The people who built the Tower of Babel wanted to make a name for themselves, God gave a name to Abraham and Jacob, and God warns us about the importance of His own Name. But what does “Name” mean and how did Jesus talk about the Name of the Lord in the prayer He taught us?
If you can’t see the podcast player, click here.
Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
(Parents, all Scripture comes from the CSB this week, the Christian Standard Bible, and we will mostly be in Genesis 11 and the Gospel of John)
Before we start Genesis 11, I want to talk to you about the prayer that Jesus taught us because it is very important to understand the difference between God’s Name and our names. You see, the people in Shinar are going to try to build a tower to make a name for themselves but Jesus said that it is God’s Name that is important and not our own. So, we are going to talk about what it means to have a name or to make a name for ourselves and how it is different from God giving us a name, and the importance of treating God’s Name with a lot of care.
During Jesus’s life and before, in the Temple, there were three hours of prayer—morning, noon, and night. That’s why Daniel opened the windows of his house, the ones on the western side that faced Jerusalem, and prayed three times a day. In the Bible, these times are called the third hour, sixth hour, and ninth hour. But, you might point out, they didn’t have clocks and so how did they even know when to pray? Well, this is where it gets kind of complicated, so I am going to tell you but don’t worry about understanding. There will not be a test, a pop quiz, or even an essay. It will either make sense or it won’t and if it doesn’t, don’t sweat it. It isn’t like this will be useful in real life. So, you have probably noticed by now that the daylight hours are longer in the summer and very short in the winter. Well, they still divided the day and night into twelve sections each and called them hours no matter how long they lasted and that made for every hour of the night being long in the winter and short in summer, and during the summer the day hours were long and the night hours were short. Where I live, right now it is the middle of spring and so there is a lot more daylight than there was three months ago. The sun rose this morning at 6 am and it will set at around 9 pm That means there will be fifteen hours of sunlight and only nine hours of darkness, but that didn’t matter to them. Noon happened whenever the sun was highest in the sky because they didn’t have a clock to tell them it was 12:00 like we do now. Now, at my house today, that wouldn’t happen until 1:30 in the afternoon! So, for them, that would be noon—not 12:00.
So, let’s say that I have the Temple in my backyard, okay? The priests would wake up before the sun came up and by the end of the first hour, which today would take eighty-five minutes or an hour and twenty-five minutes, they would be getting the altar ready and doing all the morning busy work. The second hour would start almost at 7:30 and would last another eighty-five minutes, putting the start of the third hour at 8:50 in the morning. This was the time when they would open up the gates of the Temple to visitors, and they would offer the first lamb of the day, called the morning Tamid offering. And there was a long prayer service called the Shacharit. Three “hours” later, at 1:25 (which is actually 4 ½ hours later by our clocks), they would bring out the afternoon lamb and they would have their noontime prayers—even though it wasn’t at what we would call noon! That was called the sixth hour. At the ninth hour, 5:45 by our reckoning, they would sacrifice the second Tamid lamb and another prayer service, the Minchat, would begin. In the winter, the hours could be as short as forty-seven minutes long! And so, wherever they were in the world, and Daniel was far away in Babylon, they could look at where the sun was in the sky and pray during those times as though they were praying in the Temple. Aren’t you glad we have clocks now???
Now, why did I even bring this up? Honestly, I sat here after writing it and couldn’t remember. But now I remember. We are talking about the Lord’s Prayer and I bet you can say it along with me! “Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” And some early Bibles include, “For yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever, Amen.” And that might seem odd to you that some Bibles have this verse and others don’t, but back when the Tyndale and the KJV and some other early Bibles were translated, they only had a very few sources to go on. But as the years went by, scholars found more and more copies of the Bible that were made much earlier and those Bibles didn’t always have verses, which means that they were added later—sometimes by accident and other times because a scribe thought it would make things clearer. But usually, when we see an extra verse, it is just from another place in the Bible—like this one, which we can find in Daniel, the Psalms, and Chronicles. So, it’s okay because that ending part is still in three other places in the Bible! Copying a huge book like the Bible, by hand, (with a quill even!) was a really hard job and it was easy to make mistakes or add something in.
The first part of the Lord’s Prayer is what I want to talk about today because it says, “may your name be honored as holy” or other translations say, “Hallowed by thy Name,” or “May your Name be sanctified” but it all means the exact same thing. God’s Name is very important and by His Name, I don’t mean how you pronounce it—when the Bible was written, a person’s Name was their reputation, how people thought about them. If you were amazing then you had a good Name and if you were a skunk then you had a bad name and we still use that expression today—someone might be angry that another person is lying about them and say, “They are trying to destroy my good name,” or, how about when someone says, “They are giving you a bad name!” That means that someone is making you look bad and that’s just another good example of an idiom. It doesn’t mean your parents gave you a bad name, like Suppiluliama or Duppi-Teshuv, and those are real Hittite and Amorite names, okay? Whatever your name is, you don’t have it that bad!
