JESUS WHO?

by Rev. Joda Collins 

Jesus has no last name and never will. The last name of Jesus is not Christ.  About one thousand years after the crucifixion of Jesus, civilization began to use last names. Last names emerged from an attempt to distinguish one person with the same name from another person of the same name.  If someone said, "Have you seen John today?"  The response might be, "Do you mean John the Baptist, John the carpenter, John the mill worker, John the son of Andrew or the John that lives in Clarksdale?"  From these first names and titles, jobs, families and/or location designations it is natural to shorten things. From these designations we might get John Baptista, John Carpenter, John Miller, John Andrews and John Clark.  People have always and still maintain the right to change their names. John the son of the village idiot, might not like being called John Idiot and might only respond to John Idio, John Ido, or John Vill.  One person in every 1.4 million people in the USA have Vill as their last name.  I live in a city called Milton.  This city was known as Mill Town because in 1829 (approximately) a mill was constructed that operated on a major waterway.  Sheriff is a combination of the old English words "shire" (meaning "county") and "reeve" (meaning "authority").   You have heard the term County Sheriff.  The Shire-Reeve (County Authority) became Sheriff just because it is human nature to abbreviate.  

Jesus is the Savior.  Christ is the Greek word for savior.  The Hebrew word for savior is Messiah. Jesus the Christ, is simply shortened to Jesus Christ. Christ is a designation of his title.  He was also known as Jesus the carpenter's son and Jesus of Nazareth.  If he were not the Savior, we might know of him as Jesus Carpenter or Jesus Nazar. 

 

Rev. Joda Collins

Email: JodaCollins@aol.com