Friday 6 November 2009

Shalom


The word Shalom is commonly understood around the world to mean Peace. Throughout Israel it is used as a greeting when people meet and as a farewell when they part. Peace, however is only a small part of the full meaning of the Hebrew word.

Strong's Concordance states that the word shalom encompasses a lot more: A word study in the New King James version for SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord.

So when a Jewish person pronounces Shalom over another they are wishing all of these things upon that person. A blessing indeed!

In Matthew 5 21-26, Jesus is saying that when anyone's relationship with another is anything less than a relationship of Shalom then they must do something to restore the Shalom- the perfectness, completeness, wholeness, peace- to the relationship.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that's cool! We did some shalom-building in our base leadership team yesterday...took the day off and just spent time with God and each other, checking our relationships and making sure we were right with each other. It was such a good day and so affirming. Why don't we invest more to make sure our relationships are full of Shalom...it's so life-giving. Bless you, friend!

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