AMEN
Have you ever been annoyed by the frequent and seemingly irreverent way “amen” is used by some Christians? As I have ministered in many countries around the world, I have found that “amen” is used in certain cultures as a punctuation point in most sermons. As the preachers says “Amen”, the congregation responds accordingly with a hearty, “Amen”. To me, it seems that the point of the sermon is lost with the frequency of the use of this word. But, before we get too critical, we must agree that it is one of the words most used in the Bible, especially in the New Testament.
Amen is the same in the Greek and Hebrew languages and thus has been transliterated into most modern idioms. Its most common meaning is to express agreement or approval. It is like saying a hearty “yes!” to what has been said. In all of Christendom, prayers are concluded with an amen, blessings are agreed upon and decisions are confirmed by saying amen. In the Old Testament, amen was also used after a curse was pronounced. In this sense, it was an acknowledgement and awareness of the gravity of violating God’s law and an acceptance of the consequences. By saying amen, the person becomes the judge of his own guilt in the event such a crime is committed.
Though amen often appears at the end of a prayer or blessing, it is also an expression of truthfulness and divinity. In Revelation 3:14, Amen is a title given to the Lord: “The Amen, the faithful and true Witness…says this” This may seem odd to us, to use amen as a title, but it is in conformity to the many times Jesus used amen in His ministry. Nearly seventy times in the Gospels, Jesus uses the expression, amen lego humin, to assert His authority and give evidence to His messianic self-consciousness. By saying, “amen I say to you”, (usually translated as, verily, truly or thus), Jesus is saying that His authority exceeds the Jewish interpreters’ of the Law and that His words are of divine origin.
Paul frequently uses amen to express praise to God and as a doxology toward the end of most all his letters. He also invites his readers to join him in saying amen to the promises of God and to seal their confession of Christ’s deity with an amen. (i.e., Romans 1:25 and 9:5) He was not promoting a religious cliché but was building on a Hebrew understanding of the faithfulness and immutability of God. Isaiah expresses this by using amen to refer to God as True, hence also Faithful. “…blessed by the God of truth.” (in Hebrew it is “God of Amen” – Is. 65:16) In this context, by saying amen we are endorsing what has been said as being true and from God.
Amen should not be used flippantly or simply from habit. It is an identification with the prayer or message given. As Paul admonished the Corinthians, the message must be understood for there to be an amen given. (I Cor. 14:16) It is an agreement that requires responsibility and accountability. The next time we say amen, let us put our whole heart into it. May we mean what we say and say what we mean. Amen-ing is serious business.
Scriptures to meditate on:
Deut. 27:16; Is. 65:16; Mat. 5:26; II Cor. 1:20; Phil. 4:20; Rev. 3:14; 22:20