The J Factor
At the start of a new year, it is natural for us to look to the future. I just read about a study in The Atlantic (April 2008) that suggests that our initials can help determine our fates.
Yes, that’s right. Our initials. It seems that our preference for our names is so strong that we unconsciously gravitate toward people, places, and objects that begin with the same letter as our name. A woman named Mary is more likely to marry Mark, drive a Mazda, and move to Maryland than is a woman named Virginia. Virginia is more likely to marry Virgil, drive a Volvo, and move to … you guessed it … Virginia.
If this tendency is true, I guess I should feel a strong desire to gravitate toward Hawaii.
Our initials can even affect our careers, according to this study. As many of you know, the letter K is the symbol for a strikeout in the game of baseball. An analysis of Major League Baseball records reveals that plays who have first or last names that start with K have an interesting tendency — they strike out 18.8 percent of the time, compared to 17.2 percent for other players.
If you have children named Kevin or Kristin, better steer them toward basketball.
Words have power, both to draw people together and to affect their success. “In the beginning was the Word,” says the Gospel of John, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). This powerful Word was a part of God’s creative work at the very beginning of time, and John tells us that “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (vv. 3-4).
In time, this “Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (v. 14). The Word entered human life as Jesus Christ, full of both the grace of God and the truth of God. The shepherds discovered him on Christmas, and the Magi on Epiphany. We shouldn’t be surprised that this person with the initials J.C. would then start his career as a Jewish Carpenter.
But there is much deeper significance to the name of Jesus. As I said last week, the name means “God saves.” This is true, but to be even more precise, we need to understand that the name Jesus is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “Yahweh is salvation.” The word “Yahweh” is the personal name of God, a name so holy that devout Jews will not risk corrupting it by saying it out loud. At certain times in history, this name has been translated into English as “Jehovah,” and we still use the name in hymns such as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.”
So Jehovah is one version of the personal name of God. And here’s the important point: It’s a name that is part of the name of Jesus. Jesus has God in his name — literally — and this is a key factor in God’s grace and truth coming through him.
Jehovah and Jesus. They belong together. Call it “The J Factor.”
Yes, that’s right. Our initials. It seems that our preference for our names is so strong that we unconsciously gravitate toward people, places, and objects that begin with the same letter as our name. A woman named Mary is more likely to marry Mark, drive a Mazda, and move to Maryland than is a woman named Virginia. Virginia is more likely to marry Virgil, drive a Volvo, and move to … you guessed it … Virginia.
If this tendency is true, I guess I should feel a strong desire to gravitate toward Hawaii.
Our initials can even affect our careers, according to this study. As many of you know, the letter K is the symbol for a strikeout in the game of baseball. An analysis of Major League Baseball records reveals that plays who have first or last names that start with K have an interesting tendency — they strike out 18.8 percent of the time, compared to 17.2 percent for other players.
If you have children named Kevin or Kristin, better steer them toward basketball.
Words have power, both to draw people together and to affect their success. “In the beginning was the Word,” says the Gospel of John, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). This powerful Word was a part of God’s creative work at the very beginning of time, and John tells us that “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (vv. 3-4).
In time, this “Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (v. 14). The Word entered human life as Jesus Christ, full of both the grace of God and the truth of God. The shepherds discovered him on Christmas, and the Magi on Epiphany. We shouldn’t be surprised that this person with the initials J.C. would then start his career as a Jewish Carpenter.
But there is much deeper significance to the name of Jesus. As I said last week, the name means “God saves.” This is true, but to be even more precise, we need to understand that the name Jesus is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “Yahweh is salvation.” The word “Yahweh” is the personal name of God, a name so holy that devout Jews will not risk corrupting it by saying it out loud. At certain times in history, this name has been translated into English as “Jehovah,” and we still use the name in hymns such as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.”
So Jehovah is one version of the personal name of God. And here’s the important point: It’s a name that is part of the name of Jesus. Jesus has God in his name — literally — and this is a key factor in God’s grace and truth coming through him.
Jehovah and Jesus. They belong together. Call it “The J Factor.”
posted by Henry Brinton | 12:23 PM
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