Tag Archives: Biblical Greek

What Are You Looking At?

09 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies, Uncategorized

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Hello, Readers!  Welcome to another post on darkness.

Part of my word study process is reading every scripture where my study word appears.  I did so with both the Hebrew and Greek words translated “darkness” and did read some things that made me wonder: what does this passage mean?  Once such passage is in Luke’s Gospel: “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness” (11:35).  I’ve been turning this verse over and over in my mind for weeks all the time wondering just what Jesus is saying here.

The verse occurs within a point Jesus is making about the eye.  He says, “The lamp of the body is the eye.  Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light.  But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.  If your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light” (Luke 11:34-36)

This same speech is quoted a bit differently in Matthew: “The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

Having already read these passages, they were foremost in my mind when I read through the “darkness” entry in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology and found this: (on skotos) “The words are given a clearly negative sense in those passages which contrast a sound eye (as the organ which guides) in a body full of light with an evil eye in a body full of darkness (Matt. 6:22 f, Lk. 11:34-36).  By looking in the wrong direction the body succumbs to the power of darkness.”

The idea expressed here made more sense to me when I looked at the same passages in the King James Version where “good” as in “if your eye be good” is translated “single”.  Having a single eye must mean an eye undivided, meaning not having our attention divided, meaning gazing always and forever into the face of Jesus and thus being full of light.  If we look away from Him and focus our attention on the things of this world, then our eye is no longer single and we are full of darkness.  It’s like the song says: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will go strangely dim…”

This idea of the body succumbing to the power of darkness because the eye looks in the wrong direction also made sense when I considered how the human eye works.  Our eye is complex and functions by bending and focusing light rays.  The light rays enter the eye via the cornea which is curved so the light is bent slightly.  Light then passes through the pupil, which is actually a hole surrounded by the muscular structure of the iris which contracts and relaxes to let in more or less light.  Behind the pupil is the lens where the fine focusing is done.  The lens is a clear disc held in place by suspensory ligaments and ciliary muscles which contract to bend the light more or relax to bend the light less.  All of these parts of the eye serve to focus light on the retina which responds to the light by sending electrical impulses to the brain via the optic nerve.  There are two types of light sensitive cells in the retina: rods and cones.  Rods are found mostly in the periphery of the retina, are used in peripheral vision, are more light sensitive than cones but cannot distinguish colors.  Cones are concentrated in a small, central area of the retina, provide color vision, and work best in bright light.  The eye, if deprived of light, does not properly function.

All of this reminded me of a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled The Great Stone Face.  This story is about a rock formation in the mountains overhanging a village.  The rock formation is shaped like a wise and noble face.  There’s a prophecy among the villagers that, one day, a man would come who would be the exact image of the Great Face.  There’s a young boy fascinated with the Face and the prophecy and spends as much time as he can gazing at the Face.  As he grows, there are some who come to the village who are proclaimed as the embodiment of The Face but that proves to be false.  The young boy grows to manhood and then old age, always waiting for the One prophesied to come, always gazing on the Great Face, not realizing the he himself was growing into the same image.  It’s a beautiful story and, again, the idea expressed does seem to make sense of the scripture passages.

Except…

The Greek word translated “single” in the KJV and “good” in the NKJV doesn’t mean undivided or focused.  The word is haplos (G573) and the definition in Strong’s is “folded together, single, clear.”  Haplos is a compound word comprised of alpha and pleko.  Pleko (G4120) is a primary word meaning “to twine or braid.”  When I read this, I was reminded of one of the Hebrew words translated “wait” in the OT.  The word is qavah (H6960) and one of its meanings is, “to bind together by twisting”.  This particular word is the one used in Isaiah 40:31: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  This isn’t a twiddling the thumbs sort of waiting: it’s being intertwined with the very life of God.

I am not saying fixing our attention-our sight, if you will-on Jesus Christ is wrong.  There is a moment in our lives when the light of Jesus Christ shines into our darkness and we see what we never saw before.  And yet, there is so much more to the passages in Matthew and Luke.  Ephesians 1:18 says, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”  This passage is not speaking of our physical human eyes or our ability to fix our attention on Jesus but is referring to a kind of seeing possible only by the action of the Holy  Spirit.  I think the passages in Matthew and Luke are making the same reference.  They are not speaking about us gazing at a Jesus located outside of ourselves but rather being knit to Him so that we don’t see with our eyes only but our vision is intertwined with His. The best quote I’ve found that puts into words what I am seeing in this passage is one I copied from Malcolm Smith’s teaching series The Search for Self Worth.  He says, “In that moment of miracle (meaning the moment the light of the truth of Jesus Christ shone in my life) I have been taken out of the darkness.  Now, that process begins of taking out of me the ways of darkness.”

