Lately I have been reading Wuest's "Word Studies from the Greek New Testament" in my devotions. You don't need to know Greek to read the book. I took Greek years ago, and it is an incredibly expressive language. Reading it (or about it in English) gives you a spiritual rush.
For example, Wuest points out the famous verse "Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). He notes that the word "substance" is used for the concept of "title deed" in secular Greek. So faith means we have what we possess faith for without full possession, as long as we have the title deed of faith. This is staggering.
Also, consider Eph. 5:18-19, "be filled with the Spirit." In Greek, this is an imperative- we are ordered to be filled, and sinning if we are not. It is present- now be filled. It is continuous, we are to keep doing it. It is corporate, we are to be filled as a church and group. All this is in the 1 word "filled".
I love Greek.
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Interesting post Pastor. The other day when searching for Alpha/Omega I came upon this article that talked of lots of symbols associated with Christianity and how they are relevant..
ReplyDeleteAlpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, became a symbol for Christ due to His being called "the First and the Last." The roots of symbolizing these attributes of God go back further, all the way to the Old Testament where, in Exodus 34:6, God is said to be "full of Goodness and Truth." The Hebrew spelling of the word "Truth" consists of the 3 letters "Aleph," "Mem," and "Thaw" -- and because "Aleph" and "Thaw" are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the ancients saw mystical relevance in God's being referred to as "Truth."
This is just an extract. Here is a link to the page if u are interested - http://www.fisheaters.com/symbols.html
Strange name for the URL. Nevertheless it is fascinating how in a land filled with pagan worship, idols, belief of life underground after death....there is a language that expresses so much about Christianity
jeyashree