Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's In A Name? | Advent | Luke 1:57-80

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Why is it important that John the Baptist got his name? Does your name have meaning? What can names reveal about faith? In today's episode, Keith shares about the importance of acting out of faith. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Luke 1:57-80 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. In the Bible, names are very important. Names do more than give you an easy way to refer to someone. Names tell you something about the person, or at least about their parents' aspirations for them. While names don't play the same role in our time and place as they did in the ancient world, they are still important in shape a person's life.

With some names, you can tell them. parents were trying to be unique. Other names have a more classic feel. Oftentimes, a kid is named after someone in the family. When I grew up, there was an elementary gym teacher with the last name of pop. Kids called him Mr. Pop. Here's the catch. His first name was soda. Can you imagine introducing yourself as soda pop? His sister's name was Lolly. You think I'm making this up, but I'm not. Sometimes we change something's name to give it a new image. For example, there were fish that tasted great but had weird names so people didn't want to order them in a restaurant.

But they changed the tooth fish to Chilean sea bass. Wouldn't you rather order a sea bass for dinner than a toothfish? They changed the name of a fish called slimehead to orange ruffy. No one is going to order slime head to eat. Names are important in today's story about the birth of John the Baptist in Luke chapter 1. Up to this point, Luke has been interweaving the story of Jesus and John to get us to compare and contrast their stories. For example, both Jesus and John's births are announced in advance by the angel Gabriel. Both births are unnatural or miraculous. In both cases, the angel tells what the name should be.

But even more important than the similarities are the contrasts, the differences. John was born to an aged and sterile woman. Jesus was born to a virgin. John was given a name which means God is gracious. Jesus was given a name which means Savior. John was to prepare the way for the Lord. Jesus was the Lord who had reigned forever. By paralleling the announcements and births of Jesus and John, Luke is teaching us that God is uniquely

at work here. But the story also makes clear that Jesus is far superior than John the Baptist. Gabriel says about Jesus, he will be great, and he will be called the son of the most high, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And Luke also wants us to contrast the response of the parents, specifically Zechariah, who is John's father, and Mary, who is Jesus' mother. The reason I think that is because Elizabeth, who is Zechariah's wife, commended Mary in a way that

Sounds like she is criticizing her husband's lack of faith. Luke 145. Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Mary and Zechariah's response to these miraculous births was surprising. You would expect Zechariah to believe and Mary to doubt. After all, Zechariah was a priest and Mary was just a young girl living in a nowhere town born to a poor family. Zechariah was married and praying for a child.

while Mary was a 12 to 14 year old virgin. But it was Mary who believed the angel. How did Mary's faith express itself? Well, when the angel was finished predicting the miraculous birth of Jesus, Mary said in verse 34, How can this be since I have no husband? Zechariah said, how can I know this? I mean, Zechariah asked for more evidence,

but Mary asks for an explanation. Zechariah says he can't be sure. Mary says she can't understand. Mary receives at least a partial explanation from the angel, but Zechariah receives a rebuke and is made unable to speak by the angel. Luke's point is, when you hear about Jesus, be like Mary, don't be like Zechariah. What do we learn from Zechariah's unbelief? Well, the religiosity doesn't guarantee faith. I mean, here's a man who's a priest who'd been inside the Holy of Holies, the place that God dwelt in a special way, but he didn't believe.

We also learned that your past obedience doesn't guarantee future faith. He was known as a righteous man, and yet he didn't believe God's promise when it came to him. And that knowledge doesn't guarantee faith. I mean, he knew so much about the Old Testament law, all that God had done in the stories of the Bible, and yet he didn't believe. But let's get back to the name for a second. When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy and they shared her joy. This is verse 59.

On the eighth day, they came to circumcise. the child and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, No, he is to be called John. They said to her, there is no one among your relatives who has that name. Then they made signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment, he wrote, his name is John. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free and he began to speak praising God. And throughout the hill country of Judea, people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it asking, what then is this child going to be for the Lord's hand was with him?

This is a joyous scene. Everyone is happy for Zechariah and Elizabeth. Their prayers have been answered. Since Zechariah can't speak, his friends and family are going to name the new baby. We can't imagine naming someone else's child. That's the right and responsibility of the parents. But because of the cultural practices, these people didn't hesitate because everybody knew that they were going to name the child after the father.

That's why they were sure he was going to be called Zechariah. That's when Elizabeth intervenes and says, no way. His name is John. The cultural norms are displayed when the friends and family are confused. They say, look, there's no one in your family by that name. So the expectation is that they should be named after the father or someone's family. No one gives their firstborn son a name that's not in the family. It just doesn't happen.

So why did it happen here? Well, remember the name John came from the angel who spoke with Zechariah. Because this child was given a name outside the family, it showed that this was God's child. This was a miraculous child given to barren parents. God was up to something new. And the name showed that this child was going to fulfill God's role in his plan of redemption. God is at work in this Christmas season. I'm praying that you will have faith in God's promises that you'll be like Mary.

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