Skotos, the Greek word for darkness, carries the meaning of obscurity and the Greek word for “single” or “good” also means clear.  When I looked at the Hebrew letters comprising “darkness” in my original study passage of Isaiah 45:7, I saw the picture of God joining Himself to us and transforming us.  I see the same picture in the passages in Matthew and Luke: Jesus Christ Himself coming into our darkness and joining Himself to us.  His life is formed in us.  In Him we are a New Creation. This life that He is in us is ours through His Spirit in us. We are full of light when we abide in Him and His Spirit is the river of life within us. It is my firm conviction this light becomes darkness when His Spirit is quenched. Truly, how great is that darkness.

I meditate on all of this and no longer think the question I am asking myself is “what are you looking at?” but “how are you seeing?”

I see Jesus.           

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967-1971, Pages 420-425

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Great Stone Face, Greatest Short Stories, Volume I, P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, New York, New York, 1915, 1940, Pages 89-120

Pilcher, Dr. Helen, Mind Maps Biology: How to Navigate the Living World, Unipress Books Limited, China, 2020, Pages 74-75

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

The Ways of Darkness

02 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Welcome, Readers, to the Month of May and the return to my study of Isaiah 45:7. 

I am still looking at the second part of the first line of this passage: “I create darkness”.  I’ve already looked at the meaning of the Hebrew letters comprising the word translated “darkness” and was curious what I might discover in the Greek. 

A brief recap: the Hebrew word for darkness in Isaiah 45:7 is choshek and, in the OT, is used for the darkness of night as well as metaphorical darkness.  The NT does use separate words to express these concepts.  In a previous post, I mentioned there are five different words for darkness in the New Testament.  I ought to have been more specific and I will endeavor to be so in the future.  There are five reference numbers for darkness in the Strong’s Concordance but only two unique words used: zophos and skotos.  The other three words corresponding to the Strong’s numbers are all related to skotos.  They are skoteinos, skotia, and skotoo.  “Night” is nyx (or nox-pronounced noox).  I looked up “darkness” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology and found nyx can also have the metaphorical meaning of “darkness” equivalent to skotos in some passages (John 11:10, 9:4, 1 Thess. 5:5-7) which made me wonder just which word would correspond to choshek in Isaiah 45:7.  I purchased a copy of the Septuagint and found the word was skotos. 

The Dictionary of New Testament Theology says this about skotos:  “In classical Greek, darkness applies primarily to the state characterized by the absence of light (phos) without any special metaphysical overtones.  The thought is chiefly of the effect of darkness upon man.  In the dark man gropes around uncertainly (Plato, Phaedo, 99b), since his ability to see is severely limited.  Thus the man who can see may become blind in the darkness and no longer know which way to turn.  Hence darkness appears as the “sphere of objective peril and of subjective anxiety”. (H. Conzelmann, TDNT VII 424).  Since all anxiety ultimately derives from the fear of death, the ominous character of darkness culminates in the darkness of death which no man can escape (cf. Homer, IL., 4, 461).  Darkness is therefore Hades, the world of the dead, which already reaches out into our world in the mythical figures of the Eumenides, the children of Skotos and Gaia (Soph., Oedipus Coloneus, 40).

A little further into the entry for “darkness”, I found a mention of Gnosticism and read; “Here the concept of darkness goes beyond the purely relative to become an independent force, seen as the unlimited ruler of the earthly world.  This world is so filled with darkness that even its luminaries are but skoteinon phos-dark light (Corp. Herm. 1, 28).  In radical contrast to this world of darkness shines the transcendent world, the priority of which is stressed in Gnostic literature.  Man has been endowed with a soul, coming from a spark of light.  It is his task by means of gnosis (knowledge) to attain to enlightenment.”

