Troublesome Topic: SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT THE MEANING OF “AMEN”

The Hebrew word “amen” was borrowed from Hebrew by the writers of the Greek New Testament because Greek did not have a good equivalent. Therefore, we don’t need to consider both the Greek and Hebrew meanings, just the Hebrew. From Greek it made its way into Latin and then to English. It is one of the few words that comes to English from Hebrew.

Its primary meaning is “surely, or assuredly”.

It has three primary ways in which it is used in the Old Testament.

When a truth was spoken, the word “amen” was used as an affirmation meaning, “Surely that is true, I acknowledge the truth of it, Yes, right on.”

When praise was given to God in the Old Testament, the words of praise were sometimes followed by the word “amen” as a willing endorsement of those words of praise, as if to say, “Yes, I agree, I feel the same way, so I echo those words of praise.”

As everyone knows, we also use “amen” at the end of a prayer. We have been told that in such cases it means “so be it, or may it be so,” and that is correct. However, Since God is God and He will do what He has chosen to do, and since there is nothing we can do to change His purpose, and since we should not beg Him to change His mind, it seems strange to add the words “so be it” at the end of our prayer. It seems strange unless it is a type of commitment.

How can it be a commitment? I now see the word “amen” at the end of a prayer as a way to follow my requests by telling God, “and may it come to reality without me getting in the way, don’t allow me to be a hindrance in these things coming to fruition”.

For me the word “amen” has become a serious commitment to do my part by trusting Him fully and obeying Him without doing anything that would be a hindrance.

I hope you will learn to use it in that way as well.  

The next lesson in this series is DREAM BIG AND PRAY BIG