But God’s Name, and in the Bible, it is only written as four letters, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey in Hebrew, with no vowels! And it was probably pronounced Yahweh but no one can entirely prove it so you do what your parents do and not what Miss Tyler does, okay? And people in the Old Testament times said it but by the time of Jesus they weren’t saying it anymore and that’s a long and complicated story so don’t worry about it. But we can make someone’s name holy without actually pronouncing it—and we can give them a bad name without pronouncing it too. It’s all about being image-bearers, and we’ve talked about that before on the radio show and Volume 4 of Context for Kids is about that. God put men and women on earth to bear His image, to be His representatives, to rule and subdue the earth as He would if He were here. He made us to care for the planet and the animals and one another and to be like Him. Not to look like Him, of course, because the Bible says that God is spirit, and so even though we call Him a “he” it isn’t like He has a man’s body. Jesus does, but not the Father. Sometimes we forget about that but that’s a big part of the reason why He said there would be no idols of Him, because making Him look like a person or especially an animal, would be insulting. He isn’t like us but we are supposed to be like Him.
We are supposed to be reflections of Him, like a clean flat mirror and not a dirty funhouse mirror. But when we are cruel, hateful, unforgiving, violent, untrustworthy, and out of control, we make God look really bad when we say we are Christians. People look at us and think, “If that is what God is like then count me out!” because we are giving Him a bad name. When I was your guys’ age, I knew someone who said they were a Christian and they were just so mean, such a bully. They would laugh at me if they thought I was wrong about something, they had a mean opinion on just about everything, and they made me think that God was just like that too—that He was laughing at me when I am wrong, and was criticizing everything I did and that He didn’t think I could do anything right. I didn’t want anything to do with their God because I was scared of Him. I wasn’t scared of what He would do to me if I sinned, I was scared that He hated me no matter what I did. That person, who said they were bearing God’s image, gave God a bad name. When they were praying, “may your name be honored as holy,” and then left church and started being really mean, they were not living as the kind of person who was making God’s name be honored as holy. People were talking bad about God because of how that person behaved.
I am sure you have probably met all sorts of people in your life who give someone else a bad name—maybe their parents, or maybe an organization they belong to—just imagine if instead of helping me across the street, a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout tripped me and pushed me into traffic! People would start running away when they saw those blue or green uniforms! It’s very important that we remember that the things we do aren’t just about ourselves. When we behave like followers of Jesus should, it makes everyone around us see Him better. When we behave badly, it makes everyone around us look bad too. And I use funny examples to get you to think and laugh, but how we behave is very important to everyone. It isn’t just our problem.
Now, you probably have heard about the third commandment—do not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain and usually, people will tell you that means using God as a swear word. Don’t get me wrong, that definitely counts but it is a lot more than that. Because a name is more than just a pronunciation; it is someone’s reputation (how people think about them), so anything we do to make God look bad is taking His Name in vain. It means giving Him a bad name, dragging His Name through the mud, making Him a laughingstock, however you want to put it. Everything we do is supposed to make God look good. Now, we don’t always succeed but there is a difference between someone having a bad day and being a goober head, and someone who is making God look terrible.
The best example I can think of is very terrible and sad, but there is a church here in America that makes God look really bad to a lot of people. When a soldier dies, they go to the funeral with terrible signs that say horrible things that upset the family. Not because of anything the soldier did wrong but because they hate other people. When there is a shooting, they take signs and go to where people are hurting and say that God sent the shooters to hurt people. When 9/11 happened and all those people died, they said that God was laughing. But we know from the Bible that God doesn’t laugh when people are hurting, God is with the people who are hurting. We are told to cry with the people who are crying, not to make things worse for them! That church is taking God’s Name in vain—they are causing hurting people to hate God although, fortunately, most people don’t believe that church represents God at all. They just had a hateful leader who didn’t understand that just because he hates people, doesn’t mean that God does. That’s an easy mistake to make. But God wants us all to be saved and He isn’t laughing when innocent people get hurt or when people die without knowing Jesus. Anyone who wants to honor God’s Name, as in Jesus’s prayer, had better make sure that what they are saying about Him is true!
But God isn’t the only one with a name, right? As we will see in chapter 11, the people who gathered on the plain of Shinar wanted to make a name for themselves too. They wanted to look good. They wanted to be famous and admired and respected. Like, “Wow, look at them, they are so awesome!” And I think most people want those things although I would sure hate to be famous. But we all want people to think good things about us, right? Here’s what they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.” So, they thought that by building a city, and a tower as well, tall enough that everyone could see it, that they would never be forgotten. You see, they had some interesting ideas in the ancient world. It was very important to them to never be forgotten because they believed that they needed to be taken care of after they died. That’s called Ancestor worship. It doesn’t mean that people are bowing down and singing songs to their dead relatives as though they are gods now, it means that people felt as though their dead ancestors needed their help in the land of the dead, Sheol. They thought they would need food, drink, and all sorts of things in order to be comfortable. But if no one remembered you, you were in trouble. And so they needed to have children to take care of them after they died, win a battle against an enemy, or build impressive buildings so that they would never be forgotten. People in the ancient world were terrified of dying and not having anyone to bury them or care for them. So, by doing impressive things, they thought they would be remembered forever. Problem is, we have no idea who these people are because not one single, solitary name is mentioned. Not even Nimrod—he was way back at the beginning of chapter ten and we are in chapter eleven now and evidently, everyone has been forgotten. Bummer.
