a ppalling life: Named by a father.

2013-06-12

Named by a father.

Peter thinks about his Rabbi/Father (Second Adam) [1]...

I am Simon Petros^[2],

or just Petros^[3].

I was born Simon bar Jonas (i.e. Simon son of Jonas),

but renamed^[4] by our new “Rabbi”,

as I thought him to be at the time;

Petros - (i.e. bed-rock-e-fellow).

“Shimon” the Hebrew name that my old dad gave me

means either "He [who] has heard/hears [the word of God]"^[5] or

“He [God] has heard”

though in the common Greek of the Empire,

“Simon” simply means “flat-nosed"^[6]

I s’pose that means a bit of a thug.

That Hebrew name is not bad to aspire to;

but oh, to be a “bed-rock-e-fellow”!

I hope that will be true.

As we work out who Yeshua really is,

things are even more hopeful.

God, hear me, -

may his naming true be!

Oh, I heard you

tell us he was^[7] true,

& tell me who I should have heard^[8],

& so I do believe his word.

I will be bold to use his name for me,

faithful to his prophecy^[9],

and know who he is certainly^[10].

Given what you've given me,

what more

could I ever possibly
ask for?

“My proposal, then, is not that we assume that we know what the word ‘god’ means, and manage somehow to fit Jesus into that. Instead, I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew, possessed of a desperately-risky, indeed, apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the Temple, ..and dying on a Roman cross, - and that we somehow allow our meaning for the word ‘god’ to be re-centered around that point^[1]”