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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | speaking in tounges | 1 Cor 12:30 | azurelaw | 215110 | ||
Dear Mike, I hope the below from John MacArthur would shed some light for our understanding: ****** "For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God [lit. 'a god']; for no man understandeth him; however, in the spirit he speaketh mysteries." a. The Principal Purpose Violated What Paul is saying is this: "You people with your pagan ecstasies are not doing what all spiritual gifts were given to do--minister (or speak) to men. Rather, you are all wrapped up in speaking pagan mysteries in ecstatic speech to a god. Nobody can even understand what you're saying!" Paul's not referring to the mysteries (Gk. musterion) of God or the mysteries that he taught, he's referring to the mysteries of paganism. Now let me give you a basic, bottom-line truth: All spiritual gifts are given for the purpose of ministering (or speaking) to men. No spiritual gift was ever given for the purpose of ministering to God. All spiritual gifts are given to build up the body of Christ by ministering to the members of the body. God doesn't need us to minister a spiritual gift to Him--He's not incomplete! So Paul is saying, "You have fallen down on the basic use of spiritual gifts--their use among men to build up the body. The tongues speaking that you are involved in, however, is not for men, it's for a god." By the way, the word "God" does not have an article in the Greek (the anarthrous construction). And because of the context, I think it's better translated "a god" rather than referring to the true God. In other words, they were involved in ecstatic communication with some pagan god, and speaking in pagan mysteries. And they were violating the principal purpose of spiritual gifts--the fact that they are to be ministered to other people in the body of Christ. God certainly didn't need them to talk to Him in some ecstatic gibberish! ******* Shalom Azure |
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2 | speaking in tounges | 1 Cor 12:30 | strts5 | 215113 | ||
Actually the context of verse 2 is verse 4. We are not ministering a spiritual gift to God, but edifying ourselves, I'm sure we are all in need of this. I also read V2 in Young's Literal Translation, Darby Translation, NASB, NIV, Amplified, and KJV. I'm thinking some translator somewhere would have caught there mistake. I also checked EVERY commentary I could find (Darby, Geneva, Gill, Jamieson Faussett Brown, Johnson, Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Concise and Wesley) and none mentions V2 as referring to "a god" as opposed to speaking to God. I think at least one of the commentaries would have mentioned this. Can you help me to find where you arrived at your translation? I have read many of your posts in the past and I love your knowledge of the Word, but here I just can't agree with you. Vines (2) without (i.e., as an anarthrous noun). "The English may or may not have need of the article in translation. But that point cuts no figure in the Greek idiom. Thus in Act 27:23 ('the God whose I am,' RV) the article points out the special God whose Paul is, and is to be preserved in English. In the very next verse (ho theos) we in English do not need the articles" (A. T. Robertson, Gram. of Greek, NT, p. 758). As to this latter it is usual to employ the article with a proper name, when mentioned a second time. There are, of course, exceptions to this, as when the absence of the article serves to lay stress upon, or give precision to, the character or nature of what is expressed in the noun. A notable instance of this is in Jhn 1:1, "and the Word was God;" here a double stress is on theos, by the absence of the article and by the emphatic position. To translate it literally, "a god was the Word," is entirely misleading. Moreover, that "the Word" is the subject of the sentence, exemplifies the rule that the subject is to be determined by its having the article when the predicate is anarthrous (without the article). In Rom 7:22, in the phrase "the law of God," both nouns have the article; in ver. 25, neither has the article. This is in accordance with a general rule that if two nouns are united by the genitive case (the "of" case), either both have the article, or both are without. Here, in the first instance, both nouns, "God" and "the law" are definite, whereas in ver. 25 the word "God" is not simply titular; the absence of the article stresses His character as lawgiver |
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3 | speaking in tounges | 1 Cor 12:30 | Beja | 215115 | ||
Dear Strts5, The reason that there is confusion over this is that in Greek a noun can be "definite" without the article. There are many reasons that it can be so. The one probably in light here is the idea of a proper noun. There is enough parallel in english that we could understand this. For example when you say, "I'm reading a post from, Beja." You do not understand it as "a Beja" but rather "the Beja." The one and only is still in mind even without the article. This happens in greek also along with many other reasons a noun can be "definite" without the article. In Love, Beja |
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4 | speaking in tounges | 1 Cor 12:30 | strts5 | 215116 | ||
Dear Beja, Thank you, what I was implying is that the translators also understood this and every time translated it as "God" and not "god". Mike |
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5 | speaking in tounges | 1 Cor 12:30 | Searcher56 | 215123 | ||
God's day to you, Mike, There is no capitalization at all in the Hebrew or Greek texts of the Bible. Nor were there punctuation or spaces. So the translators had to decide may things, including where to capitalize. Searcher |
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