"Now that was a real benediction!" said my friend. The First Reader had closed a Communion service in a Church of Christ, Scientist, with: "The God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him." I Sam. 1:17; The words continued to hold my attention. What, I wanted to know, made this a benediction in a special way?
"Benediction," says Webster, is "the short blessing with which public worship is concluded." Cruden's Complete Concordance gives three classifications for "bless": "I. God blesses. ... II. Men bless God. . . . III. Men bless other men." At Christian Science services the Reader reads from the Bible a benediction giving God's blessing to the congregation.
God blesses impartially and spontaneously. All that proceeds from God is His benediction and it blesses everyone continually. Jacob, one might say, ultimately discovered that he could not have stolen Esau's real blessing because both brothers were blessed impartially by God.
