Love “bears all things, entrusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things”.
If that is the right way to translate 1 Corinthians 13:7*, what might it tell us?
1. Love has amazing symmetry.
For example, a Christian bears a cross** out of love, and entrusts that burden to God out of love. More symmetries can be discovered between bearing, entrusting, hoping and enduring.
2. Love is tremendously capable.
Paul sums it up this way: “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). Love never fails, because it is able to bear anything, entrust anything, hope anything, endure anything.
3. Love’s power is related to its symmetry.
A Christian can bear a cross because he or she entrusts the burden, and him- or herself, to God. Love can endure anything, because it is able to hope so powerfully.
___________
* A brief summary of evidence was made here.
** Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, 14:27.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
A new solution for 1 Corinthians 13:7
From the archive (Google+ post from August 6, 2015):
There is linguistic evidence - and logical force - for translating 1 Corinthians 13:7, "Love bears all things, entrusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things". Why "entrust"? That is [often] the verb's sense when it appears with an object in the accusative case (compare Luke 16:11), for starters! It also makes sense: love entrusts all things, especially when the object of its love is God. Furthermore, the composition of the four parts is thereby shown to be symmetrical and chiastic: A B B’ A’, bear-entrust, hope-endure.
More analysis is provided in the brief study, "Does love entrust, or believe, all things?".
There is linguistic evidence - and logical force - for translating 1 Corinthians 13:7, "Love bears all things, entrusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things". Why "entrust"? That is [often] the verb's sense when it appears with an object in the accusative case (compare Luke 16:11), for starters! It also makes sense: love entrusts all things, especially when the object of its love is God. Furthermore, the composition of the four parts is thereby shown to be symmetrical and chiastic: A B B’ A’, bear-entrust, hope-endure.
More analysis is provided in the brief study, "Does love entrust, or believe, all things?".
Sunday, February 21, 2016
God's wonderful announcement
What is God's wonderful announcement—the Gospel (Gk. euaggelion)—that the New Testament conveys?
A relatively clear summary is given by Jesus Christ himself.* At the end of the New Testament, Christ announces a number of repetitive, mutually clarifying promises. One may well consider that the purpose of the repetitiveness is to clear away any ambiguity surrounding earlier descriptions of the Gospel in the New Testament—ambiguity warned about, in the strongest terms, explicitly in 2 Peter 3 and 1 John 3.
(1) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God" (Rev. 2:7**)
(2) "The one overcoming shall not be injured by the second death." (Rev. 2:11)
(3) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written that no one knows except the one who receives." (Rev. 2:17)
(4) "The one both overcoming and keeping my works until the end, I will give to him authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them by a rod of iron, as ceramic vessels are shattered, as also I have gotten from My Father, and I will give to him the morning star." (Rev. 2:26-28)
(5) "The one overcoming, thus will he be clothed—in white garments. And I shall not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." (Rev. 3:5)
(6) "The one overcoming—I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, the one descending out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Rev. 3:12)
(7) "The one overcoming—I will give to him to sit with me by My throne, as also I conquered and sat with My Father by His throne." (Rev. 3:21)
(8) "It is become. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I myself will give to the thirsting one out of the fountain of the water of life, freely. Him overcoming will inherit all things, and I will be God to him, and he will be son to Me." (Rev. 21:6-7)
(9) "And, look! I come suddenly! Blessed is the one keeping the words of the prophecy of this book." (Rev. 22:7)
Naturally, a reader of these promises would want to understand what Jesus means by to overcome (Gk. nikaō). Here, too, clarity is provided, by the contexts of the promises (especially Rev. 2-3, 21-22), where the components of overcoming, and the opposite of overcoming, are repeatedly described with similar, overlapping terms. A summary of these could be: a Christian is required to be overcoming the power of sin and walking in obedience to Christ.
Finally, the question of how a person comes to be overcoming. This appears to be described well in NT texts like John 8:31-51, Romans 6:1—8:17, and Hebrews 10:1—13:21. Something like a seven-part process of sanctification is described: Christ-believers are given teaching, ransomed, baptized in water, baptized in the Holy Spirit, tested, chastized, and glorified. Even this can be summarized, with caution, as obeying Jesus—keeping Jesus's commandments and other words (prophecies, teachings).
________________________________
* Two points ought to be noted. (1) This presentation is consistent with the Gospel presentation of the NT texts collected in "Ten Testimonies to the good news from God". (2) This counts Rev. 22:14 as speech directly by Jesus and therefore as a continuation of Jesus's speech in the previous verse (v.13). This view is not, today, a consensus position among published translations of Revelation, but it has good grounds, nonetheless: above all, that if one does count 22:13-15 as speech by Christ, it clearly has the identical form of the speech at Rev. 21:6-8 that is already, by consensus, considered to belong to Jesus.
** These translations are new and based on Nestle-Aland's 28th edition of the New Testament in Ancient Greek, available here. One way to check these translations is to consult a cross-referenced Greek-English interlinear text (e.g. here), and a dictionary such as Liddell Scott Jones, available here.
