The Name of God - Jehovah vs Yahweh

In starting this blog site I was faced with the conundrum of what to name it. I have a deep thirst for knowledge of God, but ‘Thirsting for God’ doesn’t really have a nice ring to it. ‘Yahweh’ was a logical choice, a name for God that is in common use, and certainly has a great ring to it. The other logical option was ‘Jehovah’, but because of it’s close association in peoples minds to the Christian group called ‘Jehovah’s Witness’, I initially decided against using it.

So ‘Yahweh’ it was! But I thought I would do a little bit of research on the name before making it the title of the Blog. I quickly realised that Yahweh was a bad choice for a number of reasons, and that Jehovah is almost certainly the most accurate translation of the name of God.

Below is just some of the reasons why Yahweh didn’t make the cut:

1) Historically the name of God was always translated as ‘Jehovah’, as in the older KJV, AV and ASV. The trend to call God by the name of ‘Yahweh’ is only a recent phenomenon.

2) Many modern Bible scholars consider the name ‘Yahweh’ to have been a petty ‘storm god’ from other religions of antiquity, which the Israelites later stole to be their own god.

This idea is based on the fact that many descriptions of God in the Old Testament describe Him in association with thunder, lightening and storm clouds, which is similar to other ancient pagan gods who were storm deities, some of which was called something like Yaho, Ya-hu, or Yave.

3) The English use of ‘Yahweh’ is a mistranslation anyway. If one wanted to use this name, then Yahweh should be spelt with a ‘v’ not ‘w’, which makes the name ‘Yahveh’.

This error came about due to the misreading of German Hebrew grammars, which use W for the English V (note: the German V is pronounced like the English F). ‘Yahweh’ with a ‘w’ is more of an Arabic word, as opposed to the more correct Hebrew ‘Yahveh’, with a ‘v’.

4) Yahweh should never be spelt with a ‘y’ in the first place. In every case of a name in Hebrew that begins with a yod (Y) it is pronounced with the appropriate phoneme for that language. Y becomes a J in every name in English, French, and Spanish. In English the J is pronounced like J in Japan, while in French it is pronounced like S in pleasure, in Spanish it is pronounced like an H, in German it is pronounced like Y.
This means that Jahweh would be more correct.

 

For a more detailed explanation of why Yahweh is just plain wrong, see this article on my other Blog.

Born Again Christian

I was recently filling out a questionnaire which posed the usual question of which type of Christianity I belong to. Normally I just tick the “Lutheranism” box, or if that is not available then the “Other Christian” option. But this time I was given the option of “Born Again Christian”. I have seen this choice a number of times in past surveys, but certainly never considered myself to be of that category….not until now.

I had always looked upon Born Again Christians with a wee bit of envy. They are always the most joyful people, they have such a passion and enthusiasm for God that I had rarely seen in people who are born and raised as Christians.

This made me think that you had to experience the lowest of lows in life to then be able to experience the highest of highs that Christianity offers. I thought that maybe you had to totally reject God and also be at such a low point in life- someone like a drug-dealing pimp or heroin-addicted prostitute who is in such despair that they are at the point of suicide- in order to fully appreciate the amazing gifts of forgiveness and love that Christ offers.

Can the sweetest of sweet tastes only be appreciated by those who have tasted the sourest of sour flavours? This was my fear. I so dearly wanted the amazing relationship with God that these people experienced. The joy in their eyes, the ecstasy on their faces and the enthusiasm in their dance, simply over their love of God; I wanted that!!!

Well those depressing fears have been proven to be wrong in the last month. The joy in my heart and the zeal for God in my soul certainly seems to be similar to these types of Born Again Christians, not that it’s a competition! But the spiritual high that God is giving me totally satisfies my soul. So much so that I have no doubt that I now belong in the “Born Again Christian” category!

Hallelujah! God is indeed Great!!!

How Should We Pray?

I have a confession to make; I have always felt a little bit uncomfortable in the way that I have prayed.

My prayers, and the group prayers that I have been part of, always seem to consist of just one major part; asking God for help. While there is obviously nothing wrong with doing this, I always felt as though I was praying to God as though he is a genie-in-a-bottle. This left me feeling rather guilty, as though I am just using Him.

It occurred to me that maybe we are doing prayer totally wrong. So I started looking in the Bible for examples of prayer, and I started to notice that back in the biblical days the people used to pray a lot differently to how we do now. Yes, they certainly asked God for help when faced with concerns or trouble, but there were a few other aspects to how they prayed that were actually more important than just asking God to miraculously intervene.

What I found was that God’s Word teaches us to pray by following five important steps.

1) We are to honour God

 We are to acknowledge God as the King of kings, whom nobody is above, our awesome and almighty creator and saviour. God is worthy of praise regardless of whether we are having a good or bad day!

Nehemiah gives a perfect example to start his prayer: “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God” Nehemiah 1:5

2) Acknowledge what God has already done for us, and give thanks for the prayers that have been answered.

Imagine if you always gave a gift to someone but they never thanked you for it, you would eventually get a little annoyed! So be sure to thank God for what He has done, and not just use prayer as a never ending ‘wishlist’. Remember that God does not answer our prayers because He has to, but He does it because He has infinite love for us.

This is Solomon’s acknowledgment of what God has done for him; “LORD, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way.  You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today.  [….] And now, LORD, the God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David come true. ” 2 Chronicles 14-17

3) Confess your sins to God

We all sin, and we do it all the time. In fact we are so sinful that God the Father can not even hear our prayers directly, they have to be purified and delivered through Jesus, John 14:6.

So before asking God for a favour, be sure to come clean with Him, confide in Him your sins. He loves you, and He just wants to put peace into your heart. By His love and mercy your sins are forgiven.

This is Daniels confession of sin in his prayer on behalf of Israel; “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel [….]are covered with shame, LORD, because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him;  we have not obeyed the LORD our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets.  All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. “Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you” Daniel 9:5-16

4) Prayer to God for help.

This is when you ask God to help you, or to intercede in your life. Notice that it is only after you do the three steps above that it is appropriate to make your requests to Him.

5) Praise God

Praise Him, because He is truly worthy of all praise, whether or not He answers specific aspects of your prayer, He has your best interests at heart. Think about all the things God has done for you, think about the wondrous world that He created for us, the undying love and compassion He has. Whether we are having a good or bad day, God is truly worthy of infinite praise!!!

This is the praise that Habakkuk said at the end of His prayer; “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my saviour. The sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.” Habakkuk 3:18-19

Take note that these steps occur in order of the most important to the least important. The order should not be altered.

First, honouring God is the most important simply because He is worthy regardless of anything else. Second, God has done great things for us, and has answered our prayers in the past, we need to enthusiastically thank Him for these. Third, we are hopeless sinners, we should not continue to ask for God’s help until we humble ourselves before Him and admit what we have done wrong. Fourthly, it is only now that our requests of God are worth giving to Him.

If you want to take a closer look at this structure of prayer that I am outlining, read the corresponding post on my other Blog which goes into far more detail:

http://theoldwiseman1.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/how-should-we-pray.html