Tag Archives: Knowledge

Knowing Him for Myself

20 Monday May 2024

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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“Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth…”

The Greek word translated as “truth” in Ephesians 6:14 is aletheia.  This word is defined in the Strong’s Concordance as “truth, verity” and is a noun in the dative feminine singular.  According to the Interlinear Greek on Bible Hub, it is Strong’s number 225.  I point this out because, as I looked up “truth” in the Strong’s, I found number 226 which is aletheuo: the verb form of the word meaning “to speak the truth.”

Was the Strong’s incorrect?  I looked Ephesians 6:14 in Alfred Marshall’s The NIV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament and The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament: the Nestle Greek text with a new Literal English Translation.  I also checked Jay P. Green’s The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew English Greek as well as the Young’s and NIV Exhaustive Concordance.  Each of these references verified the Greek aletheia instead of aletheuo.  The answer was yes: the Strong’s Concordance was incorrect.  I wondered if it wasn’t perhaps a typo in my NEW Strong’s Concordance so I checked the oldest copy to which I have access. 

I am not certain how old these copies are.  One has “Copyright 1890 James Strong” on the copyright page but also has a note stating the thirty-fourth printing occurred in 1976.  The other has no copyright date at all but there is an inscription dated 1971 so, older than that.  In the end, finding an older copy of the Concordance made no never mind as each copy referenced aletheuo 226 for Ephesians 6:14.  The Strong’s was indeed incorrect.  

Welcome Readers to Renaissance Woman where, this week, my focus is still on truth.  What is truth? Previous posts have already addressed whether truth is subjective and relative to the Individual so I won’t repeat those points.  The truth is a person and that person is Jesus Christ.  If it isn’t Jesus, it isn’t the truth.  But then, I have to ask: is every Believer talking about Jesus really speaking the truth about who He is?  What is the foundation for our belief?  A reference book?  The Bible?  A pastor, reverend, or priest?  Most believers would answer, “The Person of Jesus Christ” which would be correct, but how do you know Jesus?  Again, through a reference book?  The Bible?  A pastor, reverend, or priest?

Reference books can contain mistakes.  I know this is a distinct possibility which is why I collect as many different reference books as I can so I can verify and re-verify what I am studying.  I agree with those who state the Bible is the inspired word of God.  I wholeheartedly concur that the writers were indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit.  I do not wholeheartedly concur with those who claim the Bible is inerrant without some explanation on just what they mean by “inerrant”.  I possess multiple translations of the Bible but that’s what they are: translations.  I don’t want to accuse the translators of being deliberately misleading but study has shown the translations don’t always follow what the original language intended to convey.  An example of this is tou.  This is a pronoun in the Greek and it means “his, of this person.”  Different passages translate it as “in”, “of”, or “the” rather than “his” which I find does subtly alter the meaning. 

My Bibles are among the most precious books I own and I want to say I do not ever take it for granted that I am privileged to have as many Bibles in as many translations as I want.  There are many fellow believers who do not have this privilege and in fact put their lives on the line to possess any Bible.  Therefore, I am not saying reading and/or studying the Bible is a waste of time.  What I am saying is take care.  Listen to what people are saying when they claim the Bible is inerrant.  I have often found it is the interpretation of their denomination and/or the tenets that have come down to them through their traditions that are considered inerrant.

Take care who you are listening to.  What message is coming to you from the pulpit?  Is the message being delivered to you Jesus Christ?  Are you being encouraged to know Him for yourself?  Are you being told your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the same mind which is in Christ Jesus is also in you?  Again, Jesus Christ alone is the truth.  Listen to what is being taught.  Test the spirits to see whether they be of God.

“Test all things,” the Apostle Paul writes in his first epistle to the Thessalonians; “hold fast what is good.”  These words mean more to me today than ever before.  What if I hadn’t checked?  What if I’d only used the Strong’s and written an entire post on it being the verb aletheuo with which we gird our waists?  BibleHub defines aletheuo as “literally ‘to truth’, includes Spirit-led confrontation where it is vital to tell the truth so others can live in God’s reality rather than personal illusion.”  I like this: I want to study it a bit more and I have no doubt I could have produced an eloquent post on how our waists are girded with a divine directive to confront those who do not know the truth.  I could have backed it up with other scriptures like Ephesians 4:15 which where aletheuo does appear: “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ-”.  It may have been eloquent but it would not have been true. 

