Mastigos

I was recently reading a little in the Greek New Testament - an attempt to try to remember at least a bit about how to do that. I was reading about Jesus and the woman with the flow of blood. I bumped into a Greek word that I didn't expect: 'mastigos' (μάστιγός). This is how the ESV translates it: 

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:34 

It's the word translated as 'disease'. But I seemed to remember that 'mastigos' meant something different, so I looked it up. It's the word for 'whip' or 'lash'. 

Here's another place that it shows up, this time in its verb form. 

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. John 19:1 

Here it's translated 'flogged'. 

This isn't about criticizing the ESV. The Greek word does have some flexibility. The definition in the standard lexicon also includes 'a condition of great distress, torment, suffering'. My point has to do with what the woman had endured for so long. Her disease was not a little thing. It was 'mastigos'. It felt like being whipped. 

There are lots of people for whom their disease - or whatever it is that they are dealing with - is so hard that it feels like being whipped. Quickly mentioning a verse or two along with a 'I'll pray for you', doesn't cut it. They need some compassion. But, of course, that takes time and effort and caring, things which, sadly, seem to be in short supply these days.

But such qualities don't have to be in short supply. The key to solving this lack is churches that are alive, churches that are filled with the power of the Spirit, churches that know how to worship because they are filled with people who know God and are working at getting to know Him better. Oh for God to grant the grace needed for many churches to become just like that.