What is a blessing?

[Caroline]

Are other people here like me in that, when they want to start a new thread, they panic because they don't know which forum to put it in? Blessings ... hmmmm ... Old Testament Prophets? NT? Exegetical? AAAAAAAAA ... I don't know, I don't know! So the placement is somewhat random (but there are blessings in worship, right?). Mods feel free to move it, but please tell me where, or I will never find it again.

Anyway .... my question is what is a blessing?

I don't think it's a sort of incantation, like speaking something into existance, but it does seem like it's more than stating a wish and hope that everything turns out well for someone.

Also, can anyone besides an ordained minister give a blessing? I sometimes say to friends, "May God be with you" or "May God give you peace/wisdom/etc". Are these 'blessings'?

 

[jason d]

I'm interested too,... but it looks like someone finally stumped the PuritanBoard!

 

[py3ak]

Ruth 2:4 would seem to imply that reverently invoking the name of the Lord as a greeting to others was an accepted practice in OT Israel. While that isn't the same thing as a benediction, it seems to show that there is room in Christian piety for pious good wishes to be directed to one another.

 

[Kings Bro]

I remember somewhere sometime someone explaining it but I can't remember where when or who. But I remember that it described a blessing as a good thing and a curse a bad thing to be loosely describe it. He went into detail about God's covenant with Israel saying that if they obey Him, He will bless them, but if they don't, He will curse them.

 

[OPC'n]

I think it can mean different things in different situations and to different persons. Here are some definitions:


Bless \Bless\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blessedor Blest; p. pr. & vb. n. Blessing.]

[OE. blessien, bletsen, AS. bletsian, bledsian, bloedsian, fr. bl?d blood; prob. originally to consecrate by sprinkling with blood. See Blood.]

1. To make or pronounce holy; to consecrate [1913 Webster]

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. --Gen. ii. 3. [1913 Webster]

2. To make happy, blithesome, or joyous; to confer prosperity or happiness upon; to grant divine favor to. [1913 Webster]

The quality of mercy is . . . twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

It hath pleased thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. --1 Chron. xvii. 27 (R. V. ) [1913 Webster]

3. To express a wish or prayer for the happiness of; to invoke a blessing upon; -- applied to persons. [1913 Webster]

Bless them which persecute you. --Rom. xii. 14. [1913 Webster]

4. To invoke or confer beneficial attributes or qualities upon; to invoke or confer a blessing on, -- as on food. [1913 Webster]

Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. --Luke ix. 16. [1913 Webster]

5. To make the sign of the cross upon; to cross (one's self). [Archaic] --Holinshed. [1913 Webster]

6. To guard; to keep; to protect. [Obs.]

[1913 Webster]

7. To praise, or glorify; to extol for excellences. [1913 Webster]

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. --Ps. ciii. 1. [1913 Webster]

8. To esteem or account happy; to felicitate. [1913 Webster]

The nations shall bless themselves in him. --Jer. iv. 3. [1913 Webster]

9. To wave; to brandish. [Obs.]

[1913 Webster]

And burning blades about their heads do bless. --Spenser. [1913 Webster]

Round his armed head his trenchant blade he blest. --Fairfax. [1913 Webster]

Note: This is an old sense of the word, supposed by Johnson, Nares, and others, to have been derived from the old rite of blessing a field by directing the hands to all parts of it. "In drawing [their bow] some fetch such a compass as though they would turn about and bless all the field." --Ascham. [1913 Webster]

Bless me! Bless us! an exclamation of surprise. --Milton.

To bless from, to secure, defend, or preserve from. "Bless me from marrying a usurer." --Shak. [1913 Webster]

To bless the doors from nightly harm. --Milton. [1913 Webster]

To bless with, To be blessed with, to favor or endow with; to be favored or endowed with; as, God blesses us with health; we are blessed with happiness. [1913 Webster]

 

[Caroline]

LOL Wow ... I maybe stumped the puritanboard? I hope not.

Ok, so would anybody expect that a benediction has any power to it, so to speak? I mean, is it merely a good wish? Or does it actually DO something?

If Reformed pastors can bless people, can they also put a curse them? DO they ever put a curse on people? Does it always work?

I'm actually not trying to argue any sort of point here (if anybody was wondering). I do not know the answer to these questions.

 

[py3ak]

I think Numbers 6:22-27 has your answer, Caroline.

A benediction is a pronouncement of God's word. As such, it is an effectual means of salvation to those whom God has called: He really does use it. It does accomplish its intended result, whether on elect or reprobate (though the effect may not be the same).

Cursing is a little more complicated: you remember Balaam and Shimei. Balaam was hired to curse, but could speak only what God gave him. Shimei cursed, but God turned it into a blessing. However, the imprecatory Psalms contain a number of curses, and those are fulfilled, but again, in their proper subjects.

However, to put it mildly, it would be quite rare for a Reformed pastor to express imprecations against a specific person.

 

[Caroline]

Thanks, Ruben and others who replied. I have more questions about this, but haven't yet thought of a way to ask them in which they would not sound crazy. Perhaps in time.

But thanks, lots to think about ...

 

[Wayne]

I was just reading in Thomas Goodwin's Works, vol. 1, last night, in pursuit of some light on the Sunday sermon on Ephesians 1:3. On pages 43 and 44 of vol. 1, there are these two passages which I found helpful:

2. God blesseth us under the relation of our Father.--The first on earth that ever took upon them to bless others, and brought up that custom (or, as I may say, fashion) of blessing, were those that bore the relation of fathers. Their hearts were filled with the greatest love and good-will to their own children, a natural storge, [*how do you insert Grk. text?] did bless them, that is, wish well to them; and their hearts being enlarged to wish them more good than they found themselves able to bestow, they had recourse to God to bless them, and perform their desires, as that which was not in their own power to do. So the patriarchs, who blessed their children and posterity, and were the first of men that brought in this way of expressing their good-will which we call blessing, . . .

and

1. For the word 'blessing,' or to bless.--It is evident by that extensive comprehensiveness of speech which the Apostle here useth, that the whole, the total, and all particular good things, which he after enumerates, which God ever means to give, or the gospel promises, even all of them are to the utmost spoken of under and by this word of blessing. And it is worth our consideration that it is that original word under which the promise of the covenant of grace was at the first given to Abraham, the father of all the faithful; as which contained all particular good things, as his loins did that seed to whom that promise was made. And this I mention now at first as a fundamental consideration, that will have a great and necessary influence into the explication of the particulars that follow in this verse. The apostle here framing these words with an eye of allusion to, and comparison between those promises given them, and these promises which the gospel here declares; therefore unto that promise given them we shall have recourse again and again, to make our Apostle's meaning here the more manifest. That before me at the present is, that the sum and substance of gospel-promises began then to be set forth and expressed under this blessed word of blessing. 'I will bless thee,' said God to Abraham, 'and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' Gen. xii. 2, 3. And again, because it could not be better expressed by any other word, God doth but double the same, saying, 'In blessing I will bless thee,' Gen. xxii. 17; that is, I will bless thee and bless thee again, which is equivalent to the expression here, 'with all blessings hath he blessed us.' And what doth or can the great God say more? It is enough.

 

[CNJ]

This is a great question, Caroline. When someone says "blessings to you" does that mean they have power to bless you? I would think that is presumptuous.

Maybe they mean "have a nice day" which is so trite, but "blessings" sounds more spiritual. Some say "peace to you".

Yes, Caroline, we have got to get this question out there. Keep searching for the words.