GOD: “PLEASE – USE MY BEST NAME!!” – Greg Albrecht
Question:
A family member keeps telling me that one of the Hebrew names for God is the only one we should use if we expect “God” to listen to us. This seems sheer nonsense to me. What do you think?
Response:
As you say, the proposition is nonsensical. Similar “logic” would determine that God only hears prayers in Hebrew – or maybe Greek – but certainly not English. Further, if we must use one of his Hebrew names, given that names in one language are spelled and pronounced differently in another, how can we ensure we don’t offend him with a flawed pronunciation or wrong spelling?
Some take this illogical thinking further – proposing that saying or writing God’s name is using it in vain – they write G-d – to make sure they don’t profane him and perhaps make him mad?!
Others select a biblical attribute of God and insist on it as the only correct “name” for him. An attribute is not a name. Some who are part of the movement generically known as sacred names choose one of the many Hebrew names for God and make an idol of letters and sounds – isn’t there an Old Testament commandment advising otherwise?
Indeed, constructing a literary or spoken one-and-only way to address God is just another example of humans making God into a more manageable god they can create, manage, and control, thus diminishing, degrading, and devaluing him in the process.
God is not a child or an animal who must learn his name and learn to respond to our name for him, dancing to our tune. The very idea is primitive and superstitious paganism, far removed from the gospel of Jesus Christ, who himself, as our Lord and Savior, has many names – Jesus, Christ, Chief Shepherd, Master, King of kings, Prince of peace, the Light of the world, I Am, the way, the truth and the life, the resurrection and the life, etc. Jesus, the incarnate God who reveals the Father, did not and does not insist on one and only one “true” name.
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