Afterwords -- week 4
"...it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:20-21 ESV)
===========
CHRIST BE HONORED. For the past several weeks I've been studying the 700+ passages in the Bible that speak of the glory of God. And that's just the number of passages containing one of two word groups in Scripture that pertain to glory (Heb., kabod; Gr., doxa). The glory of God is a central theme of Scripture, and we may miss it, or we glide over these passages, perhaps because we've seen them so often. In the first chapter of Philippians Paul prays for those believers, that they be "filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God" (1:11). The fruit of righteousness in us results in glory and praise to God. Paul himself, being incarcerated in Rome, has boldness to face both life and death because he wholly lives to bring honor to Christ. To "glorify" God means to work and live (or die) for his sake (not our own), for his name (not ours), and for his honor alone. The irony is that, if we pursue our own glory and honor in life, we shall lose it. But if we pursue the honor and glory of God, then he shall bring us to share in his glory, which will become our glory forever as his sons and daughters.
A MATTER OF SEMANTICS. (I just sent the following out to our BSI Greek class mailing list, regarding Phil 1:10, "...so that you may approve what is excellent...") You will notice some variations in how the word translated "approve" in ESV (also NAS, NKJV)(Gr., dokimazo), is translated in other English texts as "...so that you may be able to discern what is best..." (NIV), or "decide" (NET), or "determine" (CSB). As in all languages, individual words have a field of meanings, or semantic range, and the specific meaning is determined by its use in the context. Rarely do all the possible meanings of a word apply in any given use. This verse may be an exception. The range of meanings for dokimazo includes the action of testing and examining (to discern or determine), and also the result of such testing, which is, finding something proven or approved. There's another Greek word for testing to find failure (peirazo), but the word in Phil 1:10 (also in Rom 12:2) has the idea of putting something to the test in order to approve it. Think of a person inching out on ice on a pond ... she puts weight on it in order to find that (hopefully) it will hold her.
PROVING OR APPROVED, OR BOTH? So, the word dokimazo may mean to examine or discern (the beginning of the process) or it may mean to find something dependable, and therefore approved (at the end of the process). That's why English translations differ on how to translate this word. One lexicon (Gingrich) concedes that this may be a place where the full semantic range is intended. In other words, the Philippian believers are being encouraged to road-test God's will, so that they might prove for themselves how good it is. This situation also highlights to us the difficulty of always translating one word in your original language into one word of your target language (English). Sometimes it's hard to find one word in English to exactly translate one word in Greek. There are shades and overlapping of meanings. This is a challenge that all translators face. As you study God's word it's good have various translations at hand, including the more literal (word-for-word) and the more dynamic (idea-for-idea), so that you can gain insight into the original intent of the author. I know this may seem geeky (or Greek-y), but sometimes as people read their Bibles, they are a bit shaken as to why one translation has one word, and another translation has a different word. It's a matter of semantics, in a good sense!
MEDITATION IN A TOOLSHED. C. S. Lewis wrote, "I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead, I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam and looking at the beam are very different experiences. But this is only a very simple example of the difference between looking at and looking along." Lewis contrasts how people look at events differently -- especially scientists, psychologists, and sociologists-- and what it means to "explain" something. Read the rest of this article here.
THIS WEEK I'm journaling and note-taking with a 1990s Parker Sonnet, filled with Waterman's Serenity Blue ink. Thought you'd like to know.
Have a good week!
Sandy
Photo above by Kevin Andre on Unsplash.