A Christian witness

So how did I become a believer in God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit? Three Biblical words, proved true in personal experience, were especially important.

One: 
ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ με τὸν λόγον μου τηρήσει, 
καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ἀγαπήσει αὐτὸν καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐλευσόμεθα 
καὶ μονὴν παρ’ αὐτῷ ποιησόμεθα. 
(John's Gospel 14:23)

Two: 
τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν
καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν 
(Psalm 33:6)

Three: 
μετανοήσατε, 
καὶ βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστος ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν 
καὶ λήμψεσθε τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος. 
(Acts of the Apostles 2:38)

Let's discuss these.

The first word that became obviously true in my own life:
"If someone loves Me, My Word he will keep, 
and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, 
and an abode beside him We will make." (Jesus Christ, as recorded in St. John 14:23)

Odd, quasi-miraculous coincidences began to become an everyday experience for me, when and only when I made the effort to keep Jesus's teachings and commandments. This went on for years and slowly broke through the atheistic skepticism I had been indoctrinated into.

The word that became obviously true in my life:
"By word of the Lord the heavens were established,
and by Spirit of His mouth all their force." (Ps. 33:6, in Greek)

University of Oxford professor John C. Lennox's book God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (new edn, 2009, Oxford: Lion) brought me face-to-face with the fact that many natural scientists have gone from atheism to theism (belief in God) because they are convinced by huge amounts of evidence in nature that it must have an intelligent designer. Not only did scientism's background doubt about God disappear for me, but I was also led to the following conclusion: If God is powerful enough to design the universe with such miraculous precision that atheist scientists are forced to believe, God must also be powerful enough to write a book (i.e. the Holy Bible).

The third word that became obviously true in my life:
"Repent, 
and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of your sins,
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
(Acts of the Apostles 2:38)

One April Sunday in 2013, I confessed in my heart along the following lines: "The whole Bible is written by God and it convicts me as a sinner. I pray with thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ to be forgiven and to become a disciple of the Lord Jesus." As I sat there praying, a tremendous force of energy radiated onto and into me, for perhaps 5 seconds. The following week I spent much of my time cleaning out anything from my home that could be offensive to God (e.g. books of other religions, radically skeptical theology books, etc.). From then through today (three years later), that process of bringing my life into obedience to God's Word has continued, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit enabling me. Other manifestations of the gift of the Holy Spirit include physical healings and (what increasingly certainly appears to be) exorcisms, just as promised in Mark 16:17-18.

What can language sciences do for readers of Paul's letters?

Engagement with language sciences proves to be fruitful, at least toward generating new hypotheses about the decipherment problems encountered by Paul's readers. A brief summary of such hypotheses would include the following:

(1) Discursive Recursion
This concept grows out of research in linguistics and psycholinguistics on syntactic recursion and discourse structure, respectively. It appears likely that Paul's texts have extraordinary levels of recursion in their discursive structure.

(2) A Competitive Principle
This is a corollary (and competitor) to the Gricean and Neo-Gricean hypotheses about a Cooperative Principle that guides human communication. It appears likely that Paul's texts are among the Biblical texts that are guided at least in part by a competitive principle, made explicit in several places (cf. Matt 13:10-15; Mark 4:10-12; Luke 8:10; John 6:22-68).

(3) Parsimonious Elenchic Dialogue - Recursive Anaphoric Polysemy ("PED-RAP")
This hypothesis grows out of insights from a variety of disciplines. The concept of parsimony comes especially from the philosophy of science, as a criterion for selection among competing explanations. The criterion of parsimony is motivated by the hypothesis that nature tends toward simpler rather than more complex dynamics, and that descriptions of nature ought therefore also to be parsimonious. The concept of elenchus comes from the ancient Hellenistic world, where it came to refer to a competitive, testing form of rhetoric, dialogue, or discourse. It appears likely that Paul's letters are characterized by these qualities. Stated differently: Paul competed, with stunning efficiency. The tremendous complexes of arguments are perfectly arranged around single-pointed, competitive necessities. 
The second part of the PED-RAP hypothesis describes a major reason for readers' confusion: not only are Paul's texts hugely recursive, but they also use polysemy intentionally (to achieve aims efficiently) and anaphorically. An example of a RAP might be Paul's use of the verb egkakeo in 2 Cor 4:1, where it may support, through intentional polysemy, propositions made in 2 Cor 2-3 both about ministerial fitness and ministerial boldness.