The truth is not subjective or relative or abstract.  It is vitally alive as the person Jesus Christ.  Revelation 19:13 states His name is called the Word of God and that little Greek word tou appears here translated “of”.  It also appears in Ephesians 6:14: “putting on the breastplate of righteousness”.  “The” in this passage ought to be “His”.  When I quote these passages out loud with “His” in place of “of” and “the” I feel as if I’ve discovered a treasure trove.  I can’t say the translations are wrong but there is a depth of meaning that is lost.  “Of” and “the” are impersonal whereas “his” is not.  One message I’ve been hearing a great deal lately is “separation.”  God is separated.  The Father cannot wait to pour His wrath on all of us sinning humans and its Jesus alone who prevents Him.  This teaching is in direct conflict with my knowledge and experience of God tested by the Bible.  Again, Revelation 19:13 says Jesus’ name is called “The Word of God.”  Everything the Father has to say to us, He says in Jesus (see Hebrews 1:1-4).  John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”  The Father and the Son are not in opposition to each other.    

All of my study on the Whole Armor of God so far shows me that the Armor describes a facet of the Life of Christ and that Life not as something we put on in that it is external to us-separate from us-but the Life that is in us.  The Whole Armor of God is describing the New Covenant Life of us in Jesus Christ and He in us.  And not Jesus only for “he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23).  There is no separation in the heart of God.  We cannot claim our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and thus the Spirit of God lives in us without also claiming the Son of God and God the Father also live in us.  I think it is easier to think in terms of separation when we read passages where tou is translated as “of” or “the” rather than “His”.  It’s true for me at least.  Using “His” whenever I encounter tou makes the scriptures so much more personal.

The truth is personal.  The truth is Jesus Christ and truth Himself changes not but our knowing Him and experiencing Him is personal.  You must know Him for yourself.  The only way to know Him is by the Holy Spirit.  1 John 2:27 says, “But the anointing 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.”    

The Holy Spirit is the only teacher you need.  Reference books and the Bible and teachers/pastors/preachers/priests are all wonderful and eminently useful as we strive to be workers who do not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth (See 2 Timothy 2:15) but not one of them are fit substitutes for knowing Him and hearing His voice for yourself.

Every one of our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  We are filled with the fullness of God and we have only begun to understand all that means.  You do not need anyone to be a mediator between you and God.  There is only one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  My prayer for all of us over the upcoming days is that our heart’s desire would echo the words of the Apostle Paul: “that I may know Him”! 

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Ephesians 6:14 Interlinear: Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about in truth, and having put on the breastplate of the righteousness, (biblehub.com)

pronouns.pdf (greekgrammar.eu)

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek English, Volume IV, Authors for Christ, Lafayette, Indiana, 1985, 2000

Goodrick, Edward W. & John R. Kohlenberger III, The NIV Exhaustive Concordance, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1990

Marshall, Alfred, The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament: The Nestle Greek text with a new Literal English Translation, Second Edition, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1958

Marshall, Alfred, The NIV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976

Strong, James, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Associated Publishers and Authors, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan

Strong, James, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon, Nashville, Tennessee, Thirty-fourth Printing, 1976

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

Young, Robert, Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Knowledge, Superimposed

22 Monday Apr 2024

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Greetings!  Welcome to Renaissance Woman and another post in my current Bible study on the Whole Armor of God as described in Ephesians 6.

I’ve been focusing on the Helmet of Salvation and, while I have by no means exhausted the subject of salvation, I have decided to let all I’ve learned frizzle (one of my new favorite words) for a bit and move on to another aspect of the Armor.  In last week’s post, I quoted 1 John 2:17; “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.”  With this passage in mind, I determined that the Belt of Truth would be my next focus.

I write “Belt of Truth” but the Literal Translation has “girded your loins about with truth”.  The King James has “having your loins girt about with truth”.  The Amplified has “having tightened the belt of truth around your loins” and the New International has “with the belt of truth buckled around your waist”.  My Greek Interlinear Bibles have the word perizosamenoi.  This word means “to gird all around” and “to fasten one’s belt” according to the Strong’s Concordance.  The word is a verb (in the aorist tense which fascinates me [more on that in later posts]) so the passage is describing an action rather than referring to an object e.g. an actual “belt”. 

