Today a name does not seem to mean much. We glibly ask, "What is a name?" As children we chanted, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me." A person's name is only a label, a mark of identification. A name answers the question, "Who are you?" Because a name seems to mean little in our time, some give their children odd names. One had the name "Miss Ima Hogg." One mother named her daughter "Alpha Omega" because she was her first and hopefully her last child. A black child was named "Nevaseena" because her father died before her birth and he had never seen her. No wonder 50,000 people go to courts annually to have their names changed.

In the Bible it is the opposite. A name is most important, as important as the person named. In biblical thinking you do not have a n…