Wednesday, April 2, 2014
‘The Power of God’s Names’
Bestselling author Dr. Tony Evans shows that it’s through the names of God that the nature of God is revealed to us
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
NASHVILLE, TN
(ANS) – Dr. Tony Evans, whose latest book, “The Power of God’s Names” (Harvest House Publishers), is a quite extraordinary man, who made history when he became the first African-American to graduate with a doctoral degree from Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS).
Dan Wooding with Dr. Tony Evans following the interview in Nashville
He also served as an associate professor in DTS’ Pastoral Ministries Department in the areas of evangelism, homiletics, and black church studies. He continues to serve DTS on the Board of Incorporate Members.
Dr. Evans holds the rare honor of serving as chaplain for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks over the last three decades, the longest standing NBA chaplaincy on record. He is also the former chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys.
Now this multi-talented man has released this exciting new book, in which he shows that it is through the names of God that the nature of God is revealed to us. In it he asks the following questions:
* Who is God in His fullness?
* How has He expressed His riches and righteousness?
* How can you trust His goodness?
Dr. Evans believes that as we get to know the names of God and understand their meaning, God’s character will become real to us in life-changing ways.
I caught up with Evans, one of the country’s most respected evangelical leaders, at the recent National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) 2014 annual convention, in Nashville, Tennessee, where I began by asking him about his early life, that eventually shaped his future.
He started by telling me that he was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
“My father became a Christian when I was about eleven years old and about a year later he led me to Christ. So from that point on, I grew up in a strong Christian home,” he said.
A longshoreman in Baltimore
“He was a longshoreman, meaning that he loaded and unloaded, boats on the Baltimore Harbor, and so, that was how he took care of the family. There were a lot of strikes and a slow days, but he managed through it all.
“I’m the oldest of four children and I was the first in my family to graduate from high school. Then I wound up going, via Atlanta, to Dallas where I studied at Dallas Theological Seminary on my Master’s degree.
“At the end of that, I started a church in 1976 — Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship (www.ocbfchurch.org) — with ten people in our home [with his wife, Lois]when I was working on my doctorate. We’ve got about 9700 people now and out of that grew our national ministry, The Urban Alternative, which seeks to bring spiritual change in our cities based on the Word of God.”
Dr. Evans has since been serving for the last 36 years as senior pastor of the Dallas-based church, with 100 plus ministries.
I asked him how he was accepted in the African-American community, and he replied, “It’s been a growing acceptance. The more people are exposed to not only what we say, but what we’re doing through our local church and impacting people’s lives the ‘National Adopt A School’ initiative, they see we’re not just talking, but we are we’re improving people’s lives while sharing the Gospel. We have a testimony that kind of backs up the sermonic presentation.
“What we do is to ‘adopt a school’ and we provide mentoring, tutoring, and family support services to the students in those schools. Those students have family so that’s church school and family if you impact church school and family, you also impact the community. And because we were successful with it in Dallas, we have trained churches all over the nation how to do this.”
Coretta Scott King besides a picture of her husband
I then shared with Dr. Evans that my first-ever interview as a journalist in London in the late 1960s was with Coretta Scott King at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where she was due to speak at her husband’s memorial service [see www.assistnews.net/Stories/2014/s14010060.htm], and I asked him if he ever met Dr. King and also did he have any impact on his own life?
“I did not personally meet him, but he certainly had an impact on my life because the civil rights movement, which he led, opened doors of opportunity for me which I had not had previously, as it has done for many African Americans,” he said. “I’m very grateful for his stand and the thing that impresses me about what he did was that it was centered in the church. So it shows that the church’s power, when it becomes, and functions as the church, to effect legislation, and the environment.”
Had he ever been affected by racial problems?
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “As I was growing up in Baltimore, there were restaurants we couldn’t go into as black Americans. There was also the name calling and rejection. There were churches that would not accept us as well. So yes, I grew up with it at different levels. So yes, I faced it even as a kid growing up.”
Did it make you angry?
“I had a dual reaction,” he replied. “You were angry, but I was raised in such a God fearing environment, that I was not dominated by it. It didn’t own me.”
So being from such a humble background, I wondered what was behind his success, and he replied, “I fell in love with learning, and I still read vociferously. I try to read anything I can get my hands on. So I grew to love learning and to love reading and believing in scripture. I love preaching.”
We then got onto the topic of his latest book, “The Power of God’s Names,” and I asked him to share about why he wrote it.
Dr. Evans preaching at his Dallas church
“I came to realize that God used all these different names to refer to Himself and that raised the question ‘why?’” he said. “And when I began to answer the question ‘why?’ it became crystal clear that God was using these different names to express different aspects of His nature.
“Those names, which express different aspects of His nature, was typically given in situations in the lives that people were facing. So God used a name in the lives of people and their situation, in order to reveal some new characteristic about himself.
