Our Name(s)
BIBLICAL SURNAMES
By Walt Giddings
August 30, 2020
Ecclesiastes 7:1-2
1 A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all Adam; and the living will lay it to his heart.
There is so much doctrine in these two verses we could go anywhere in the books of God’s Library. Shall we narrow the scope and lighten our burden? The title of our Fellowship lesson is “Our Name”.
Proverbs 22:1: A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches and loving favour than silver and gold.
“A good name is better than precious ointment.” Why would a pedagogue, whose history is doing lessons on Bible Biology, lead a lesson on our family name(s)? Biology has a great deal to do with family. It starts with DNA, genes and chromosomes, who gets whose blood on transfusions, right down to what we eat. Family is biological.
Amos 3:2: You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
The Hebrew word translated “families” is translated elsewhere as “kind” and “kindred”. Even a nation is described as a body of people who all have a common ancestor. Each of us has family. Because of the evils of this life a few of us are a family of one. Yet we have family. Our family name reveals we have family. What is a surname? What is your surname?