Answered Prayers: Prayer Proves Gods Existence
Answered prayers show that God is real. Millions of Christians have prayed Gods will and their prayers were answered. I have prayed things that were answered by God in a way that I know it was only Him that could have done it. It is always good as a believer to have a prayer journal to write down your prayers.
1 John 5:14-15And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
The Names Of God In The Old Testament
This is a list of Hebrew names of God in the Old Testament. Remember that God is real and these names reveal who He wants to be for you and your beloved ones. He didnt only exist thousands of years ago, when these names were first revealed. He is just as present today, to show you who He is. He loves you with all His heart.
This Is What Our Readers Are Saying:
I have no words to express my feelings. When first I received your email, I felt the power of God very strongly in my whole body. Mosia
I just feel the overwhelming love God has for me. Thank you very much. Consol
I just read your last post and could feel the Holy Spirit washing over me. My soul every part of me! Kimberley
It feels like Im falling in love with God again and again. Kristyl
It has healed my broken spirit and made me to trusting, caring less of my troubles and difficulties and totally resting my cares on God. Nkiruka
Also Check: Verse Pray Without Ceasing
Is Jehovah The Correct Pronunciation Of Yhwh
Most likely not.
Although weve come to know the version of YHWH pronounced Jehovah, scholars have debated about the actual pronunciation of YHWH and have not reached an agreement.
One of our biggest clues that Jehovah probably does not fit the bill is that the Ancient Hebrew lacked the J sound at the beginning. The Y would not have made a J in the Old Testament Hebrew language.
So, why did people start pronouncing it with a J? Although people have debated even this, we do know that Jehovah appeared in Bibles starting in the 1500s. A Latinized transgrammation of the YHWH name most likely played into the ultimate assumption of how YHWH was pronounced Jehovah.
The Meaning Of Jehovah
This word Jehovah broken down should mean god, but the meaning of the word Yah, which is the Je in Jehovah is a bad transliteration, its supposed to mean god, and acts as a shortening meaning He will, from the full meaning of the most Highs name Yahua, i.e. He will be when translated into English
so Je plus hovah should mean I will be, which is the Most Highs name we established above.
Je should mean god, because when we use it to mean he, we are addressing the Most High, who is the greatest power, a god in English.
hovah should mean will be, or am
The problem with this is when we look at the Hebrew words we find the word hovah in the Hebrew concordance
#Strongs 1943 hovah ho-vaw, it means:
ruin or mischief
So if we have to put these two words together, Jehovah would mean:
- god of mischief
- I am mischief
- I will be mischief
Is it a coincidence? who knows, personally I dont think it is, but one thing is for sure its not the Most Highs name. And we have no right to change his name.
Later when you read about the Name Yahweh, you will see How YHWH is alleged to be the origin of Jehovah
Now lets look at another most commonly used word in English for god purporting to be from the Hebrew language
Recommended Reading: Old Testament Stories In Chronological Order
Yahweh Is The Unchanging God
Heraclitus said it best: There is nothing permanent except change. Our world is constantly shifting everything is subjective, and lots of things seem to change day to day.
But our God does not conform to any of this. He remains constant through it all. He doesnt change his nature based on what is new and popular at the moment. Yahweh has always been who he is, from the beginning of time he has always been the standard for absolute perfection and holiness.
We have the binary choice to either choose Him and conform to him or not. There is no third option where we can have a slightly different version of him.
God isnt changed by new and popular philosophies and theologies, but we can sometimes be. We need to keep a white-knuckled grip on the truth of the unchanging God.
First Gods Name Sets Him Apart From Other Gods
Number one why we must recognize His name is because it sets God apart from other false gods.
When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asked a vital question:
Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is His name? what shall I say to them? .
Why do you think Moses has to ask Gods name?
Because there are hundreds of false gods in and around Egypt. Moses knew that if ever people would believe that he has been sent by God, He must know the name of the God who sent Him!
Thus, what was the response of God?
14 And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. 15 Moreover God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations. Exodus 3:14-15
As you can see, God claimed that His name would be Yahweh forever!
Also Check: Does The Bible Condemn Cremation
What The Bible Says
Almighty Gods name is not Jesus, since Jesus is not God Almighty. In fact, Jesus taught fellow worshippers to pray to God saying: Father, let your name be sanctified. Jesus himself prayed to God: Father, glorify your name.John 12:28.