Perhaps there is nothing to be gleaned by this but it’s something I’m allowing to frizzle as I prepare for further study on this subject.  For the sake of this and future posts, I refer to the “Belt of Truth” but am keeping in mind Jesus says of Himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6).  This is just another brick in the foundation of my belief that the Whole Armor of God is a description of Jesus Christ Himself and each aspect of the Armor is painting a picture of our covenant life in Him.  We gird our waists with the truth that is Jesus Himself.  Earlier in this same gospel Jesus is speaking to Jews who have believed Him and He says: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).  As I began to think about what it means to gird ourselves with truth who is Jesus Christ, I needed to take some time to think about knowing the truth who is Jesus Christ.

There is a passage in Ephesians I keep going back to as I study.  It’s found in Ephesians 3 and I will begin quoting in verse 14: “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

I have been meditating on the words “filled with all the fullness of God” but, as I began to think about knowing the truth who is Jesus Christ, I began to wonder about the word “knowledge.”  During the course of this entire study, I have looked at many passages which contain the word “knowledge”.  I’ll cite two examples.  The first is in Ephesians 4:13: “…till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…”  The second is in 2 Corinthians 10:5: “…casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…”  What I wanted to know is, was our English word “knowledge” being used to translate one Greek word or many?  I think “to know, understand, grasp with the mind” whenever I read the word “knowledge” but, if my previous studies have shown me anything, it’s that I am often missing facets of meaning in the scriptures because the same English word is often used to translate different Greek words.

I more than halfway expected it so felt hardly any surprise at all when I looked up the word “knowledge” in the Strong’s Concordance and found it was used to translate four distinct Greek.  Incidentally, it’s the Greek sunesis (G4907), defined as “a mental putting together, the intellect, knowledge, understanding” which most matches my personal definition of knowledge.  I mention this because sunesis doesn’t appear in any of the passages I’ve quoted which means I have already got to question my previous understanding of these passages.

What are these passages saying?  The three I have quoted in this post don’t contain different Greek words per se.  Both Ephesians 3:19 and 2 Corinthians 10:5 have the Greek word gnosis (G1108) which the Strong’s defines as “knowledge, science”. Ephesians 4:13 has epignosis which the Strong’s defines as “recognition, full discernment, acknowledgment.” 

Gnosis is the noun derived from the verb ginosko which means to “experientially know”.  The definition for gnosis in the Strong’s Concordance isn’t extensive but the definition found on Bible Hub helps to add some detail to my mental picture.  The entry on Bible Hub defines gnosis as “functional (working) knowledge gleaned from first-hand (personal) experience, connecting theory to application; ‘application-knowledge’ gained in (by) a direct relationship.  Gnosis (applied-knowledge) is only as accurate (reliable) as the relationship it derives from.”

The prefix epi means on, upon, above, and/or over when used with other words and the Strong’s Concordance also has “superimposition” which means “to put, lay, or stack on top of something else.”  Epignosis then is referring to an experiential knowing that is far and over and above what we can manage on our own and this experiential knowing is sourced in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the anointing spoken of in the 1 John 2 passage and is the One who teaches us concerning all things.  Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:17).  I’ve only begun this portion of my study have already seen something in this passage I have never seen before because the Greek word translated as “knows” (neither sees Him nor knows Him) is ginosko-experientially know-but the Greek word translated “know” (but you know Him) is eido which means “be aware, behold, consider, perceive.”  It is seeing that becomes knowing and I find that so beautiful.

We experientially know the Holy Spirit but we are aware of and perceive Him because He dwells within us.  Jesus again says of Him, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”

The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of Revelation so our gnosis of Jesus is sourced in the Holy Spirit.  However, there appears to be an epignosis-a superimposed experiential knowing-which, while it also is sourced in the Holy Spirit, is deeper than gnosis.  I hope to delve deeper into this in the upcoming weeks but, until then, may we each one know we are filled with the Spirit.  May we be aware of His dwelling within us and may our epignosis of Son of God increase moment by moment.  May we clearly see and know Jesus Christ who is the truth that girds us as we face the day.  

Hallelujah!  Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Ephesians 6:14 Interlinear: Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about in truth, and having put on the breastplate of the righteousness, (biblehub.com)

Strong’s Greek: 1108. γνῶσις (gnósis) — a knowing, knowledge (biblehub.com)

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

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, 1st Printing of Larger Print Edition, Authors for Christ, Lafayette, Indiana, 2007

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins+World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1974, 1976

Marshall, Alfred, The NIV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976

Rodale, J.I. The Synonym Finder, Warner Books, Rodale Press Inc., Emmaus, Pennsylvania, 1978

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