Bible Question: How come you leave the 'o' out of God everytime you spell it? |
Bible Answer: Hi Faron, I write G-d's name that way because He has blessed me with a calling of reaching out to the Jewish people with the good news about His Son, Yeshua. At my Messianic congregation, we have Jewish people who come from many countries and many different family customs about honoring G-d. Most of the people in my synagogue who are Jewish believers either came from formerly Conservative or Reform backgrounds (correlating in some ways to Baptist or Episcopal). They are used to spelling out the name of G-d, including the "o" and don't think anything about it. Others were agnostic or atheistic before they met Yeshua. To them, the spelling is not so important, either. However, we started to realize that we also have not-yet-believing-Jewish family members who are visitors-- and then we began (glory to G-d!) receiving new members who come from Orthodox backgrounds. Some of our members explained to others of us that to Jewish people from Orthodox backgrounds, our old way of writing out the whole name of G-d was, to them, a casual way of treating G-d's name which was shocking and dishonoring. For us to spell out G-d's whole name in the bulletin or on the powerpoint was distracting and felt disrespectful to the Jewish people we are reaching out to. We realized that in order to be more inclusive-- to prefer one another in love-- we wanted to invite in all Jewish people to get to know about Messiah, rather than needlessly offending some. The custom is very beautiful, once a person understands it. When you really love a person, you love their name and honor as well... and you want all people to treat their name with respect. It is part of how Jewish tradition keeps the commands to honor G-ds' name as holy. People became tender-hearted about G-d's name so much so that they were careful that when they wrote His name on something, they didn't want that piece of paper to be colored over or crumpled or casually thrown in the trash can. As a way to hold G-d's name in high honor, some Jewish people grew used to removing part of the word so that a person would never "throw away" or use inappropriately His name. Since I write on the internet to a wide audience and do not know whether Orthodox Jews might be reading what I write, I try to write in a way that shows sensitivity and respect toward this tradition of how to write G-d's name. There are many obstacles about considering Yeshua as the Messiah which are difficult enough for a Jewish person. For me, writing G-d's name in this way is gesture of love showing that a Jewish person can continue to honor G-d in traditional Jewish ways while trusting in the Jewish Messiah. Thanks for asking. :) Shalom to you, Beseder |