Bible Trivia - 2/22/2008

Question: Which book originated and stressed the expression “Lord willing”?

Answer: James (4:15).

Comments: James 4:15 asserts that we should always preface our comments with the expression “Lord willing” as acknowledgment of humanity’s total dependence upon God regarding the future. We simply cannot be sure of anything.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." (James 4:15, NASB)

From this verse also comes the popular colloquialism, “The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” The addition of “and the creek don’t rise” has come to be associated with the body of water, but this was not its original intent.

The phrase originates with U.S. Agent Benjamin Hawkins (1754-1816), who oversaw the longest era of peace with the Creek Confederacy, a group of Native Americans. It is implausible that the college educated and well-written Hawkins would have made a grammatical error, so the capitalization of Creek is the only way the phrase makes sense. He wrote it in response to a request from the President to return to our Nation's Capital and the reference is not to a creek, but The Creek Indian Nation. If the Creek “rose”, Hawkins would have to be present to quell the rebellion.