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NASB | John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 15:1 "I am the true Vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. |
Subject: In John 18:38 Did Pilate want truth? |
Bible Note: Greetings Ray, I will continue to pray for you while you are undergoing chemo therapy. My wife and I were married on 11/20/2004! As you have probably seen, I have been spending a lot of time away from the Forum since late 2003. However, I have updated my User Profile and changed some Bible links. John 15:20 "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also." If we take a look at this verse as well as John 13:16, we see Jesus speaking of the relationship between a slave and his master. If we capitalize 'master' here in 15:20, then we are implying a reference of Deity to the word 'master;' a reference that I don't believe that Jesus was making in the illustration itself. When Jesus says, "A slave is not greater than his master", I believe that He is simply making a statment about the slave/master relationship and then applying that as an illustration in the rest of 15:20 and 15:21 to help us realize more about our relationship to Him. Therefore, if the statement "A slave is not greater than his master" is simply being used as an illustration, then the word 'master' does not necessarily need to be capitalized; in fact, it should not be capitalized, and I will show you why.. Let's look at this statement "A slave is not greater than his master" in an "inverse" way: If we go ahead and capitalize 'master' under the assumption that it is referring to Jesus, then the word 'slave' would be referring to us. Now that we have 'master' referring to Jesus (capitalized) and 'slave' referring to us, let's look at the relationships now caused by this association.. I agree, the word 'master' does accurately describe Jesus in our relationship with Him. However, does the word 'slave' accurately describe us in our relationship to Jesus? Yes, like Paul, we are all slaves to the gospel. But as John 15:15 tells us, we are so much more than 'slaves' to Him. Therefore, if we were to apply a meaning of Deity to 'master' in the statement "A slave is not greater than his master", then that would not be accurate because that would demean (and possibly contradict) Jesus' statement about our relationship to Him in 15:15. We are so much more than just slaves to Him and to the gospel. As you can see, there is sufficient reason for keeping the word 'master' uncapitalized, as both the NKJV and NASB have it. But, I congratulate you on your good find! And keep up your interesting work! I hope that you keep up your zeal in studying capitalization in scripture, despite what I think.. :) Blessings to you, Makarios |