Nicknames - welcome to the family!

It was difficult for Christine when she first met the Millers in Queensland. Everyone has their real name that the world knows them by, and then the name that the family calls them. I think it’s tribal… My family name is Be (or a number of variants), but don’t call me that – it would just be weird! My brother’s perhaps the best. His name’s Leonard though he goes by his middle name, Geoffrey. The family knows him as Bob, and our father calls him Oscar. Poor Chris… there’s eight in my family. That probably equates to about 20 names, depending on who’s talking…

The habit hasn’t been fully handed down to the next generation. Most of them don’t have a tribal Miller name. In fact, there’s only two – Pum and Bid – that are in widespread use.

So you can probably guess that I find it excellent that Jesus had a tribal name for three of his disciples. Simon he called Peter (Greek for Rocky) and the brothers James and John he called “the sons of thunder”. What cool names! I want one! But check out the theme… Rock, Son of Thunder. Nothing soft… What sort of guys were those three? They were either the out-there, bombastic, foot-in-mouth, shoot-from-the-hip, not-afraid-to-have-a-shot kind, or the complete opposite and Jesus was speaking something new into their life. Whichever, I want one!

I found this verse years ago. So cool! I just hope it’s better than Be!