Today on the podcast we begin a brand new theme study, all about the practice of anointing

people with oil.

Sounds a little obscure, but we pick this theme because it's the title applied the most

to Jesus in the New Testament.

Jesus, the Christ, meaning Jesus, the anointed one.

It's a Greek word, Creo, which when you talk about a person who has been poured or smeared

with oil, the title of that figure is Christos, which is the title, Christ.

And that is a Jewish Greek way of describing an ancient Israelite practice of pouring oil

on certain people in places.

And the Hebrew word for that is masach, and what you call someone who's had oil smeared

or poured over them is masachach, from which we get the word masaya.

In the Hebrew Bible, the people anointed with oil were priests, prophets, and kings.

Be the anointed one means you've had this ritual where you've got the oil placed on your

head, and it marks a person or a place as a portal between heaven and earth.

And with the kings, the priests and the prophets, you get this image of a portal of God's

rule for the king, the portal of God's presence through the priest, a portal for God's word

and purpose through the prophet.

All those heavenly realities are brought to earth, so to speak through this one who's

marked by the oil.

That couldn't priests, prophets, and kings be anointed with water, or wine, or something

else.

What makes oil so special?

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