Tuesday, January 04, 2011

It's Greek to Me


For the last couple of weeks, I've been working on my Th.D. work--and this component is a LONG one. I've been tackling the 12 "-ologies," as I call them--theology proper, Christology, harmartiology, soteriology, angelology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, eschatology, etc.

Anyway, one part of this component was to find all the major scripture verses in each of the twelve fields, then to look up the major words up in the original Greek or Hebrew to see the complete/true meaning of said verses.

And, keeping in mind that I don't speak or read or write Greek, what I've found is incredibly illuminating. For instance, "For the wages of sin is death" doesn't quite mean that we earn death when we sin. The Greek word translated wages actually means "to buy," so every time we sin we are buying death. Freely making an installment payment on it, so to speak. When you think about it, you see that those who habitually sin are investing in death hand over fist.

Wow. Profound, isn't it?

And that lovely verse, "Every good and perfect gift comes from above" really means more than good and perfect. The Greek refers to two gifts, the first of which is wonderful, and the second of which is gratuitous and completely undeserved.

That really means a lot more than "good and perfect" doesn't it?

Anyway, just wanted to check in. Hope your new year is going well!

~~Angie

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Will you be teaching us what you learn here? i loved your post.

Kay Day said...

I have some Word Study Dictionaries and I'm always delightfully surprised at the deeper meaning of things. I don't dig into those dictionaries very often, though. I should more. I can see them from here. It wouldn't be hard.

Anonymous said...

Wow, how illuminating. And such a good reminder of God's extravagant love.

I'm always stunned at how much God has given us that is "hiding" in plain sight. His word is no different. Like Kay, I should dig into those word studies.

Enjoy your pursuit, Angie, and thanks for sharing. Look forward to more.

Blessings,
Mary Kay

Mocha with Linda said...

I love seeing the enhanced meaning with the original Greek or Hebrew. The definition of wages as paying into death is a great rebuttal to those who ask how a loving God could "send" people to hell.

And wow! That's a lot of -ologies!

joanieponytail said...

Whenever I have heard "the wages of sin is death" I have almost always thought, in the back of my mind, what if we didn't pick up our paycheck or just did volunteer work for sin, but this makes the meaning much clearer.

Thank you so much for sharing the fruits of your hard work with us.