Is God Your Massage Therapist?

By Craig Botha

Now in its second edition.

This is not a book on massage therapy, nor is it a book on the history of massage. It is a book that explores the meaning behind anointing.

Come on a journey of discovery and explore how massage influenced Moses' understanding of anointing. Also discover how God longs for an intimate relationship with you and me, and how He expresses this through anointing. Then discover how this can give you a new identity (still you, just better).

Craig Botha is a registered therapeutic massage therapist with many years of experience, and has had research published in the journal of the Massage Therapy Association of South Africa. He is also a qualified Biblical counselor. It is this unusual background of massage and theological studies that has given him unique insight into the history of anointing, it's symbolism, and it's implications for all of us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Craig Botha
• Release date: Nov 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386234852

Book preview

Route map

Departure: We depart on our journey of discovery with a short introduction.

First stop: Misconceptions. We deal with some misconceptions about massage, because if we don't deal with them, it may create a block for you to even consider anything else that I have to say.

Second stop: Symbolism.  We stop and have a look at what symbolism and symbolic mean. We need to be on the same page here, otherwise we may be unable to connect massage with anointing. The link I want to draw between massage and ceremonial anointing is a symbolic one. It is a metaphor.

Third stop: Definitions. We explore a dictionary definition of each of these two important words: massage and anointing. Perhaps this will shed some light on the subject.

Fourth stop: Egyptian History. We briefly explore the history of massage, particularly Egyptian massage and the different types of massage that the Egyptians practised, because this is where Moses learned all about anointing.

Fifth stop: Biblical anointing.  We take a look at the different types of anointing in the Bible, because all the different types we learned about in the Egyptian history of anointing, are written about or referred to in the Bible.

Sixth Stop: Roadblocks. We need to address some taboos which are offensive to many people, and which may prevent you from understanding the link between massage and anointing.

Seventh stop: Questions. Here we are going to stop and just ask some questions about what we have learned up to this point in the journey.

Eighth stop: Jesus example.  At this point in the journey we are going to try to find out how Jesus did anointing, if at all.

Ninth stop: Anointing since Bible times. We will look at how anointing has been practised since the Bible times. I would like to look at some history of anointing, both in the Christian context, and in the context of other faiths.

Tenth Stop: The Holy Spirit. Here is the crunch, the crucial part of the journey.  At this important point in the journey, we discover what anointing means for you and me. What does being anointed with the Holy Spirit mean? How does it benefit us? What do we get out of the deal?

Last stop: Lessons to learn. If anointing draws its symbolism from massage. What role should massage play in our lives?

Conclusion. Here we find out what the title of the book actually means.

Appendix A 

Appendix B 

Thanks 

Bibliography 

Introduction

Massage conjures up many different thoughts for different people. For some, they are thoughts of relaxation, or stress relief, for others it is pain and suffering because of tight muscles that only get any attention when it's long overdue. For others massage conjures up images of red light districts and prostitution so it has become a taboo, because of them,  no self-respecting Christian would go for a massage you might say.

Before you get too offended by the question Is God Your Massage Therapist?, let me say right at the start, it is metaphorical. If you want to know exactly what the tile means, then you can skip to the conclusion, but if you want to understand how I get to the conclusion, then I invite you to read through the book and to come with me on a journey of discovery.

This journey is a journey to uncover the symbolism behind the metaphor of ceremonial anointing in the Bible. I want to share with you some of the research I have done, because it has brought many parts of the Bible to life for me, that previously had no meaning. I call it a journey, because it is a step by step walk through some seemingly disconnected concepts and thoughts, that if we start at one end and work our way through, we come to a destination, which hopefully is this: the knowledge that God wants to have an intimate relationship with you. If we skip some of the steps, then we may not get there. Although I have already told you what the final destination is. We still need to get there.

The research I have done has brought me to the conclusion that Biblical anointing is a metaphor with draws all of its meaning and symbolism from what we could call massage today.  I expect this concept to be offensive to many Christians, not just conservative Christians. In fact, if I had read this book 15 years ago, I believe that I would have been highly offended, and had anybody suggested then, that I would be writing this book today, I would have been horrified. If I look back now, I see that God has brought me along an interesting journey of learning and discovery and a long process of teaching.

So as you read this book, I do realise that I'm expecting you to grasp, in a short time, something that has taken me over 10 years to grasp. So I do understand if you reject what I have written. What I do ask though, is that as you read this book, you ask God to show you the truth. No matter who you are, if you are searching for the truth, and if you ask God to show you, He will show you the truth (Mat 7:7). I also ask that if you do read it, that you start at the beginning, and work your way through to the end, without skipping the steps in between. Or you may end up with a message totally different to the one I am trying to convey.