In the Bible, God declares: I am Jehovah. That is my name I give my glory to no one else. Jehovah is an English translation of the four Hebrew consonants YHWH, which constitute the divine name. That name appears some 7,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. * It is used more often than any title, such as God, Almighty, or Lord, and more frequently than any other name, such as Abraham, Moses, or David.
Nowhere in the Bible does Jehovah prohibit the respectful use of his name. Instead, the Scriptures reveal that the divine name was freely used by Gods servants. They included it in the names they gave their children, such as Elijah, which means My God Is Jehovah, and Zechariah, which means Jehovah Has Remembered. And they did not hesitate to use Gods name in daily conversations.Ruth 2:4.
God wants us to use his name. We are encouraged to give thanks to Jehovah, call on his name. He even takes favorable note of those meditating on his name.Malachi 3:16.
May people know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.Psalm 83:18.
God’s Name Is Jehovah Yhvh
God told Moses twice that His name is Jehovah.
Lets read the second instance.
Exodus 6:3And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
Those were God’s own words.
God said His name is Jehovah.
Further, in Psalms 83:18 we are told, the name of God alone is JEHOVAH .
So let there be no doubt in your mind what God’s name is.
Now some Christians will claim we should not say Jehovah as there is no J in the Hebrew language. Yet, no one ever has a problem saying, Jacob, Joshua or Jerusalem. So let’s not get caught up on translations. Different languages have different letters, that’s not a big deal.
I do want to note, while the word Jehovah only appears four times in the King James Bible, it was translated as LORD over 5,500 times! So anytime you see the word LORD in all uppercase in the Old Testament, it actually means Jehovah .
Now lets look up God’s name together.
Don’t Miss: Bible Verses About Praying Without Ceasing
The Transcendental Argument For Gods Existence
Another argument with roots in the thought of Immanuel Kant is the Transcendental Argument. The argument states that in order to make sense of the universe, it is necessary to affirm the existence of God.
Or, put the other way, to deny the existence of God is to deny the meaning of the universe. Since the universe has meaning, God must exist. The existence of God is a necessary precondition of the existence of the universe.
What About The Rest
The God you find in the Old Testament is not different from the God revealed through Jesus Christ in the Gospels, nor the God that Paul spoke about in the New Testament. However, the Greeks and Romans they spoke to had many different ideas about the gods, which is why you find many various titles and names for God in the New Testament . Just like the Old Testament authors claimed that their various titles for God all referred to the one true God known as Yahweh, the apostles who wrote the New Testament believed that Jesus was the physical embodiment of Yahweh himself. This is why they speak about Jesus so much. Their conviction was that the God who revealed himself to Abraham and Moses, the God known from many titles in the Old Testament, was most perfectly revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. For them, there was no God knowable to us apart from Jesus. In him, the love and mercy and justice of Yahweh the Creator God became human so we could hear and touch him, and know him by name.
Tim Mackie is a writer and creative director for BibleProject. He has a PhD in Semitic Languages and Biblical Studies. He wrote his dissertation on the manuscript history of the book of Ezekiel, with a focus on the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls. What a total nerd! He is a professor at Western Seminary and served as a teaching pastor for many years.
Also Check: Fear In The Bible 365 Times
People Place And Time
Understanding the ancient cultural context of the people, places, and times of the Bible is important for grasping what is actually going on in a particular story within the Bible. In other words, when God reveals himself to people, he does so in exactly the language, concepts, and cultural context of those specific people. To understand the significance of the Bible for our time, we have to understand the ancient meaning of these texts within their own time. The various names of God in the book of Genesis are connected to the ways Ancient Near Eastern people thought about the gods. As we will see, the names given to God are a response to the religious ideas held by the Canaanites and an effort to redirect their attention to the God of Israel.
How Yeshua Became Lost In Translation
Wikimedia CommonsThe King James bible used the I spelling in place of the J spelling.
Since not every language shares the same sounds, people have historically adopted their names so as to be able to pronounce them in various languages. Even in modern languages, there are differences in the pronunciation of Jesus. In English, the name is pronounced with a hard J while in Spanish, even though the spelling is the same, the name is pronounced with what would be an H in English.
It is precisely this type of transliteration that has evolved Yeshua into the modern Jesus. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, which not only uses an entirely different alphabet than Hebrew but also lacks the sh sound found in Yeshua.
The New Testament authors decided to use the Greek s sound in place of the sh in Yeshua and then added a final s to the end of the name to make it masculine in the language. When, in turn, the Bible was translated into Latin from the original Greek, the translators rendered the name as Iesus.
