What's In A Name?

For over 40 years, my late father, Bartow Riley, was owner/operator of a television repair business in Childress, Texas. Every year, he would go to the bank to request a loan in order for him to purchase televisions from a wholesale supply outlet in Amarillo, Texas to place on his showroom floor, so that his customers could purchase them.

When my father would repay the bank loans that he had requested each year, he began to build up a reputation as a man of his word in the little community. Every year, as more and more customers heard of my father’s ability to repair and sell televisions at an equitable price, his business prospered and increased.

My father knew the local bank president personally, because he had repaired his television several times. Because my father had  built up a reputation of having a good name in that little community, by paying his bills and treating his customers right (Matthew 7:12), when he would go into the local bank to ask for a loan, the bank president would simply ask, “How much money do you need, Bartow?” My father would reply, “ten thousand dollars” and the bank president would immediately loan him the money, with a handshake, no bureaucratic paperwork, and no further questions asked.

As having a good name and reputation was of utmost importance to my father in his television business, so also is having a good name and reputation important for us as Christians, for we are selling a product far more important than televisions or any other commodity. We are selling the saving gospel of Christ to a lost and dying world (cf. Acts 13 ESV), thus our having “a good name” or good reputation (Proverbs 22:1; Ecclesiastes 7:1) is of utmost importance.

What’s in a name? Well, if it’s a good name — everything (Acts 4:10-12).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets