Manuscripts of 1 Corinthians 12 read that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts to different members of the Body of Christ, and one of these individual gifts is called pistis (12:9). English versions such as the King James translate this as "faith", but that is highly problematic: all Christians have been given the gift of faith.
The Ancient Greek word has a range of senses (cp. LSJ). Logic and experience* appear to give the most support to the sense of "assurance", "guarantee", "seal", "pledge". This is consistent with the NT as a whole, and the immediate context, where pistis is the third gift after logos sophias and logos gnoseos, "word of wisdom" and "word of knowledge" respectively.
A new proposal for 1 Corinthians 12:7-9 is thus:
7 To each, however, is given a manifestation of Spirit for the together-progress.
8 Indeed, while to one through the Spirit is given a word of wisdom, yet to another a word of knowledge by the same Spirit,
9 to a different one an assurance by the same Spirit, to another a gift of healing by the one Spirit,
* For example, the recorded experience of asking for and receiving many assurances from God of recent Christians, see the chapter "God Enabling Us, We Go On!" in C.T. Studd, Cricketer and Pioneer, by Norman Grubb.
No comments:
Post a Comment