I went through a period of time where I was fascinated by the stories of the Greek gods and goddesses and read everything I could get my hands on.  Thus, I was already aware Nyx was the Night goddess but did not remember coming across Skotos.  Darkness was deified by the Greeks as Erebus and such was the information I could find in the volumes I have.  Once I went online I did find websites that told me Scotus (or Skotos) was another name for Erebus.  I find this fascinating.  It’s important to remember the Bible was not written in a vacuum.  These Greek words were part of a vibrant culture and had ideas and belief systems connected with them far and beyond the way they were being used by the writers of the NT. 

So many passages in the NT equate darkness with a way of thinking.  Looking at two examples; Romans 1:21 says, “they…became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened” and Ephesians 4:18 says, “having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”  As I read the section on darkness in the Theology Dictionary, I thought about the belief systems the NT writers were so steadfastly against: Gnosticism, Pantheism, etc.  One of my Bible Teachers recently spoke on the way our thought processes come down to us from our ancestors as well as being formed by the world around us.  I have been thinking about how true that is.  I believe words mean certain things because of how I’ve heard them used.  There are words spoken that evoke pictures in my mind and these pictures come from movies or books.  Anyone who has seen my bookshelves know I am not one to eschew books or movies because of the messages contained in them but I think making the realization is important.  Everything I hear and see affects my thought processes.  It is only through careful study and learning to discern the voice of Jesus Christ in the midst of innumerable other voices that I come to see which of my own thought processes are resting on a foundation of lies.  This is true of the world at large: age-old thought processes are still with us.  I read sermons preached today that sound a great deal like the excerpt on Gnosticism.  I hear fellow believers saying things that sound a great deal like Greco-Roman Pantheism. 

Isaiah 45:5 says, “I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”  This is a truth universally recognized among believers except when it comes to talking about Satan.  Satan is spoken of in terms that infer he is somehow God’s opposite.  He is said to be the Prince of Darkness and ruler over hell.  I do understand where these ideas come from.  John 12:31 and John 14:30 speak of the “ruler of this world”.  Ephesians 2:2 uses the term “the prince of the power of the air” and then there is Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  I acknowledge there are spiritual powers of darkness at work but let us who know the Living God not give Satan more power than he is due and let us never in our words equate him with God.

The Theology Dictionary says, “The key to the OT view of light and darkness is faith in God as Creator who stands above both.  He is not only the Lord of light; darkness also has to bow before Him.”  In the NT, in the very Day we are living in, we see Jesus who, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:4).  Finishing out the passages in John, we find the ruler of this world is “cast out” and “has nothing” in Jesus.  Whatever usurped rule the devil might have had, he is utterly defeated.  He is filled with fury because he knows his time is short and it is Jesus Himself who holds the keys to death and hades (Revelation 12:12, 1:18). 

The entire NT proclaims Jesus Christ’s total victory and it also speaks against this Gnostic idea that we attain enlightenment.  We cannot because “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7) and “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  Left to ourselves, we would forever walk in darkness.  Praise God our Father and the precious Lord Jesus Christ that we are NOT left to ourselves!  “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). 

What about the Gnostic idea that darkness is the ruling force here on Earth?  All I have to do is turn on the news to see that much is true, right?  No.  All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus (Matthew 28:18).  There is no other power beside Him.  Why then are people still in darkness?  The Strong’s defines skotos as “shadiness, obscurity”.  Skotos comes from the root skia which means “darkness of error or an adumbration”.  I had to look up “adumbration” and found it means, “shadow or faint image…concealment or overshadowing.”  The darkness obscures and mars what is true.  Its power is based in lies but, again, I do not discount it.  Human beings are capable of terrible things when they believe a lie. 

“Test everything,” Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, “hold fast to what is true.”  What is true?  Jesus Christ Himself is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) and each one of us must know Him for ourselves.  Study is important.  The Bereans in Acts took everything Paul said and compared it to the scriptures to see if it was true.  I cannot stress how important it is not to accept anything anyone says, especially if they are telling you who Jesus is, and to search the scriptures for yourself.  More importantly, know Him.  It is the will of God for everyone to know Him (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:11).  You do not need someone with a long string of letters attached to the last name to tell you who He is.  The Holy Spirit does that.  (John 15:26, John 16:13). 

