Name-calling

The Holy Scriptures do not shy away from naming names of those who are doing or have done wrong. Paul says, in 2 Timothy 4:14: “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works.” We are not engaged in a struggle of abstractions, against an abstract evil and sin in the abstract. Abstractions have their place, but sin is downright personal. It has a face. It bears a name. A clear example of the difference may be seen in considering whether or not God hates the sin but loves the sinner. This is a true statement if one is viewing the sin and the sinner as a saved child of God, who has fatherly wrath against His erring son or daughter, but is not cancelling the salvation. Of the reprobate, however, it is not the sin which will endure eternal punishment, but the sinner. There is a judicial wrath which only the blood of Christ will cover. As a general caution, we should all be wary of imagining that our sins are in some way abstracted from ourselves.

In Philippians 4:2-3, we Paul and Timothy admonishing in a fatherly way two women engaged in some kind of dispute. “I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.” Eternal security in Christ is not the focus here, but rather obedience. There is a cowardice among us Christians when we are, on the proper occasions, unwilling to name names which need to be named. General or private admonitions are the general rule, but there are times to be specific and even times to be specific and public.

In 2 Timothy 1:15-16, Paul writes: “This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain;” Eternal security in Christ is a focus here. In writing to his spiritual children, Paul behaves as we would do with our literal children. We learn, I think correctly, not to be comparing our children one to the other but rather each is held up to God’s standard alone. Yet here we see Paul making a striking comparison between the good behavior of Onesiphorus and the apostasy of Phygellus and Hermogenes. He does that in part because he is identifying these two in Asia as leaders among apostates. Their names, he implies, are not in the Lamb’s Book of Life. When the Church today teaches against damnably erroneous teaching, it needs to name names. Disputes within the family may be kept within the family (or they may not be depending on their notoriety), but heresies need to be denied in the named and personal sense as well as in the doctrinally abstract. We don’t seem to make the distinction well nor to be willing to name names in a negative sense. We are very concerned, rather, with being nice.

We should be concerned lest our names be forever linked with Satan as were Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). The Today’s Abstracted Version of the Bible (according to Terrell) would render the account of Ananias and Sapphira like this:

“There was this middle-aged married couple, right? And they had some land and said they sold it and gave all the money to the church. But they didn’t, you know what I’m saying? They kept part of it. So they were struck down dead as an example to the church not to lie to the Holy Spirit, and everybody was, like, Wow! I’m not going to do that!”

While that is the gist of the account, we must not lose sight of the historicity of it – it really occurred – and the personality of it – these were real people whose names we still know.


Excerpt from "Names"