Is “MOON” the name of the moon? No! Have you ever asked yourself “why did we name every planet in our solar system but not the moon?”
We even named all the moons of Saturn, but we didn’t name our own. Why? Because you never need to name anything there is only one of!
Now, let’s suppose you asked someone what the name of the moon is.
What would they say? Obviously, they would say “MOON”. Yet, that does not mean that the name of the moon is really MOON.
If you say to a child, while pointing to his father, “who is that man over there?” “Dadda” will most definitely be the reply. Now, it is obvious that “dadda” and “moon” are in the same category.
There are many daddy’s and moons but they are distinct in themselves. So the words “daddy” and “moon” are NOT names at all.
Look in your back yard at the trees. What do you call each of them? Tree? Spruce? Spruce Tree?
If you had 10 spruce trees on your property, you might refer to a specific one as “that spruce” (pointing to it), but unless each spruce has a distinct name, nobody else would understand which tree you are referring to if you say “that Spruce”.
A man could be described as a father, a man, a citizen, a husband, factory worker, BUT HE HAS ONLY ONE NAME! The trees in my back yard are described as “spruce”, “green”, “tall”, or “living,” but NONE OF THEM HAVE A NAME. Same is true with the church. In the Bible, God describes his people in 40 different ways, but none of them are a name.
The fact is, the Bible specifically speaks of the word “Christian” as being a name. “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God” (1 Peter 4:16).
We might get upset when we hear the word “Christian” used as an adjective. (“He has a good christian attitude” or “that is a good christian school)
Why then don’t we get upset when we hear someone turn a verb into a name. For example, Christians are individually described “sheep”, “disciple”, “stone”, “member”, “soldier,” etc.
So, although God describes his people individually as “sheep, disciple, stone,” these are not names. The word “Christian” is a name and the Bible says so!
The church is described in many ways with “metaphors”. Each metaphor gives us a different view point of the church. None of these are names, but descriptors!