Let us ask to know Him and trust His promise is sure that in asking we will receive.  Let us trust in our Glorious Heavenly Father who knows how to give good gifts to His children.  Let us know that, having received His Spirit, the same mind that was in Christ Jesus is in us.  And then, let us marvel at how He transforms us as He renews our minds.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Erebus | Classical Mythology Wiki | Fandom

EREBUS (Erebos) – Greek Primordial God of Darkness (theoi.com)

Greek & Roman Mythology – Tools (upenn.edu)

Adumbration Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967-1971, Pages 420-425

Bulfinch, Thomas, Bulfinch’s Mythology, Avenel Books, Crown Publishers, Inc., USA, 1978, Page 4

Cotterell, Arthur, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hermes House, Annes Publishing Limited, London, UK, 2005, Pages 41, 55

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Think God’s Thoughts

06 Monday Sep 2021

Posted by in Studies

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Photo by Walter Strong

Two weeks ago I posted on Philippians 2:5, the meaning of the Greek word translated “mind” in the passage, and the fact that several different Greek words have been translated “mind” throughout the New Testament.  Seeing this was so, my curiosity was piqued and I started looking at each of the different words and the passages in which they occur.  I did not get far in my study as I got a tad sidetracked in 2 Corinthians. 

But first things first.  A quick review: the Greek word translated “mind” in the Philippians passage is phroneo (G5426) and means briefly, “to exercise the mind, to have a sentiment or opinion, be mentally disposed.”  While I was considering this meaning as it fit in with Philippians 2:5, I wondered whether the Greek word was the same in Romans 8:7.

Romans 8:7 says, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”  The word for “mind” here is in the same family.  It is phronema (G5427), means “mental inclination or purpose”, and comes from 5426. This is where my study on all the mind words got put on pause because I started thinking about the carnal mind being enmity against God, the battlefield of the mind, and 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.

2 Corinthians 10: 4-5 states, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”.  There is a lot said about the thought life in this passage but, rather than go into each Greek word here, let me share these verses from the Phillips translation: “The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds.  Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defense that men erect against the true knowledge of God.  We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ.”

It was the words “knowledge of God” that caught my attention.  What does this mean?  Is this passage saying the knowledge of God, as in those things we can learn about Him; or is it saying the knowledge of God meaning knowledge that belongs to and comes from Him?  The difference is subtle but it is the difference in the direction of flow.  Does this knowledge of God originate in us or does it flow to us from Him?

I first sought to answer my question by looking at my Interlinear Greek-English Bible.  That work has the little word tou in the passage.  Tou, G5120 in the Strong’s Concordance, is a difficult word to study.  I’ve looked at it in a previous post and don’t remember if I shared the information I find in Volume One of my Koine Greek Textbook.  Allow me to do so now.  Under “of”, I find this statement: “This English word is translated from unrelated Greek words…Too many to list and no real value in word studies”.  I beg to differ, Greek Textbook.  Knowing whether or not the word translated “of” denotes possession is of paramount importance. 

Despite all my hopes, not one of the rest of the volumes offered up any more help.  Neither was the Strong’s Concordance all that helpful.  It does tell me that tou means “of this person-his”.  Thus, I can make a solid guess that the knowledge of God could also be translated as “God’s Knowledge” and I can also make the inference that this knowledge is something that flows from Him.

If this tiny word was all the foundation I have to base my belief on, it would be shaky indeed.  And so, I looked to other passages of scripture to see if I can find reference to knowledge that belongs to God but is graciously shared with us.  I found there are many and perhaps the one that speaks most directly to God sharing His knowledge with us is 1 Corinthians 2:9-16:

“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’* But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.  For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.  For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?  Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.  These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.  For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’** But we have the mind of Christ.”

The Greek word for “mind” here is neither phroneo nor phronema.  The Greek word here is nous (G3563).  It means “the intellect, mind, understanding” and the Strong’s entry says this word is “probably from the base of 1097”.  Whether it is or not, here is where I found the emergence of a fascinating pattern.  The words translated “know” in the entire passage are also different in the Greek (another study to pursue!) but the word “know” in “neither can he know them”-is the Greek word ginosko with the Strong’s number 1097.

During my search for passages of scripture on the knowledge of God, I remarked Matthew 11:27 (and Luke 10:22) which says, “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (KJV).   “Knoweth” in this passage is epiginosko (G1921).  This word means “to know…recognize, to become fully acquainted with”.  It is a compound word made up of epi (G1909) and ginosko (G1097). The word for knowledge in my study phrase “knowledge of God” is gnosis (G1108).  It means “the act of knowing, knowledge, science” and is from 1097.