And the Bible does that a lot—there are little jokes all over the place if you know what to look for. All these people wanted a name so that they would never be forgotten and they were all forgotten. They wanted to build a huge tower that reached to the sky but it is so small that God has to come down just to get a look at it. They wanted that city and tower so they wouldn’t be scattered over the face of the earth and they got scattered! I mean, that’s what happens when we go out trying to make a name for ourselves, right? We try so hard and with very few exceptions, it isn’t long before no one knows who the heck we even are and, in most cases, no one ever knows anyway except the people who love us. I suppose it is better to just have a good name with the people who do know us, right? And if God wants us to be famous then we will be famous but being famous never lasts forever. Probably a lot of the movie stars I grew up watching, if I told you their names you wouldn’t know them, or politicians. Do you know who Paine Wingate is? No? Well, he was very famous once, he was one of the very first Senators here in the United States. He was a member of the Continental Congress. And you’ve almost certainly never heard of him. It’s what he did that we remember even if we don’t know who he was. Like the people who tried to build that tower and city, we remember what they did but only because the Bible tells us. We don’t know who the heck they even were.
But when God wants to give you a name, boy howdy that is sure different. When we come to the story of Abraham, God tells Abraham that He is going to give him a few things and one of those things is a great name. And yes, God did change his name from Abram to Abraham but that isn’t what God was talking about. Abraham has got to be like the most famous man who ever lived, apart from Jesus and maybe Moses. And in fact, if you count up all the Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the world, they make up 57%, over half, of the population of the world and they all know the Name of Abraham! Not only that but they all love him! Now THAT is a great name for sure, so God totally kept His promises and then some.
Let’s talk about another kind of Name—I bet when you pray, sometimes you end it with “in Jesus’s Name, Amen.” But have you ever wondered what that actually means? Some people think that means that we have to say Jesus’s Name in order for our prayers to be heard but that isn’t quite right. You see, Jesus is the reason why our prayers are heard, whether we mention His Name or not. Name can be what you are called, and it can also be your reputation, but the third thing it is about is authority. What does authority mean? If your parents go out to the movies and leave you at home with the babysitter, then your parents are giving your babysitter permission to be in charge of you, to protect you, and you need to listen to them like you would listen to your parents while they are gone. Of course, if they tell you to do something bad, then you don’t do that and you tell your parents when you get home. When He was here on earth, God gave Jesus the authority to preach the Gospel, do battle with Satan and his demons, work miracles, cure the sick, and heal people who couldn’t see, hear, walk, or talk. He did that for Jesus because Jesus was His only unique Son. The Bible tells us that we are all the sons of God when we believe Jesus and obey Him, no matter if we are girls or boys, doesn’t matter because we are all the same in God’s eyes—but we aren’t the same as Jesus. Jesus is special. He is the one and only Son who came down from Heaven to be with us. And when He came, He chose some special people to be with Him. And He made them some promises about His Name.
John 14:12-14 “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Wow, what on earth would they do that Jesus didn’t do? What could be better than all of that? Well, the world needed to know what Jesus said and did and how He died and came back to life in a perfect body—and Jesus couldn’t do that because He had to go back to His Father! Because they saw everything, they had to go tell everyone about everything that He said and did! And because they were the first to go out to do that, first in Jerusalem and then heading out into the world, God blessed them with amazing miracles so that people would know that they were telling the truth because frankly, it all sounded like crazy-talk to them. Now, it all sounds familiar to us but the idea of believing in a guy who did all that and let Himself be killed in the most embarrassing way possible and now He’s alive again? They needed those miracles to show that they were telling the truth and even today, when the story of Jesus goes out to new places, there are often amazing miracles. Especially in Africa, oh my goodness. They have people being raised from the dead and cured of horrible things over there. And they are growing fast over there!
John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.” He’s speaking again to His disciples, the ones who will go out to the world. Jesus is telling them that their job is to “produce fruit” and that means that they have to honor God’s Name through their behavior, by being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, trustworthy, gentle, and self-controlled but also to be fruitful by making new believers. Do you remember when I taught you that there are two ways to be fruitful and multiply? One is by having kids but the most important way is by bringing new people to Jesus. I mean, there are plenty of people now and we are all over the earth but what every person needs is to know God and Jesus.
John 16:23-27 “In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. “I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” Wow, when Jesus told them that God would hear what they ask for, that was really big. They wouldn’t have to ask Jesus to ask God for anything anymore—because God would know them and listen to them because they loved Jesus. Everything we ask God, is automatically in Jesus’s Name because Jesus is the reason that God listens to us and when we ask for something to help us make new disciples, that makes Him very happy.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I pray that you have a wonderful time studying the Bible with the people who love you.