*** In Rev. 22:15, the Greek word phármakoi has a set of meanings that all could be applicable to this context, such as poisoners, magicians, sorcerers. (LSJ, s.v.)
For more discussion of the Gospel according to the entire New Testament (rather than a pared down and false gospel), see
"The New Covenant through Christ Jesus is not unconditional", "The working system of God's salvation", "God's very best possible, wonderful announcement", "Is there any idea more destructive than a "Law-Gospel" division?", "Christian questions", "The tragic misreading of Paul (when he argues against Israelite works for Christians)", "What happens when theologians convince people that God doesn't judge sin?".
A relatively clear summary is given by Jesus Christ himself.* At the end of the New Testament, Christ announces a number of repetitive, mutually clarifying promises. One may well consider that the purpose of the repetitiveness is to clear away any ambiguity surrounding earlier descriptions of the Gospel in the New Testament—ambiguity warned about, in the strongest terms, explicitly in 2 Peter 3 and 1 John 3.
(1) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God" (Rev. 2:7**)
(2) "The one overcoming shall not be injured by the second death." (Rev. 2:11)
(3) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written that no one knows except the one who receives." (Rev. 2:17)
(4) "The one both overcoming and keeping my works until the end, I will give to him authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them by a rod of iron, as ceramic vessels are shattered, as also I have gotten from My Father, and I will give to him the morning star." (Rev. 2:26-28)
(5) "The one overcoming, thus will he be clothed—in white garments. And I shall not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." (Rev. 3:5)
(6) "The one overcoming—I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, the one descending out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Rev. 3:12)
(7) "The one overcoming—I will give to him to sit with me by My throne, as also I conquered and sat with My Father by His throne." (Rev. 3:21)
(8) "It is become. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I myself will give to the thirsting one out of the fountain of the water of life, freely. Him overcoming will inherit all things, and I will be God to him, and he will be son to Me." (Rev. 21:6-7)
(9) "And, look! I come suddenly! Blessed is the one keeping the words of the prophecy of this book." (Rev. 22:7)
(10) "Look! I coming suddenly, and My reward is with Me to render to each as is his work." (Rev. 22:12)
(11) "Blessed are the ones washing their robes, so that the authority will be theirs to the tree of life and they may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the phármakoi*** and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone loving and making falsehood." (Rev. 22:14-15)
Naturally, a reader of these promises would want to understand what Jesus means by to overcome (Gk. nikaō). Here, too, clarity is provided, by the contexts of the promises (especially Rev. 2-3, 21-22), where the components of overcoming, and the opposite of overcoming, are repeatedly described with similar, overlapping terms. A summary of these could be: a Christian is required to be overcoming the power of sin and walking in obedience to Christ.
Finally, the question of how a person comes to be overcoming. This appears to be described well in NT texts like John 8:31-51, Romans 6:1—8:17, and Hebrews 10:1—13:21. Something like a seven-part process of sanctification is described: Christ-believers are given teaching, ransomed, baptized in water, baptized in the Holy Spirit, tested, chastized, and glorified. Even this can be summarized, with caution, as obeying Jesus—keeping Jesus's commandments and other words (prophecies, teachings).
________________________________
* Two points ought to be noted. (1) This presentation is consistent with the Gospel presentation of the NT texts collected in "Ten Testimonies to the good news from God". (2) This counts Rev. 22:14 as speech directly by Jesus and therefore as a continuation of Jesus's speech in the previous verse (v.13). This view is not, today, a consensus position among published translations of Revelation, but it has good grounds, nonetheless: above all, that if one does count 22:13-15 as speech by Christ, it clearly has the identical form of the speech at Rev. 21:6-8 that is already, by consensus, considered to belong to Jesus.
** These translations are new and based on Nestle-Aland's 28th edition of the New Testament in Ancient Greek, available here. One way to check these translations is to consult a cross-referenced Greek-English interlinear text (e.g. here), and a dictionary such as Liddell Scott Jones, available here.
*** In Rev. 22:15, the Greek word phármakoi has a set of meanings that all could be applicable to this context, such as poisoners, magicians, sorcerers. (LSJ, s.v.)
For more discussion of the Gospel according to the entire New Testament (rather than a pared down and false gospel), see
"The New Covenant through Christ Jesus is not unconditional", "The working system of God's salvation", "God's very best possible, wonderful announcement", "Is there any idea more destructive than a "Law-Gospel" division?", "Christian questions", "The tragic misreading of Paul (when he argues against Israelite works for Christians)", "What happens when theologians convince people that God doesn't judge sin?".
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Just by belief or by faithfulness?
From the brief study, "Three Biblical keywords: What do language sciences clarify?"
