WHAT’S IN A NAME – In 1852 an English Confectioner named Sam German was working for the Baker’s Chocolate Company, located in Lower Mills Village on the Neponset River between Dorchester and Milton, Massachusetts. He was experimenting with various blends of chocolate and came up with an interesting mix. The Baker Company execs were so impressed that they begin to produce and sell this chocolate bar, and in honor of it’s inventor named it “German’s Sweet Chocolate Bar.” It took over one hundred years before the first published recipe for what we now know as German’s Chocolate Cake showed up in a Dallas newspaper in 1957, and came from a Texas homemaker named Mrs. Marie Baca. But it became so popular that soon a cake mix was being produced and sold for German’s Chocolate Cake. It wasn’t long before in recipes and packaging the apostrophe was dropped from German’s, and it simply became “German Chocolate Cake.” Ask anyone today and they will tell you that German Chocolate Cake had its origin in Germany. But that could not be further from the truth. The same seems to be what has happened to the original spiritual formula once called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was developed by none other than a Jewish prophet known as Jesus of Nazareth who ministered in the country of Israel over 2000 years ago. But over time the name Jesus Christ was dropped from the title and it simply became known as “The Gospel.” Even today there are certain ingredients missing in the recipe such as: virgin birth, Son of God, the Way, Truth and Life, sacrifice for sins, blood that cleanses from sin, and resurrection from death. As a matter of fact, many people sitting in pews think the recipe for the gospel was invented in England or the United States. In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul left no doubt as to where the gospel he preached came from, “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (1:8). So it is important that we know the true identity of author of the gospel we preach and hear.