Living cross-culturally in an African context where English is widely used, has granted me many opportunities to hear English words used in some rather interesting and often humorous ways. But it has also further fueled my desire to see words used accurately.
Words and word accuracy in communication has been something that has interested me for some time.
When words are not used accurately, mis-understanding can too easily occur, truth can be obscured or prevented, and life can be a great deal more complicated.
When it comes to biblical words, biblical truth can be at stake. If people mis-understand meanings of words there can be wrong doctrine promulgated, and Christians can be cheated of the fulness of truth impacting their lives.
One of the ways biblical words can become obscured in their meaning is simply because they become abstract terms - terms we use in speech because its popular to do so, or it sounds spiritual, or our favourite preacher uses it and we consciously or subconsciously copy.
From time to time in future blogs, I might take a look at various words which my cross-cultural setting has highlighted as 'words to watch' in how we use them - both so we don't miss out on the fullness of meaning intended, but also so we don't pass onto others an incomplete, warped or even false understanding of a word.
The first word I want to highlight is
BLESSING
This is such a common word in our Christian vocabulary, but it has become so common that much of the usage I hear is almost meaningless. It has almost become 'the thing to say', and not much more. We say 'bless you' when someone sneezes, we talk about blessing the food before we eat, we might sign off a letter or farewell a friend with 'God bless', or we comment saying 'what a blessing you are'.
But it is a word rich in meaning,
The Word...
'Blessing' is really a word associated with honour.
Although I'm no Hebrew or Greek scholar, from what I understand, Biblically the Hebrew word is 'barak' and the Greek word is 'eulogeo'. It's where we get the English word 'eulogy' - that story we tell of a person's life at their funeral that tends to say a great deal about the good things a person did and conveniently ignores any negatives we might know about the person.
The word is made up from two words - 'eu' meaning 'well' and logos meaning 'word'. So it really means to 'speak a good word'. ie to praise someone and even show thankfulness/appreciation
That is why in Matthew 25:36 some bible translations use the word 'blessed' and some say 'gave thanks' in relation to the bread and fish, before Jesus fed the 5000 people.
In Matthew 5 what is translated in English as 'blessed' is the word makarios in Greek incorporating the root 'mak' meaning 'become large'. KC Hanson has said these 'makarisms' could be translated 'how honourable' or as David deSilva suggests in his book 'The Hope of Glory', 'how favoured'.
Examples in Scripture
Scripture is full of the word 'bless' or 'blessing' or 'blessed'.
God told Abraham He would make him a blessing (Gen 12:1-2)
Jacob fought with the Angel of the Lord until He blessed him. (Gen 32:26)
King David sang in the Psalms 'Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that is within me bless His holy name' (Ps 103)
Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount - 'Blessed are.....' (Matt 5:1-11)
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey the people shouted 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'. (Matt 21:9)
With each of the examples above, the word 'blessed' can be seen to mean 'honoured'.
Replacing the Mis-placed
Inevitably meanings of words in common language don't remain static - the meanings slowly change with the times. But the words in God's Word have intended meanings that do not change. We must ever be careful that as meanings in our common language change that we don't take biblical word meanings along with them. We must attach words in our language to biblical meanings and not attach biblical meanings to words in our language. We must be constantly aware of the need to re-look at word meanings and we many find we either need a new word in our language to accurately translate a biblical word so as to maintain a right meaning. We may also find that we need to take the time to re-define a biblical word so as to prevent a biblical word being interpreted through the lens of cultural meaning.
The word 'blessing' is no exception.
Here in my corner of Africa, a 'blessing' often has almost a mystical or magical connotation, particularly in regard to food.
I have observed that generally for Christians/church goers it is extremely important to make sure the food is 'blessed' before they eat it. That might sound innocent enough. You might think as I once did that it was just their way of saying that they want to make sure they don't forget to be thankful for the food.
However, I learnt it was more than that. They believed that you had to say the 'blessing' to ensure that the food would be safe to eat and would not harm you. It is seen as the spiritual antidote to any 'curse' that might be in the food or on the food from evil spiritual forces. It is understood that if the 'blessing' is not said, then the curse could still have effect and people could get sick and die.
This might sound crazy, but when you live here and know how many people get sick after village gatherings where food is served, you understand where they are coming from. 'Runny tummy' is very common after eating food at funerals and village ceremonies. Local folk have very strong beliefs that people are often poisoned at such gatherings, and such beliefs are only further entrenched when further family members die after a funeral. One such situation immediately comes to mind of two brothers who died following their other brother's funeral. (A lady we know was married to one of the two brothers who died).
It is important to help people to understand that when Jesus prayed before feeding the 5000 he was not doing some 'magic ritual', but simply honouring His Father who provided the food and thanking Him/praising Him for His provision to feed hungry people. Giving thanks before a meal is not a magic incantation to neutralise evil curses, but giving God the honour He deserves for being Jehovah-Jirah, our provider.
BUT before you point the finger toward Africa for thinking such thoughts about the meaning of 'blessing', let's take a look at Wikipedia says about saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes.
The practice of blessing someone who sneezes, dating as far back as at least AD 77, however, is far older than most specific explanations can account for.[9] Some have offered an explanation suggesting that people once held the folk belief that a person's soul could be thrown from their body when they sneezed,[9] that sneezing otherwise opened the body to invasion by the Devil or evil spirits,[10][11] or that sneezing was the body's effort to force out an invading evil presence.[9] In these cases, "God bless you" or "bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil......
National Geographic reports that during the plague of AD 590, "Pope Gregory I ordered unceasing prayer for divine intercession. Part of his command was that anyone sneezing be blessed immediately ("God bless you"), since sneezing was often the first sign that someone was falling ill with the plague."[7] By AD 750, it became customary to say "God bless you" as a response to one sneezing.[8]
Interestingly the following comment was submitted to the guardian.co.uk about sneezing and blessing -
IT WAS believed that sneezing was the way for the body to rid itself of the devil's evil influences. The act of blessing a person subsequent to a sneeze was meant to act as a safeguard against the devil's evil influences returning. However, if the sneezer should thank the blesser for the blessing it was thought to invite the devil with all his evil influences to re-enter the body.
This fits in with the fact that 'blessing' and 'being thankful' are similar concepts - to thank someone was believed to be giving back the blessing/honour to the devil.
The practice of saying 'bless you' has become to a great degree in Western English, an automatic response of 'just what you do' when someone sneezes, or an abstract term of courtesy, but is maybe still a term we need to think about before we use it.
So when we 'bless the Lord', we are simply honouring Him, praising Him and giving Him the thanks He deserves. When we say someone is a blessing to us, we might be thinking of them as a 'help', but the root meaning is that they have honoured us with their time and energy. Thanking them for that is then 'blessing' them in return.
When Scripture says 'blessed are the peacemakers' etc, it is saying that peacemaking is an honourable activity according to God's standard of honour.
When God's word says to bless those who curse you, it simply means we are meant to still treat others with honour and love even if they do the opposite to us.
So....
Are you living so as to be eligible for God's blessing in your life?
Is your life one that blesses the name of the Lord?
Are you being a channel of God's blessing and bringing blessing to others?
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