What does Lord mean?
Mark Ward (author of Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible) explores the origin of the word “Lord” in the English language—a word that, of course, shows up countless times in our English Bibles. Word histories are history, and they can come with all the drama that human life does. They can even point us to the love and plan of God. The origin of the word “Lord” Think, for example, of the clash of Christianity and Anglo-Saxon culture that had to happen to give us the simple word “Lord.” In English-speaking Christianity, “Lord” is the very name of God (“I am the Lord, that is my name,” Isa 42:8). Lord today is wholly unremarkable, utterly traditional. But when Christianity came to the Germanic tribes living on the island of Britain 1,400 years ago, they had no tradition of Christian words. Somebody had to look at the words available and pick some that kind of fit. Anglo-Saxon Christians of the period used several words to name the biblical God, including one that or...