Sermon Tone Analysis

Rachel Miller, a mom of two in Benwood, West Virginia, is obsessed with names.

"I considered myself a researcher of one of the most important things I could ever do for my child.

I'm shocked by friends who know the sticker price of every option available on a car they're buying but have no idea how popular their new baby's name is."

Miller pored over the annual SSA (Social Security Administration) tally of how many babies received which names as avidly as other people read front-page headlines or baseball stats.

She worried about whether the names she was most enamored of would be equally suitable for a child and an adult, if they might inspire embarrassing nicknames, and what kind of image they were likely to convey.

When it says, “When he went out in public, people came from these places,” you have to keep in mind that Tyre and Sidon were a hundred miles to the north of Jerusalem and Judea.

So now we’re saying not just that when Jesus went out in public to teach, people came from the locality, but they came from a hundred miles around.

Like many parents, Miller believes that a name holds the power to shape a child's self-esteem and his identity—and influence how he's seen and treated by others.

"There were times during my pregnancy when we felt that choosing the name was a greater responsibility than having the child," says Heather Abrahams, the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, mom of 5-month-old Jaden.

What gives a name choice so much weight?

The permanence of the decision, for one thing.

While parents have been known to change their baby's name, you can't very well call a child Jaden today, Sam a few weeks from now, and Louis at Thanksgiving.

Judea and Jerusalem were Jewish provinces, and Tyre and Sidon were Gentile provinces.

Idumea and the Galilean area were multiethnic and multiracial.

This was in a time of great national and ethnic cleavage and all sorts of tensions.

I guess there are always ethnic tensions everywhere and every time.

"Your name defines you," says Gregg Steiner, a Los Angeles talent manager who's expecting his first child.

"It's your brand, really, for the rest of your life."

Jesus’ popularity cuts across all of that.

People are coming to him from everywhere, and the crowds are dangerously dense and huge.

It says they pushed forward and they crowded.

These are words that mean to violently trample.

The crowds were so big that they were dangerous.

How does Jesus respond to that popularity?

He responds to the popularity by going up into a mountain and beginning naming and renaming people.

Is this true?

Does a name have that much power?

It depends on whose research you believe.

Research conducted the National Bureau of Economics of MIT and the University of Chicago say yes.

Researchers submitted 5,000 resumes with identical credentials for advertised jobs, tagging some of them with names commonly seen as African-American—Latoya and Rasheed, for instance—while others carried "white" names, such as Sarah and Brad.

The theoretically white applicants received 50 percent more interview offers.

There were names, however, that showed no racial differential, with Anne and Kenya garnering equal interest from employers, and Leroy as likely to succeed as Matthew.

However, another large-scale study called, The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names, by a Harvard fellow and a University of Chicago professor, contradicted the finding that a person's career success could be affected by her name's racial identity.

"We find little evidence," it concluded, "that names have a causal impact on adult life outcomes."

What is that about?

What does that mean?

I think it means something very significant.

We’re going to learn here one of the chief ways in which Jesus Christ transforms people and changes people’s lives.

We want to learn here as we look at this text in Jesus we learn that we receive a new name, how we receive that new name, and why we receive a new name.

Race issues aside, the National Bureau of Economics study contains other provocative implications for the long-range effects of name choices.

The researchers found no link between the familiarity of a name and the likelihood of getting an interview, which means parents needn't worry that they're undermining their child's career prospects by choosing an unusual or popular name.

More baffling, some names garnered far more interview requests than others, with Kristen and Brad inexplicably getting twice as many callbacks as Emily or Geoffrey.

Similarly, "black" Jermaine and Ebony won nearly three times as many interview invites as equally African-American sounding Tremayne and Keisha.

The statistical data supporting the power of names are sketchy and confusing at best, there's no shortage of anecdotal evidence that names carry potent messages.

Parents confess to forming their own stereotypes about other people based on names.

One mom said she'd hire a babysitter with a reassuringly ordinary name like Jennifer but wouldn't chance an Abra, while another admitted to being more likely to pass on resumes at work that donned difficult-to-pronounce names.

Moms and dads we interviewed say they assume that Bambi is a bimbo and Ethel an old lady, expect Ainsley to be a snob, and wonder whether Mikel came from a family that fancied itself creative or didn't know how to spell.

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In Jesus we learn that we receive a new name

Even if parents don't believe that a name has the capacity to shape a child's future, many believe it speaks volumes about their own tastes and values.

"Names say much more about who the parent is than who the child is or will become," says Hillary Harris, a Los Angeles photographer and mom of two boys.

"If I want to say, 'I am honest, trustworthy, warm, solid, accessible, disarming,' well, then I name my kid Charlie."

Which is exactly what she did.

We can debate whether naming still plays a significant role in modern society.

We can argue over its importance, but we must not abolish its influence.

Parents should expend thoughtful energy in naming their children, but they should not exhaust themselves.

Choose a name that stresses your desires but don’t stress yourself out.

Remember, human naming can only express a desired outcome it cannot determine.

You can exhaust yourself mental capacities in giving your child a name that seeks a noble outcome.

The theme of this section is naming.

The word name is “nomen” in Greek from which we get our word nomenclature.

Nomenclature means; a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.

He named them apostles meaning “sent ones”.

Then he proceeds to go down into their individual lives.

He renames Simon with Peter.

James and John he renames “thunder”.

So what does this mean?

Adolph Hitler name meant noble wolf.

This named expressed a parental desire but proved to be a partial true.

A wolf he was but noble he was not.

From 1933 to 1942 Adolph was a top 20 male name.

A survey taken of 600,000 German births in 2006 discovered only one was named Adolph.

While the name itself is not banned, there is actually a comparably restrictive law on first names in Germany: 'In order to protect the child, the name must not be absurd or degrading in any way.'

Any civil registry office hearing that you want to name your child Adolf would strongly encourage you to rethink and ponder what you would to your child.

However, in the end, they will accept it as it is a valid and legal name.

During this time, names were extremely important, furthermore naming was an act of great importance and power.

Your name was supposed to convey the essence of who you were.

If you went through a great change in life, you had to change your name.

If you had multiple names, it meant you were a great person.

You were a person of multi-dimensions.

The most popular girl name in 2017 was Emma.

Emma means whole, complete, and universal.

People with this name have a deep inner desire for a stable, loving family or community, and a need to work with others and to be appreciated.

People with this name are excited by change, adventure, and excitement.

They are dynamic, visionary and versatile, able to make constructive use of freedom.

They fight being restricted by rules and conventions.

They tend to be optimistic, energetic, intelligent, and to make friends easily.

They may be changeable, restless, untidy, and rebellious.

Yet everyone had a personal name, a true name, the name with which they thought of themselves, and you didn’t hand that out to many people.

At least you didn’t give everybody the right to use it, because then they could control you because, if they knew your name, they had power over you.

You say, “I picking up what you are putting down but isn’t that irrelevant for us today?”

Names just aren’t that important.

We don’t really believe in the power of names.

If this is true then why did Demetria Guynes become Demi Moore?

Why did Gordon Matthew Sumner become Sting?

Why did Marion Michael Morrison become John Wayne?

Because you can’t have a cowboy named Marion.

The most popular male name in 2017 was Liam.

Liam means a determine protector or faithful defender.

People with this name have a deep inner desire to use their abilities in leadership, and to have personal independence.

They would rather focus on large, important issues, and delegate the details.