What “rest” looks like
Last week I shared about “berenti penat” (stop tired). What helps me find rest for my heart?
This little research from The Discovery Bible on the word “grace” will bring you into a bit of mental gymnastics. Stick with me. I hope it helps you rest your heart.
The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from his prison cell in Rome. Sprinkled all over his letter are the words grace, thank, joy, rejoice. How did he find rest in dire circumstances (prison, opposition, suffering)?
Where do we find rest?
Paul always opened his letters with his signature greeting: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.“
The New Testament (NT) Greek word grace 5485/xáris is close in meaning to the Old Testament Hebrew word 2580/ēn (“grace, extension-toward”). Both xáris and ēn refer to:
- God freely extending himself (his favour, grace), to give himself away to people
- He reaches (inclines) to people because he is disposed to bless (be near) them.
- He “ever leans toward them to share benefit”.
I discovered a new word, “cognate”. Words that are cognate have a shared origin — for example, gratitude and gratitud both come from the Latin word gratitudo, meaning “thankfulness”.
The cognates for grace are: xáris, xaírō, xará, euxaristéō. Observe the important etymological (the study of the origin and development of words) link between:
- 5485/xáris (sometimes rendered “thanks” but the core-idea is “favour, grace”);
- 5463/xaírō (“rejoice because of grace” “delighting by grace”);
- 5479/xará (“joy because of grace” “awareness of grace”); and
- 2168/euxaristéō (“giving thanks for grace”).
From here we see that all four words are cognates and share the same fundamental thrust (God’s grace). The original NT reader did not separate these terms as belonging to separate semantic families, as implied in translation. Rather they sounded so similar to the original NT readers, they naturally understood them as members of the same word-family.
A rough re-production to the English ear would be: “grace” (xára); “grace-ness” (xáris); “glad-for-grace” (xáriō); and “thankful-for-grace” (euxaristéō).
Grace is God freely extending his very self to us. Through Jesus, God is pre-disposed to bless, to be near us and ever leans toward us to share his benefits.