Second Lesson Sermons For Lent/Easter
"The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith," so writes Paul in Romans. Abraham was a man of righteous faith but, as you know, Abraham wasn't always Abraham, the father of many nations; he was Abram who became Abraham. He got a new name, and this isn't unique only to him.
Samuel Clemens, apprentice steamboat pilot and printer, became "Mark Twain," which is a riverman's term for water two fathoms deep, or to say it another way, water barely safe for navigation.