Wikimedia CommonsGerman crucifix depicting the King of the Jews sign in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
Since Latin was the preferred language of the Catholic Church, the Latin version of Yeshua was the name for Christ throughout Europe. Even the 1611 publication of the King James Bible used the Iesus spelling.
Also Check: What Does God Say About Isolation
What Is Jesus’ Real Name
Indeed, Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus. It means “Yahweh is Salvation.” The English spelling of Yeshua is Joshua. However, when translated from Hebrew into Greek, in which the New Testament was written, the name Yeshua becomes Isous. The English spelling for Isous is Jesus.
This means Joshua and Jesus are the same names. One name is translated from Hebrew into English, the other from Greek into English. It is also interesting to note that the names “Joshua” and “Isaiah” are essentially the same names as Yeshua in Hebrew. They mean “savior” and “the salvation of the Lord.”
Given how translation factors into this debate, must we call Jesus Yeshua? Think of it this way: Words for the same object are said differently across languages. While the dialect changes, the object itself does not. In the same way, we can refer to Jesus by different names without changing his nature. The names for him all mean ‘the Lord is Salvation.'”
In short, those who insist we exclusively call Jesus Christ Yeshua are overlooking the fact that how the Messiah’s name is translated is not essential to salvation.
English speakers call him Jesus, with a “J” that sounds like “gee.” Portuguese speakers call him Jesus, but with a “J” that sounds like “geh,” and Spanish speakers call him Jesus, with a “J” that sounds like “hey.” Which one of these pronunciations is the correct one? All of them, of course, in their own language.
Is There Significance To Gods Many Names
Yes, throughout the Bible God refers to Himself by different names and titles. Each name reveals an aspect of His nature, character and power. For example, the name Elohim, used in Genesis 1, is a plural noun that normally takes a singular verb. This and other scriptures indicate that God is composed of more than one being. The Bible doesnt teach that there is a sacred name for God.
What is Gods name? When we study the Bible in English, it can seem like God has two basic names: God and LORD.
But when we dig deeper, we discover that in the original languages He has many more namessome of which include multiple variants. These names are often simply translated as God and LORD in modern English translations.
Recommended Reading: Does It Say Anything In The Bible About Cremation
Morality Argument For Gods Existence
We know that God is real because there is a moral standard and if there is a moral standard, then there is a transcendent moral Truth Giver. The moral argument has a few variations in the way it is articulated. The kernel of the argument dates back only to Immanuel Kant , so it is one of the newer arguments in this post.
The simplest form of the argument is that since it is obvious that there is a perfect moral ideal then we should assume that that ideal had an origin, and the only rational origin for such an idea is God. Putting it into even more basic terms since there is a such thing as objective morality , then that objective moral standard must come from outside of our experience, from God.
People challenge this argument by challenging the presupposition that there is an objective moral standard, or to argue that God is not necessary that finite minds and the societies they make up are able to contemplate moral standards for the common good. Of course, this is undermined even by the word good. Where did the concept of good come from and how do we distinguish good from evil.
This is a particularly compelling argument, especially when we are confronted with unquestioned evil. Many, even among those who argue against the existence of God, would argue that Hitler was objectively evil. This admission of objective morality points to the God, the one who established those moral categories in our hearts.
From God Of Metallurgy To Supreme Deity
Yahweh, according to Amzallag, was transformed from one god among many to the supreme deity by the Israelites in the Iron Age when iron replaced bronze and the copper smelters, whose craft was seen as a kind of transformative magic, lost their unique status. In this new age, the Israelites in Canaan sought to distance themselves from their neighbors in order to consolidate political and military strength and so elevated Yahweh above El as the supreme being and claimed him as their own. His association with the forge, and with imagery of fire, smoke, and smiting, worked as well in describing a god of storms and war and so Yahweh’s character changed from a deity of transformation to one of conquest. Miller and Hayes comment:
Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Yahweh in Israel’s early poetry and narrative literature is his militancy. The so-called Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:1-18 and the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 are typical in their praise of Yahweh, the divine warrior who could be counted on to intervene on behalf of his followersThus it may have been primarily in connection with Israel’s wars that Yahweh gained status as the national god. During times of peace, the tribes will have depended heavily on Baal in his various local forms to ensure fertility. But when they came together to wage war against their common enemies, they would have turned to Yahweh, the divine warrior who could provide victory.
You May Like: The Bible In Chronological Order