Ginosko (G1097) means “to know (absolutely)…allow, be aware of, feel, perceive, be resolved”.  There really isn’t anything within these definitions that are eye opening in and of themselves.  Rather, it was the pattern of ginosko threading its way through these passages.  As I traced that thread, I found I was tracing another that was giving me an answer to my question, namely; there was knowledge that belonged to God but which He was willing to give to us.

I love reading.  I love to study.  I love learning new things and the pursuit of knowledge occupies a great deal of my time.  I think study is good: God gave me a mind and expects me to use it.  In fact, I am to love Him with all my mind (Matthew 22: 37, Luke 10:27) and my studies are a necessary part of that.  I have many teachers I respect and am blessed to learn from.  However, true knowledge, the only knowledge that really matters, is that taught to me by the Holy Spirit.  1 John 2:27 tells me, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as teacher in John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things I have said to you.”  And then, there is this description of the Holy Spirit from the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of council and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Chapter 11 Verse 2).

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me and that Spirit, while many things to me, is the Spirit of knowledge.  His teaching me all things flows from relationship rather than is an effect of study.  There have been many strongholds the enemy has built inside my mind that have needed demolishing, deceptive fantasies that have been consumed in Holy Spirit fire, and imposing defenses that have crumbled before the Word.  It is an ongoing battle to bring every one of my thoughts into captivity to Jesus Christ but, as I daily practice, I find it is possible to think His thoughts.

How beautiful!  The goodness of God brings me to metanoia and I gladly exchange my mind for His!  Amen and Amen!

*Isaiah 64:4  **Isaiah 40:13

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

Other References:

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reprint 1970

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc., Washington D.C., 1965

Strong, James LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, G. Allen, The New Koine Greek Textbook Volume 1-4, 2014-2018

Abdicating My Throne

23 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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I have spent this last week probing deeper into thoughts I expressed in last week’s post specifically the difference in how I felt when I was keeping my Self as the focus of my thoughts compared to when I turned my focus to Jesus.  The difference can be expressed by contraction and expansion which got me thinking about the presence of black holes in a universe that is expanding.1  

Bear with me.

With my Self as the focus of my thoughts, I could feel my thoughts spinning tighter and tighter around this core of Self.  The more I reflected on what I had done during the week, what I had said, what had been said-or potentially said-about ME, the smaller my thoughts became.  I was quickly slipping into thoughts of poor me, people just don’t understand how difficult it is to live with pain and a brain injury, it isn’t fair for anyone to have such expectations of me, and then my mind wanted to dredge up every hurtful thing ever said or done to me so Self could brood over it.  I am amazed at how my Self focuses on being a victim.  I have had both good and bad things happen to me at every place I’ve found myself in over the years and yet Self focuses on the pain rather than the joys.  I do not know why that is and, perhaps, is a subject I will tackle at a later time.  While thinking about everything I’ve just written, I was reminded of black holes.

What is a black hole?  According to NASA’s website, “A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out.2” This is exactly how I felt.  The longer I had Self as my focal point, the more my thoughts were squeezed until there was no room for anything but Self.  More than that, I felt it only right that because I had suffered in the past and continued to suffer, such suffering should be realized and recognized by anyone that came into my orbit.  Black holes have what is called an Event Horizon.  It is a boundary that marks the limit of a black hole and where the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light. What this means is nothing that enters a black hole can get out or even be observed from outside the event horizon.3  Except, scientists have observed stars that have blundered too close to a black hole and the gravitational force rips the star to shreds.4 

Hurting people hurt people.  I have heard this quoted so many times in so many different places and who can deny the truth of it?  How many times has a fellow human being blundered into my orbit, had no idea that I slept badly and have a blinding headache or am smarting from a cruel word spoken to me, and been ripped to shreds?  How many times has it happened to me because my fellow human beings also have a Self at their core?  While conducting this study, I came across binary black holes5 and was fascinated.  Not only because they exist but because what happens when two black holes cross paths is an apt description of interactions between human beings.  I’d like to write more about the gravitational waves of binary black holes but will have to leave that for another time.  For the sake of this post, let me say that I have had to forgive and have had to ask for forgiveness.

