Jump Start # 1706 

Mark 10:46 “Then they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road.”

I was thinking the other day about all the names that are used in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. There are many. We are told the name of the servant whose ear was cut off by Peter. It’s Malchus. We are told the name of the high priest, Caiaphas. We are given the Jewish ruler’s name, Nicodemus. The names, Mary, Martha and Lazarus are very familiar to us. The synagogue official whose little daughter died and Jesus raised was Jairus.

But there are other names we are not given. We don’t know the name of the bent over woman. Nor do we know the name of the woman who was caught in adultery. The demon possessed man, who was living in the cemetery, remains unknown to us.

Some names are given and some are not. There may be some reasons for that.

The names that are given, not only in the Gospels, but all through the N.T., serve as a Biblical footnote. Our verse is a great example of this. After the Gospels were recorded, one way to verify their accuracy was to check the stories with others. Our verse tells us of a blind man who was beggar outside of Jericho. His name is Bartimaeus. And not to confuse him with another person with the same name, his father was Timaeus. Notice how specific that is. A person listening or reading the Gospel of Mark, could go to Jericho and dig around and ask a few locals about a guy who once lived there who was blind by the name of Bartimaeus. If he was still around, he could be interviewed and asked about Jesus and what happened. Even, if he wasn’t there, folks would certainly know the story of Timaeus’ son who gained his sight back. People tend to talk about things like that. That would make a person realize that the story was true.

There is the story of Simon. Not just any Simon. There were many Simon’s. This Simon was from Cyrene. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus, as if the audience knew who those two were, possibly even Christians. He was the one who carried the cross for Jesus. Moments before the death, here lies another Biblical footnote. Go to Cyrene. Check around. Was there a Simon who had a couple of sons named Alexander and Rufus? Heard that he carried Jesus’ cross? Any truth to that? Verification. Evidence. Proof. This is found in Mark’s Gospel. Mark is written to Christians. Alexander and Rufus may have been known by the brethren.

This thought traces through the N.T. There is Lydia from Thyatira. There was Cornelius from Caesarea. It’s as if God were given the early readers, names and addresses. Go, check it out, is what this sounds like.

Then there were statements such as: “Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome” (Acts 18:2). And, the decree from Augustus, that a census be taken (Lk 2:1). Political and national news that could easily be proven. Folks would know if there had been a census.

Then, there was national disasters and calamities, such as earthquakes. There was an earthquake when Jesus died. Later, when Paul was in prison in Philippi, an earthquake that came late in the night, after midnight (Acts 16). How easily that could be proven. Simply ask the residents of Philippi, has there been any earthquakes around here in a while? They could tell you. And, the great famine of Acts 11. Easy to verify and prove. God’s footnotes.

God provided many ways to check His story. Had these things not matched up, the writings of the Gospel would have been dismissed long ago as being fraudulent. Had folks said, “there has not been an earthquake in Jerusalem in over a hundred years,” the Gospel stories would start to fall apart. But these simple checks not only verified the Bible, but they brought people into the story. You could almost here someone saying, “Yeah, I remember that earthquake in Jerusalem. The sky got real dark as well. It was really strange. Never seen anything like that before.” And from that, the story of Jesus would be told. A connection to something that they knew was real.

When we read our Bibles and we find all  of those names, most are hard for us to pronounce, see them as God’s footnotes, or proof, to His story.

Now, why are some names not given to us? We are not told. Maybe some involved didn’t become believers and it would be hard for the Christians to connect with these people. Maybe some were left in secret to protect the people. The adulterous woman would be forever shamed if people knew who she was.

We are living In times when more and more people need proof that the Bible is from God. Just starting with a verse isn’t always the best way to show this. There is proof, both internally and externally that allows us to believe what God says. For those people back then, the proof may have been nothing more than a name and a city.

The precepts of the Lord are right. That‘s what the Psalmist tells us. That’s what we find out when we do our own digging.

Roger