MONDAY
Christianese If You Please
Allow me to be silly for a moment and poke fun at some of the things we say in the Evangelical Church world.
“Bless your heart.”
More common in the south as far as I know. Can be a genuine expression of sympathy and compassion or a statement of concern for one’s well-being. More often, as far as I know, it’s a nice way of saying you don’t think that person is all that smart or they really messed something up or you’re about to slander them…but in a nice way.
Today we are embarking on week 3 of our campaign titled “The Things We Say.” We’ve spent the first couple of weeks looking at what the Bible has to say about the significance of the things we say. According to Jesus, the things we say reveal what is truly in our hearts. James calls believers to bridle their tongues because the things we say have great power to fuel the fires of evil in our hearts if we allow them to go unchecked.
This week we are going to begin talking about specific phrases that should season the vocabulary of Christians. This week’s phrase is “Bless you.” No, not the thing we say after a sneeze. This cultural norm has unfortunately trivialized the rich language of blessing.* This rich meaning is worth fighting for in the church’s vocabulary.
Two of the biggest events in my life have revealed the deep meaning of blessing. Before I asked Savanna to marry me, I sought the blessing of her father. Before giving me his blessing, he told me that if I ever hurt his daughter he would inflict near death pain upon me 😂. The other time I thought of blessing is at the birth of my children. I then became the giver of blessing. I desire to be a father who blesses his children.
Whereas the concept of blessing is marginal in our current culture, it was a staple element of ancient, biblical cultures. It was in the air they breathed. We don’t have space to cover the full landscape of the theme today but let’s take a brief look at it. If a picture is worth a thousand words a video may be worth a million. The Bible Project video below explains the biblical use of blessing well.
The primary Hebrew term for blessing is barak. Its literal meaning is to kneel down but it more regularly means to be blessed. The concept of being blessed is to be full or filled with strength. It is used of God giving someone special power or ability. One who is blessed is thought to be fortunately favored by God. The Psalms are full of psalmists blessing God—praising him as the source of special power and all blessing, declaring him to be the one who is full and filled with all strength.
The primary New Testament word translated blessing is eulogeō. This word is formed with the prefix eu-good with the root word logeō-speak, say. So it can literally mean someone who speaks eloquently. However, it most often refers to invoking goodness into someone’s life. It can be used to speak well of someone or to bestow favor or benefits upon someone.
The opposite of blessing in Scripture is cursing. We touched on this last week but didn’t dive fully into it. Cursing is not limited to witchcraft or saying words that we have as a culture deemed to be swear words. We will more fully explore this theme this week. Humanity and creation have been cursed because we naturally, and under the influence of the devil, pursue blessing apart from God. Creation is under the curse, in that its produce is toilsome, among many other effects. Humanity is cursed with sin. It’s written into our the fabric of our nature. Apart from God’s restorative blessing in Christ, we all remain under the curse. The New Testament authors refer to the Law as a curse. By this, they simply mean that the Law is not sufficient to justify humanity. Living under the Law is like living under a yoke of slavery. In the New Testament era it became a block for people to see the truth of the gospel and experience freedom from the curse of sin in Christ.
In Scripture we see three dimensions of blessing:
- God blesses his people
- God’s people bless God
- God’s people bless one another
For the rest of this week we will explore each of these dimensions.
*According to ChatGPT, declaring a blessing to someone who just sneezed originated during the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Ages. Pope Gregory I suggested saying “bless you” after a sneeze because a sneeze often meant the person had contracted the plague. Or perhaps it originated from the belief that when one sneezes a demon is expelled from the body and this would keep the demon from reentering. It was also thought that the soul left the body momentarily in a sneeze and a blessing then kept the devil from claiming it. Regardless of how it originated, the term blessing has lost almost all of its value in our culture.