What then?  Are we doomed to damage others and be damaged in our turn?  If left to ourselves, no doubt we would be.  We are not left to ourselves!  We see Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8, RSV). 

I wanted to close last week’s post with Philippians 2:5 which in some versions is translated “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.  The RSV says, “Have this mind” while the Phillips says, “Let Christ Jesus be your example as to what your attitude should be.”  The New English Bible says, “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus” and the Amplified has, “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus–Let Him be your example in humility–“.  When I went to the Interlinear Greek, I found that the passage is literally “This think ye among you which also[was] in Christ Jesus”.  I realized this passage was too massive to be used in closing and that I would have to do some study.

I looked up “mind” in the Strong’s Concordance and found there are 17 different Greek words all translated “mind” in various scriptures.  This is why it is so important to study, not just read or memorize the scripture.  Not all of these words mean the same thing yet our minds do not immediately grasp the differences because we read the same English word in every passage.  Even the Greek word in the passage I am looking at this week, phroneo (G5426) is translated by different words in the King James Version: think, regard, mind, and savour to list those used most often.  My point is, what we read in any of our English translations ought to be a jumping off point because there is so much more than first meets the eye.  Okay, enough on the importance of study…for now.

The word “mind” in Philippians 2:5, phroneo, means “to exercise the mind, to entertain of have a sentiment of opinion, to be mentally disposed more or less earnestly in a certain direction…regard, savour, think.”  This meaning is made clear by the rest of the passage.  I recommend reading the entire epistle of Philippians for complete context however, for the sake of space, I will quote Chapter 2 verses 3 & 4: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind (G5012) let each esteem others better than himself.  Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” And then verse 5: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

These verses are the expectation of our behavior towards others.  If it is an expectation, it must be possible to live this way. How? Because of verses 6-8 which I’ve already quoted.  And then, because Jesus did empty Himself, humble Himself, and was obedient unto death, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (verses 9-11). 

Being a Self isn’t bad.  I am created in the image of God who says of Himself “I AM.”  So too am I capable of saying “I am.”  The problem is when that Self seeks to usurp the rule over and be the center of my life.  That place belongs to Jesus.  It is His by right of His having created me but he doesn’t come to me as The Creator God and force Self to give way.  He comes as Saviour.  He comes as Redeemer.  He comes as Love.  He opens my eyes to see He has born my afflictions, my sufferings, and all my sorrows (Isaiah 53:4) and they are no longer my burdens to carry. It is His goodness that leads me to metanoia (Romans 2:4).  I see Jesus in all His beauty and I choose to not only make Him the center but to turn over the rule of my life.

How could I do otherwise?  I have experienced the mess of Self-rule and been mired in the pain and death it creates.  I have tasted the fruit of the Spirit and the life contained therein.  I abdicate.  I choose life.  I choose His life knowing that, ‘of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References:

  1. What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion? | Quanta Magazine
  2. What Is a Black Hole? | NASA
  3. event horizon | Definition & Explanation | Britannica
  4. Black holes caught in the act of swallowing stars | Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)
  5. NASA Visualization Probes Light-bending Dance of Binary Black Holes | NASA

Other References:

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reprinted 1970

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc., Washington D.C., 1965

Strong, James LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Joy and Grace

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Fruit of the Spirit, Studies, Walking in the Way

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A few weeks ago, one of the teachers at the church I attend via Zoom said, “We stand and fall by our definitions”.  That struck me and I wrote it down.  I have been thinking how true that statement is.  While conducting my study on The Fruit of the Spirit, I realized my belief in the meaning of a word also meant I brought that preconceived idea to scripture.  Of course I knew what patience was, what peace was, what joy was, etc. because I understood the definitions of all these words.  I had barely begun my study before I realized how incorrect that assumption was: I didn’t really know what these words meant at all.

I have been meaning to look at the meaning of the Grace of God because I came across a statement while studying The Fruit of the Spirit: Joy.  I was looking up joy in The Dictionary of New Testament Theology and read this: “Also to be noted is the etymological connection with charis (grace) which has not always been clearly distinguished in meaning from chara.”1 In a brief review: Joy in the Greek is chara (G5479).  It comes from the root word chairo (G5463) which is a primary verb meaning “to be cheerful”.  I did make a note of the connection but, as I was studying joy and not grace, I didn’t pursue it further.

