Touch

Yesterday I spent all day in a seminar from Family Foundations Intl. called Overcoming Anger. It is a very powerful seminar and one that I highly recommend to everyone; it is not just for people who have obvious problems with anger.

As with all their seminars, they have small group prayer ministry between most of the presentations to allow opportunity for people to receive ministry for an issues that may be raised during the presentation. I find this a very effective format that is much better than the left-brain heavy seminars that most people are familiar with. Since this particular event was planned for only those who have been in training to be facilitators for future seminars, everyone there was familiar with the routine and the guidelines for these sessions. During one of the ministry sessions I attended the issue of touch came up and what is or is not appropriate in these settings.

This brief exchange got my mind stirred up to explore this issue in the Bible for myself. So this morning I got on my computer and searched the whole New Testament for every reference to touch that I could find. The results surprised me more than I expected.

What I found was that Jesus touched people a great deal more than many of us may even be comfortable with; and these are only the instances that were so significant that they were noted by the recorders of His story. I am sure they were many other times that were so common that they were simply accepted as normal for Him to do. But the real surprise came when I looked up the original word in Greek to see what its meaning is and discovered an important link back to the concept of “fire” that has been a subject of study for me recently.

The word translated “touch” in most places is the Greek word “haptomai”, with the following definition:

680. reflexive of 681; properly, to attach oneself to, i.e. to touch (in many implied relations):--touch.

Notice that it says this word is reflexive of 681. When I went to see the definition of 681 this is what I found:

681. hapto, a primary verb; properly, to fasten to, i.e. (specially) to set on fire:--kindle, light.

What I am seeing here is a description of touching that is far more than a casual or incidental touch. It is a touch that is connected with the idea or sensation of being set on fire or communication of power. I also found a few references to people wanting to touch Jesus or His garment with the same kind of touch, so this form of touch is not restricted to the touch of God. There were also references to touch that used different Greek words that did not have this meaning and were not associated with the idea of power but more like we think of just touching something.

As I looked through the New Testament at every reference to this word, I was very interested in the very last reference in the Bible. It is this text found in 1 John 5:18.

“We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

This really caught my interest. The message I see here is tied directly to the concepts I have been learning about the “wrath” of God and correct understandings about “fire” and “hell” that I have been researching. I have begun to collect these thoughts on my new blog site called Surprise Ending. The message that I see in all these references is that we need to be in touch with God in a way that will both bring “fire” into our lives and will make us agents to pass it along to others. And the exciting part about this is that when we are in that kind of relationship with God, one that is filled with the fire of His passion, one that is referred to in 1 John as “born of God”, then the evil one cannot touch us with his fiery touch. That to me is really good news.