Theology Seeking Eschatology
The point: when translating from the Greek, these subtleties won’t always show up in translation. That’s why it probably feels “low impact.” But such questions are worth thinking about because, though subtle, the rhetorical and semantic functions are different in many contexts.
The question is really a matter of “how many exegetical decisions am I going to answer in my translation.” The more you leave ambiguous, the more burden you put on the reader. The more exegetical questions you answer, the less burden you put on the reader.
The μυστήριον for Paul is less the “secret” of Christ’s Messianic identity and more like the “surprise” that the Gospel, as it is fulfilled in the resurrection and Pentecost, goes out beyond the Jews; it goes directly to the Gentiles too, and to the ends of the earth.
A sermon, in contrast to a paper, isn’t ordered and organized and determined by a thesis, but rather by an exhortation. The center of the sermon–the thing around which it is in orbit–is it’s exhortational purpose, not its doctrinal or exegetical content.
Exegesis / Ask Anything / Greek
by Tommy Keene · Published June 23, 2023 · Last modified July 13, 2023
I’m confused by Ephesians 3:1… it seems to be an introductory clause to verse 2, but it has no verb. Is there a verbal word that I am missing, or is the action of the clause implied?
The only way to keep your Greek and Hebrew is to read Greek and Hebrew. I think you probably already knew that was the answer. You just didn’t want to admit it. But the languages are just like everything else: if you don’t use it, you’ll loose it. So what we really need is not a trick or a gimmick, but a reading plan. In the rest of this post, I will offer two.