... Here we examine facts of Ancient Greek (AG) relevant not only to several foundational hypotheses of Dixon’s “basic linguistic theory”—universal word classes, universal clause structure, universal transitivity typology, etc.—but also to the comprehension and translation of central parts of humanity’s most widely read text, the Christian Bible (recorded firstly in AG manuscripts). Central to the Christian Bible are ideas expressed with a set of related words—pistos, pistis, pisteuō—translated most often into modern English with “faithful”, “faith”, “to believe”, respectively, yet revealed in dictionary entries to be far more difficult to understand, at least for lexicographers (LSJ, s.v.; BDAG, s.v.). For example, pisteuō is understood to have the senses of “to comply” (LSJ, s.v. 2) and “to entrust” (LSJ, s.v. II; BDAG, s.v. 2) in some ancient texts. (Continued....)
... Here we examine facts of Ancient Greek (AG) relevant not only to several foundational hypotheses of Dixon’s “basic linguistic theory”—universal word classes, universal clause structure, universal transitivity typology, etc.—but also to the comprehension and translation of central parts of humanity’s most widely read text, the Christian Bible (recorded firstly in AG manuscripts). Central to the Christian Bible are ideas expressed with a set of related words—pistos, pistis, pisteuō—translated most often into modern English with “faithful”, “faith”, “to believe”, respectively, yet revealed in dictionary entries to be far more difficult to understand, at least for lexicographers (LSJ, s.v.; BDAG, s.v.). For example, pisteuō is understood to have the senses of “to comply” (LSJ, s.v. 2) and “to entrust” (LSJ, s.v. II; BDAG, s.v. 2) in some ancient texts. (Continued....)
Monday, February 15, 2016
Sanctification methods, the Competitive Principle, etc.
Update: I now question the legitimacy of church hierarchies, given that in Christ's words we have a commandment to practise equality (Matthew 23) and only the elevation of 12 apostles who would in future be the judges of the 12 tribes of Israel.
____________
Specifically how Christ-ministers are made fit for service is described in a fourth text (2 Cor 3:1—4:6). Here, in broad accord with the Creation anti-type, Christ-converts are formed in the divine image, the primary agent is God’s Spirit, and God’s enemy is the agent for deception and blinding. Because real Christ-ministers have ministries only to the extent that they are Christ-converts, they also have experienced the sanctification process that liberates from sin slavery and “have renounced the hidden things of shame, neither walking in craftiness nor deceitfully using the word of God” (4:2). So they are able to conduct themselves blamelessly, able to manifest “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:6), and therefore able to administer the process whereby Christ-believers are made into a “letter from Christ” written by the Holy Spirit (3:3).
The NT’s descriptions of sanctification are usually overlooked, but this fourth text is ignored to an unusual extent. Why might that be? At least several possible factors can be considered: (a) The loss of sanctification traditions over the centuries, so that sanctification-oriented Bible interpretation (like Chrysostom’s, for example) is exceedingly rare; (b) The complexity of the 2 Corinthians text, so that its full coherence requires much effort to find; (c) The keystone that holds 3:1—4:6 together, making it a single, coherent sub-argument of the letter, is hidden by polysemy, a noted problem especially for Pauline texts (cf. 2 Pet 3:14-18); (d) The text is an example of the genre of competitive communication (pace, inter alia, Huang, Levinson, Grice[1]) that allows only some to understand it correctly (cf. Matt 13:10-15; Mark 4:10-12; Luke 8:10; John 6:22-68).... (continued...)
_________
[1] Pragmatics, at least its Anglo-American tradition, is dominated by the hypothesis that all human communication is founded on what H.P. Grice first called the Cooperative Principle, which has been reformulated by Neogriceans, prominently Levinson and Huang. Cf. Yan Huang, Pragmatics, 2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Ten testimonies to the good news from God
Here are ten testimonies recorded in the New Testament that describe the rescue action by God Almighty.
Matthew 25:31-40
John 8:31-32, 34-36
Romans 6:17-18
Colossians 1:3-29
Hebrews 5:8-9
James 1:12-27
1 Peter 1:3-21
1 John 3:1-12
Revelation 3:8, 10-13
Revelation 22:12-17
Matthew 25:31-40
John 8:31-32, 34-36
Romans 6:17-18
Colossians 1:3-29
Hebrews 5:8-9
James 1:12-27
1 Peter 1:3-21
1 John 3:1-12
Revelation 3:8, 10-13
Revelation 22:12-17
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Three theological goals
Are these three goals within reach for Christians today?
- Theology that overcomes major schisms, so that the world may believe. (Cp. John 17:21)
- Theology that effectively shepherds Christians to overcome and to enter eternal life. To reveal the Bible’s clear system of sanctification and overcoming (Rev. 2-3) that leads to salvation.
- Theology that is as robust as any other science. To establish methods that produce knowledge that is as reliable as the other sciences’. The Bible is, after all, the basis of science (historically, and by supplying key presuppositions about the reliability of evidence and logic) and makes continual appeal to evidence and logic in the manner of the best sciences.
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