Apples of Gold
Radio Script for November 12, 2008
“If the Family of God Has a Name, What Is It?”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
I’m continuing to memorize the book of Ephesians.
It’s slow going because I’m only doing one verse each weekday.
That gives me time to really meditate on each passage and grind it into my soul.
Here are the practicals. I have a printout of each verse in Ephesians in my car. Before I leave for work each morning I read that day’s verse a couple of times, enough so that I can say it without looking at it. You might say the verse is now in my “random access memory,” but it’s not really recorded to my hard drive.
I keep repeating it until I have a bit of a grasp on it. Then I go back a couple of verses and repeat it all together. By the time I am about halfway to work I usually have a pretty good handle on the new verse.
Then I think about how this new verse ties in with the other verses.
For example, I just memorized Ephesians 3:14 and 15, which says, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named…”
That’s just two verses, but when you stop and meditate on them, they are absolutely loaded!
But now look at the last part. It says, “…from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named…”
My first question is, “Who is the whole family?” It doesn’t really say, but my best guess from the context is that it’s talking about the family of God; we, the people of God.
So I am part of this family of God, but now comes the curious part. It says “from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”
Well…what is that name?
If our family has a name, what is it?
At my house, we are the Apple Family. I got my name from my father. When we married, my wife took on my name and became an Apple. When we had children, they, too, became Apples. Our family is named after the father.
So back to that Bible verse. If the family of God is named after the Father, what is that name?
Now let me say this. The Bible doesn’t dwell on this point, so I don’t think it’s that important. It might not even be a literal name. Maybe it’s more like we were “named” to the team. But even then, teams have a name, right?
So in my Bible memory time I started thinking back over the previous verses in Ephesians. Is there any clue as to what our family name might be?
And right out of the gate, in Ephesians 1:1, I got a clue. It says, “…to the saints who are in Ephesus…”
Then again in Ephesians 1:18 it calls us saints. In 2:19 it refers to saints as well as “members of the household of God.” In fact, Ephesians refers to us as saints nine times.
So then I thought, “Well, what does ‘saint’ mean? How do you define saint?”
So I looked it up. One definition I liked was this: “one of God’s chosen.”
Another definition said, “one separated from the world and consecrated to God.”
Another one simply said, “a believer in Christ.”
So I don’t know if Ephesians 3:15 is referring to an actual name, but if I had to fill in that blank on a test I think I would write, “Saints.”
In the NKJV the word saint is used 96 times, in both the Old and New Testaments.
Actually, when I first thought of a name for the family of God I thought of the word “Christian,” but that shows up far fewer times in the Bible than saints.
I also thought of the “I Ams” but that was too dogfoodish.
So I guess saints it is. I like what it says in Daniel 7:27, “the saints, the people of the Most High.”
I also like what it says in First Corinthians 14:33 when it talks about “all the congregations of the saints.”
And that’s what we are, isn’t it? Yes, we go to our own churches, but aren’t they just little congregations of the saints, little pieces of the whole?
Let me tell you, I’m glad to be a member of the household of God, and it’s a household with a name. Yes, people, we are the children of the Most High, and we have a name.
We are…the Saints!
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2008 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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