“When you see the scripture talking about ‘the name of the Lord is a strong tower, O magnify the Lord with me, Let us exalt his name together,’ we must fear the name of God. God honors His name in all of these scriptures and then we look at the scenarios in which the various names of God are manifested and we see God has a name for every situation that we face.”
Dr. Evans said he first became interested in this fascinating topic when he was preaching a series on the subject.
Book cover
“I was coming across names, like for example, in Exodus 34: 23, 24, God calls all the men of Israel out to meet with Him and He says to all of them, and then he gives three different names in those verses. He says Elohim, who is your Jehovah; who is your Adonai; and wants to meet with you. Why would you give these men three different names? Elohim is God’s power name, Jehovah is God’s relational name, and Adonai is God’s supervisory name.
“And he says that if you men want to run your country right, then I’ve got to be your power source you have to be in relationship with me and I must be your boss.”
Evans went on to say, “One of the names in a story that most people realize and embrace is Jehovah-Jireh. And of course that’s Genesis 22 where Abraham is told to offer up Isaac and he says, ‘the lord will provide.’ Well God’s provision did not come until obedience was complete. He actually had to complete what God called him to do.
“A lot of people want God’s provision when there’s incomplete obedience, and we show that God’s provision, which assumes his prevision — that He precedes what he’s going to do — but he doesn’t provide what He sees until obedience has been completed. So he used that name of God to show that he has rams in the bush that He’s not going to let them move ‘until your obedience is completed.’ So we show that. Of course there is also Jehovah Robi -– ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ — which is a standard bearer from Psalm 23.
“What’s interesting about Psalm 23,” he added, “is that it covers all the categories of life. It meets your spiritual needs, your directional needs, your emotional needs, and your physical needs, and then it meets your eternal needs. And I don’t think you can come up with a need that doesn’t fit in one of those categories. That’s what it means ‘The Lord is your shepherd’ as He can cover you in every category of life if you’re willing to be a sheep.”
How did he select the names?
“We did a series at the church on the names of God and then took these key names [see below], because so many names are compound names out of close to 100 that are in the Old Testament,” he said. I looked at those these and taught the scenarios in which those names were revealed, and we saw that there was such an engagement by the congregation with those names that we created a literary piece and are now making it available beyond just the sermonic use.”
What is his favorite name from all of them?
“I’ve got to go with Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’, and Jesus Christ, of course, embodies all the names of God in His person because He’s God in flesh. The uniqueness of Jesus is that he’s a hypostatic union — one God, one person composed of two natures unique in their personality, but one in their being — and it shows that Jesus Christ can relate to history because He brings with Him the Names of God. So I have got to go with Jesus.”
Dr. Evans then said that he hopes the book will show to readers “how you can apply the name of God to a situation you’re in, because it will reflect His character in that scenario to help you deal with it.”
These are the names of God that Dr. Evans has featured in his book:
* Elohim: The All-Powerful Creator
* Jehovah: The Self-Revealing One
* Adonai: The Owner of All
* Jehovah-Jireh: The Lord Who Provides
* El Shaddai: The Almighty Sufficient One
* El Elion: The Most High Ruler
* Jehovah Nissi: The Lord’s Banner of Victory
* Jehovah Shalom: The Lord Our Peace
* Jehovah Mekadesh: The Lord Who Sanctifies
* Jehovah Rophe: The Lord Who Heals
* Jehovah Tsikenu: The Lord My Righteousness
* Jehovah Robi: The Lord My Shepherd
* Immanuel: God With Us
He concluded by saying, “By studying and understanding the characteristics of God, as revealed through His names, you will be better equipped to face hardship and victory, loss and provision, and all of the challenges life throws at you.”
Dr. Tony Evans relaxing
Dr. Evans has written numerous books and booklets, including his legacy work, “Oneness Embraced,” “The Kingdom Agenda,” along with “God’s Unlikely Path to Success,” “Kingdom Man” and “How Should Christians Vote?”
He is married to Lois, his wife and ministry partner of 42 years. They are the proud parents of four: Chrystal (Jessie), Priscilla (Jerry), Anthony, Jr., and Jonathan (Kanika) as well as proud grandparents of eleven: Kariss, Jessica, Jackson, Jesse III, Jerry Jr., Kanaan, Jude, Joel, Kelsey, Jonathan II and Kamden, and his website is: taonyevans.org.
And in his latest book, Dr. Tony Evans, has produced a unique work that comes from the mind of a unique and Godly man. I urge you to get a copy.
Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.
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Dan Wooding, 73, is an award-winning journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 50 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is a novel about the life of Jesus through the eyes of his mother called “Mary: My Story from Bethlehem to Calvary”. (Click to order)
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<!–BYLINE:By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries–>