A little time passed and then, while watching one of his teachings, I heard Malcolm Smith say that grace and joy shared a root word.  My attention was caught.  I remembered the statement I’d read and how I meant to take a further look at grace.  And then I got busy with other studies and it went onto a back burner.  Then I saw a post on Instagram which brought the statement, “we stand and fall by our definitions” back to the forefront of my mind.  The Post was by Dictionary.com and said, “True or False?  Grace means having moral, not physical, strength”.  I had to read that a few times because I had not ever defined grace as strength: moral or physical.  My answer would thus be “false” but I realized I wasn’t certain.  I had intended to look up the meaning of grace but had gotten sidetracked.  I would be sidetracked no longer.  I got to work.

The church world I’ve been part of has defined grace for me as “unmerited favor” and I’ve never questioned that.  Perhaps I should have done because, as I read through the scriptures listed under Grace in the Strong’s Concordance while substituting “unmerited favor”, I find the scriptures cease to make sense.  I could not come boldly before the throne of “unmerited favor” nor does it make sense that, in doing so, I would find the “unmerited favor” to help in time of need (Hebrews. 4:16).  It does not make sense that His “unmerited favor” would be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) nor does it make sense that, in describing Jesus, Luke’s Gospel would say “the unmerited favor of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).  How can Paul say he does not frustrate the “unmerited favor” of God (Galatians 2:21) or tell the Galatians they have fallen from “unmerited favor” (Galatians 5:4)?

As an interesting experiment (because Dictionary.com might know something I do not), I read through the list using “strength”.  That didn’t make much sense either although I did find the idea of strength in some of the scriptures.  In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul does say, “according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power” (Ephesians 3:7) and he does tell Timothy to, “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1).  So then my answer to Dictionary.com’s mini quiz is no longer unequivocally “false” but then neither is my answer “true”.  We stand and fall by our definitions.  That being so, what does grace really mean?

My trusty New World Dictionary gives me quite an extensive definition.  I won’t share the entire entry for the sake of space but I find grace defined as: pleasing quality, favor, thanks, to lift up the voice in praise, an attractive quality, a sense of what is right or proper, thoughtfulness toward others, good will, mercy, clemency, etc.  Under definition number 10 I do find “the unmerited love and favor of God toward man”.2

The Strong’s Concordance doesn’t necessarily disagree with the dictionary but I do not find any definition of unmerited favor, or strength for that matter.  The Strong’s Concordance entry for charis (G5485) is: from 5463; graciousness (as gratifying) of manner or act (abstr. Or concr,; lit., fig., or spiritual; espec. the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life; incl. gratitude), acceptable, benefit, favor, gift, grace (-cious), joy, liberality, pleasure, thank (-s, worthy)”.3 I repeat, there is nothing here to suggest grace means “unmerited favor”.  And, it is interesting to note grace does come from the root word chairo (G5463) which is a primary verb meaning “to be cheerful”.  Grace and Joy are related to each other.  These two words are not interchangeable but, because they are members of the same word family, they have a common feature, pattern, or meaning.4 This is definitely a time to Selah: pause and calmly think of that!

What conclusion do I draw?  I go back to the list of scriptures in the concordance and read them again, this time plugging in Strong’s definition, especially the words “the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life”.  I thrill at Paul’s greeting in his letters.  “Grace be to you and peace from God…” I read through the scriptures and know that I am just beginning to understand the Grace of God.  I read through the scriptures and am reminded of Ezekiel 36 verses 25-27: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” 

John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”  This is what I see as the Grace of God.  It is a revelation of His heart.  It is summed up in Jesus Christ.  It is His free gift to me in His Spirit.  It is God keeping the promise He made in Ezekiel.  The Grace of God is Him keeping all His promises. He has His own joy and that too He freely gives to me.

Is it unmerited?  Of course.  I can’t begin to fathom the heart of God much less begin to think I deserved any of His gifts.  But then, He keeps His promises because of who He is, not because of anything I could ever do or not do.  All I can do is say, “Yes.  Thank you.  I receive it.  Hallelujah!  Amen.”

And Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, scriptures are quoted from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1982

References

  1. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, Joy, Page 356
  2. Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of The American Language, William Collins+World Publishing Company, Cleveland-New York, 1974
  3. Strong, James, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990
  4. “Word Family”, What is a Word Family? | Word Families | Examples (twinkl.com)