Blessing

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:2 ESV)

I wish we blessed each other more.

In our culture we have lost that. We have become more heathen in our language and less Christian. We rarely offer each other blessings. We do not even think along these lines. Rather, we have adopted the language of unbelief as our own without even thinking about it. When we wish someone well we say, "Good luck."

Luck? Does the universe operate on the principles of luck? Or chance? These are not Christian ways of thinking. These are pagan. Noah Webster's dictionary defined luck as "a purposeless, unpredictable and uncontrollable force that shapes events favorably or unfavorably for an individual, group or cause." Is that the way a Christian looks at what happens in the world around him? Purposeless? Random? Chance? Chance is not an entity and if he is then he seems rather fickle. Things do not 'just happen.' Not in the biblical universe. There is someone in control and that someone is God. To say 'good luck' is to wish someone well in a way that ignores God. If we believe in God then we acknowledge that he governs his universe and he is in control of what happens to us--and that nothing is random. So when we as Christians wish someone well, we should always do so in faith. We should always offer them the blessings of God.

This is what Paul does when he opens his letter to the Philippian saints. He blesses them. "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." It is more than a greeting. It is a blessing. He wishes for them the very best that God has to offer and he does it in a way that gives praise and honor to God. It is a tremendous blessing.

Paul did not invent this sort of thing. There is a long tradition of blessing in Hebrew culture of which Paul is an inheritor. Abraham blessed Isaac. Jacob stole the blessing his father, Isaac, had intended for Esau. Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph before he died. We read of it over and over and over again. Blessings.

A blessing done in this way honors God by acknowledging his sovereign control over the events of our lives. It honors him by acknowledging his goodness and faithfulness to his people and his promises. It also honors him by honoring his wishes that we should love each other, that we should love our neighbor. When we love others we bless them. Conversely when we hate them we curse them. Blessing others makes us more like God because it is a reflection of God's love for all of us.

When God was giving Moses and Aaron instructions on the tabernacle and the priesthood and the worship under the old covenant he said this:

Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 

“Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, 

Yahweh bless you and keep you; 

Yahweh make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 

Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. 

“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22-27)

I know that you have seen or heard that blessing before and that you probably heard it as "The Lord bless you . . ." and so on. But I included the divine covenant name because God specifically says that he wanted the priests to put his name on the people. When God asks the priesthood to bless the people, he is asking the priests to bless the people in a way that will honor his name and remind the people of his covenant with them. 

And this is exactly what Paul is doing to his readers in Philippians 1:2. He blesses them and puts the new covenant name of Jesus on them. And his blessing, while certainly new covenant, echoes the blessing that God told Aaron to have his sons put on the people under the old covenant. 

Look at it again: "The Lord . . . be gracious to you. The Lord . . . give you peace." Grace and peace. 

May God bless you with his grace and peace today, in and because of Jesus Christ. Amen.