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NASB | 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 2 Timothy 2:15 Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth. |
Bible Question: Is the Holy Spirit ever referred to in the feminine gender in the New Testament? We are studying the book Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo. On page 34 it says that the Holy Spirit is referred to in the feminine gender and to check our New Testament Greek. I don't know Greek, but found PNEUMA in the Vines Expository Dictionary, which is neuter. Can anyone help me with this? |
Bible Answer: Greetings SSC! Allow me to repost a section from an older post dealing with this topic. ************ The 'gender' of nouns is more a function of form than anything else. What do I mean by this? Nouns must have a form connected with them, thus some nouns are masculine, some nouns are feminine, while others are neuter. In some cases, the reason for the gender is obvious. For instance, 'man' is masculine, while 'woman' is feminine. :) In other cases, though, the reason is not apparent. 'Spirit' is neuter in form. Thus, grammatically, all of the articles and pronouns which have it as their antecedent must also be neuter in form. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Holy Spirit is not a person. It simply means that the form of the word is neuter. Interestingly, since the form of the word is neuter, grammatical rules require that all of the pronouns that refer to 'spirit' must also be neuter in form. However, in many instances, the pronouns are not neuter, but masculine. Two of the examples you used in your post incorrectly identified the pronoun as neuter when they were in fact masculine in form. The two examples are: John 14:26, and John 16:13-14. In both of these passages, 'ekeinos' is in the masculine form. Why would Scripture break the 'rule' in these cases? I believe it is because the Scripture writers were hesitant to use the neuter form for the Holy Spirit, Whom they certainly viewed as a person and not a thing! p.s. - I wanted to note that my other example (Eph. 1:14) has some textual variants involved, but John 16:13-14 do not. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran *************** There is a move among some to attempt to make the Holy Spirit the feminine part of God. The argument is mostly based on the fact that the Hebrew word for 'spirit' is feminine. However, as I noted in the above repost, gender is more a function of form than anything else. Just because a word is 'feminine' in Hebrew does not make the Holy Spirit a woman. :-) I hope this helps! Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |