I got this off of blueletterbible.org, from one of the commentaries there… So, my take on this whole Nicolaitans thing would be that it would just like that of the Pharisees and following rules taught by man and not that of God. And I am sure the one thing that gets us as people is justification. Those acting as a Pharisee would justify their actions. I am certain that those of the Nicolaitanes would also justify their actions as well. I find it common for people to take just one verse, and sometimes just part of a verse and run with it, and not taking the rest of the bible into consideration. So the question I have to ask myself then is this: do I take just a portion and not study out the rest? I can say that I used to, but I feel I have repented of that now. But then the next thing is continuing in the habit that I am in now and study the scriptures on a continual basis.

Licentiousness (noun):

• Sexually immoral; pursuing desires aggressively and selfishly, unchecked by morality especially in sexual matters.

Now, this was a good little study. Johnny Out.