Dangerous and difficult decipherment

How dangerous and difficult is the problem of deciphering Paul's letters? His contemporary Peter[1] warned that "in them are some confusing[2] things, which the undiscipled[3] and unstable[4] twist[5], as also the other scriptures, to their own destruction of themselves" (2 Peter 3:16). A similar warning comes from the conflict-filled, modern history of Christianity. Differences of opinion about the meaning of Paul's texts have played a leading role here.[6]
Why are Paul's letters so confusing? Can language sciences[7] help solve the problem, with diagnosis or cure?[8]
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[1] For a recent overview of the arguments for and against Peter's authorship of 2 Peter, see D.A. Keating, First and Second Peter, Jude, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, pp. 127-9; a skeptical, opposing summary of arguments is provided by J.N.D. Kelly, A commentary on the epistles of Peter and of Jude, Black's New Testament commentaries, London: Black, 1969, pp. 235-6.
[2] dysnóeta: i.e. difficult to understand
[3] amatheîs: i.e. untaught, untrained
[4] astériktos: i.e. "not supported by a staff", "not remaining still" (LSJ), "weak" (BDAG)
[5] streblóo: i.e. distort, stretch, torture, pervert (LSJ)
[6] For example, the Protestant-Catholic/Orthodox schism is usually traced back to Martin Luther's "Reformation Discovery" of an alternative interpretation of Romans 1:17. See e.g. A. Hastings et al (eds), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 399; F.L. Cross & E.A Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 1008.
[7] By "language sciences" I refer to the highly diverse field of disciplines that aim to study language, including Philology, Linguistics (Grammar/Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Morphology), Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Text Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, Translation Studies, Semiotics, Logic, and the Philosophy of Language.
[8] St. Peter's cure ought to be noted without delay: he advises readers to reject any antinomian (moral libertarian) interpretation of St. Paul's letters (see 2 Peter 3:11-18, cp. 1 Peter 1:13-2:25).

Scientific translation, or translation-as-description

From the brief study (available to read here):

....Ricoeur’s labyrinth of translation problems builds on the dead-ends of hypothesized linguistic incommensurability, linguistic relativity, and unavoidable information loss. It extends further by hypothesizing that human language centrally involves tasks of “safeguarding the secret”, preservation of otherness (or foreignness), and “non-communication”.[1] Therefore, the "other" person speaking, in your own language or another language, is always partly or fully incomprehensible to you. This is not so much proved as presupposed by Ricoeur (whose appeals to the philosophy and sciences of language are not robust), and defended on the basis that it is impossible to refute. Why? Because, Ricoeur claims, there is never a way to verify that one has properly understood the other.... (p. 4)

....What can brighten the outlook for translation? Given that the practice of science, for some 23 centuries at least, has sought to describe phenomena with increasing accuracy, and decreasing misrepresentation,[2] a scientific practice of translation, i.e. translation-as-description, deserves consideration. This essay’s major hypothesis is: A scientific practice of translation is able to counter-act two dynamics that, alone or together, undermine translation accuracy: insufficient control of translation accuracy, and theoretically motivated surrender of the goal of translation accuracy....  (p. 5)

___________________

[1] Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, E. Brennan (trans.), Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, 8, 22-23, 28, 35.
[2] H.G. Gauch (Jr.), Scientific Method in Brief, Cambridge: CUP, 2012, 34-51.

What might 1 Corinthians 13:7 tell us?

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.

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?". 

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)

(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).

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* 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?".