Engaged: The Family Blessing

Blog Leave a Comment

A simple paragraph in a JP article changed the way I prayed!

For me, study is about being engaged by a thought, viewpoint or argument: first trying to determine if I can align my thinking with that thought; and secondarily, grappling with the ramifications of change.

Since becoming a “Student of JP” I’ve tried to be more careful and write my doctrine/beliefs in pencil. Saying “I’ve always believed that way” is something I try to never use as a defense and I certainly find myself being challenged often as I read articles on the JP site.

That being said, from time to time I will share a nugget I’ve found within an article on the JP site which has “engaged” my thinking and, possibly, even changed my thinking.

I cannot tell you how many times I heard my dad pray the phrase “Bless this food to the nourishment of our body and us to greater service.” Of course, that phrase also became a part of my meal-prayer rhetoric?

But the article “Jesus and the Oral Torah: Blessings” by David Bivin changed all that with one short paragraph:

Before dining with the two disciples from Emmaus, Jesus “blessed, broke and gave,” as he did before he fed the five thousand with five loaves and and two fish. (In Luke’s account of this miracle, but not in Mark’s or Matthew’s, the text reads “blessed them,” but one important Greek manuscript reads “blessed for them” at Luke 9:16.) Because of the recurring “blessed, broke and gave the bread” in the Gospels, it is a common Christian misunderstanding that Jesus blessed the bread. Consequently, Christians customarily “bless the food” before they eat a meal.

I urge every reader to read all articles in this six-part series “Jesus and the Oral Torah“, but definitely the one on “Blessing

Enjoy…and get engaged!

Brian


Leave a Reply

  • Brian Becker

    Brian Becker

    After graduating from Mizzou with Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering degrees in 1985, Brian Becker spent a decade on the road as a recording artist performing Christian Rock. In 1990, he signed a recording contract with Benson Music Group of Nashville. Brian produced 5 albums…
    [Read more about author]

  • JP Content

  • Suggested Reading

  • Hospitality Heritage of the ChurchPetros Petra WordplayHistorical Jesus a Tanna FIDeliver Us From Evil6 Stone Water JarsEnemies of the HarvestWere Women Segregated?Luke 9-51-56—A Hebrew FragmentUnlocking the Synoptic ProblemNew Portrait of SalomeInsulting God's High PriestLoving BothMedieval JargonBeating the (Thorny) Bushes title 2Gergesa, Gerasa, or GadaraPG‘Everything Written…in the Psalms About Me’ (Luke 24-44)And OR In Order To RemarryAnti-Jewish TendenciesScribal ErrorsAllegro to ZeitlinTwena With All Due RespectTorah in the Sermon on the MountBethsaida 002Flusser Times of the GentilesIf Your Eye Be Single cover imageIntro to SynopticStewards of God's KeysBy the Finger of GodPower of ParablesTrees of LifeBest Long-TermFlusser Parables of Ill ReputeNew International JesusReich Design and MaintenanceSafrai Synagogue CenturionNun GergesaSabbath BreakersNeot KedumimWealth of Herod the GreatGood Morning, ElijahMiraculous CatchSalted With FireJewish Laws of Purity in Jesus' DayMidrash in the New TestamentAesop's Fables and the Parables of the SagesJesus’ Temptation and Its Jewish BackgroundOstracon From Qumran FlusserOrigins of Jesus' Dominical TitleDid Jesus Make Food Clean?Evidence of Pro-Roman Leanings in the Gospel of MatthewA Body, Vultures & SoMBinding and Loosingספר פתרון תורהPilgrimage in the Time of Jesus cover