My family and I attended 2 services at a non-denominational church recently. I'm comfortable there, it's diverse, uplifting. One thing that puzzles me is that the pastor uses the word "Yahweh" in place of "Lord". I have never heard of this. What does it mean? I googled it and it didn't clear anything up for me. Is it a type of faith?

Sometimes I feel like in my heart I'm looking for the perfect church, when in my mind I know there isn't such a thing. But we have had some awful experiences in the past at a different church, the pastor and some of the members. I'm very cautious.

Simply put, Yahweh is another name for God. Of course there is more history surrounding it than that (it has something to do with the original Hebrew translation I think), but that's it in a nutshell.

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Stephanie
Mom to: Caleb (8/03), Ian (9/05), & Lucas (11/08)

Yahweh is God's name in Hebrew. It literally means "He Causes to Become." Jehovah is the English pronunciation.

This is what my NIV study Bible says in the notes for Ex 3:15 "The Hebrew name for [The LORD] is Yahweh (often incorrectly spelled "Jehovah"). It means "He is" or "He will be"

And in Deut 28:58 "One of the oddities of history and revelation is the loss of the proper pronunciation of the Hebrew word YHWH, the most intimate and personal name of God in the OT. "Jehovah" is a spelling that developed from combining [two hebrew words.] "Yaweh" is prbably the original pronunciation. The name eventually ceased to be pronounced because later Jews thought it too holy to be unttered and feared violating [the command about speaking God's name]. It is translated "LORD" in this [Bible] version."

*the stuff in the brackets is my paraphrase.

So pretty much what the other girls said! But I had fun looking it up.

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Blessed beyond measure

Thanks ladies!

I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting us into something "strange" since the pastor spoke words I wasn't familiar with. My family has enjoyed this church, so I just thought I'd ask.