Key to understanding this book, is that anointing is all about symbolism. So, I'm going to repeat that a number of times throughout the book, and hope that by the end, you understand this. Every ceremony is symbolic. It is a metaphor. We understand the symbolism behind communion (Breaking of bread, or thee Eucharist), because Jesus explained it clearly on the night that He was betrayed. But nowhere does the Bible explain the metaphor of ceremonial anointing.

How did I come to the point of writing this book? And why should you trust what I have written?

12 years ago I was working for a computer company and got retrenched. Shortly after my brother and myself were employed to start a division in a different computer networking company. However, as we got to learn how the company operated, we quickly realised that our new employers were quite corrupt, and were putting pressure on us to adopt their corrupt practices. We couldn't, and we both resigned, with nothing to go to. I had had my fill of the corporate world, and decided to follow my heart and do something that I was interested in. That something was massage therapy. I had become really interested in sports massage while pursuing another passion of mine: endurance sport. I had also been told that I had a natural gift for massage. So, I enrolled with a sports massage school. Since then, I have studied massage quite extensively, and I am one of a handful of therapeutic massage therapist in South Africa registered with the Allied Health Professions Counsel of South Africa. I am passionate about massage and the health benefits that massage offers. I am even more passionate about my relationship with God, and how I can share God's grace with others, because of the tremendous amount of grace God has shown towards me. 

In my massage practice, many patients have confided in me as I have gained their trust, and what I have learned from this, is that there are a lot of broken, hurting people, with real emotional needs that I felt unqualified to even listen to, never mind offer any assistance with. This is what prompted me to study counselling with the Baptist Theological College in Randburg, South Africa. My final subject was a fourth year level, specialised research paper, and mine was on counselling in the massage therapy environment. I had presented my first draft to my lecturer (Dr. David Carlton) and he asked me to do more research into the history of massage therapy, and particularly the holistic aspect of massage. Now I regard myself as a rather conservative Christian, having grown up in the Brethren Church, and later in a Baptist  congregation which had a reputation for being quite reformed and conservative. So this idea of holistic massage was a bit scary to me, and quite frankly, the fact that massage has a reputation for attracting the New Age/hippy/werdo/spiritual/holistic type of people has always created a bit of discomfort for me. It was while doing this research, that I came across the work of Robert Calvert. Now, Mr. Calvert has written a fantastic work on the history of massage, His book is a secular history of massage, it does not align itself with any particular faith, Christian or otherwise. In this book Calvert discusses the history of massage in ancient Egypt. The thing is that he refers to the ancient Egyptian massage modalities as "anointing and he describes the different types of anointing" practised by the ancient Egyptians in quite some detail. This is when I had that light-bulb moment.  I realised that Moses grew up with an intimate knowledge of these Egyptian massage/anointing practices. This set me on a course of even more research and discovery.

Now, let me share with you what I have learned:

The word massage has only been around for about 230 years, so we are unlikely to see it used in any English translation of the Bible (though it is in some modern translations such as the Good News Bible, e.g. Esther 2:9 and 12). If we look at the dictionary meaning of massage, it is practically the same as the dictionary meaning of the word  anoint or anointing.

Christianees is a term given to the particular type of jargon that Christians speak, and some of the words that we use are words that we don't even fully understand. Every Christian I know wants the anointing of the Holy Spirit in their lives, but what does this mean. What is anointing? Where does this concept come from? And what are the implications?

There are many examples of anointing in the Bible, and there are as many as 8 or 9 different types of anointing. Yet the Bible gives few instructions on exactly how to perform anointing, what its significance is or what the metaphor is. It may be that you hold to the Bible as the final authority on all matters of faith and practice (as it should be), but sometimes the Bible just doesn't reveal very much to us of what is meant or implied. As a result, we can be blinkered (or at least handicapped) in our understanding and miss out on what other writings have to teach us, particularly when it comes to customs and practices that are referred to in the Bible, but not explained. Those who penned the Scriptures assume that the reader knows what anointing is, how it is done, and what it means. However, with the passage of time we (Christians) have lost the understanding of what is meant and we have to look to other writings to gain some insight into customs and practices of the time, to get a better understanding of what some of these concepts mean. Anointing is a prime example of this, and in this case, we need a better understanding of the history, method, role, and significance of anointing and what this metaphor  symbolises.

This book is not intended to be an exhaustive reference for everything to do with anointing in the Bible. However, I have included an appendix at the end of the book listing all the references I could find. I'm sure that there are more. I've tried to present what I've written as an informal conversation, and less like an academic research paper. However, I have