But to the ears of a Greco-Roman citizen or a Greek-speaking Jew who would be hearing or reading this word in a biblical context, the meaning would describe something we probably don’t typically consider today- a powerful relationship between a giver of gifts and the recipients of those gifts. Let’s see why.Ĭharis (grace) as a standalone word in the Bible could be used as a greeting with high meaning (“Grace and peace be upon you”), as a descriptor of how God conveys powerful favor, as an expression of an undeserved divine act of goodness, and more.

Understanding this first-century context helps illuminate what being under grace actually means to a follower of Jesus Christ. And their understanding of what Paul and others meant by the “grace of God” could have potentially been quite different from ours. Greek and Roman converts reading or hearing this word would have understood it in a considerably different context than we would in the 21st century. Paul wove the word charis more than 100 times into his letters to individuals and different congregations around the Roman Empire. In contrast to its meaning today, the term grace-springing from a translation of the Greek word charis-held quite a different meaning in its original usage in Greco-Roman times, the era in which Paul and the other apostles and New Testament writers lived and worked. Some words are difficult to understand when they have been far removed from their original context. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

What does giving grace mean