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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. |
Subject: "That's just your interpretation."(?) |
Bible Note: kalos, thanks for the fine service to the Forum you provide through your informative and thought-inducing (we hope!) posts. I like particularly the phrase, "This verse means to me...." It's a handy phrase to keep in mind -- and avoid using! If someone came up to me and read a passage of Scripture aloud to me in Japanese (let's say it was John 3:16) and afterward asked me, "What does this verse mean to you?" I would respond, assuming I did not know beforehand that it was John 3:16 in Japanese, "It means absolutely nothing to me." I would be right, of course, in saying it means nothing to me, since I don't know the Japanese language. But that is not the same as saying, "It means nothing" because it does in fact mean a great deal to anyone who understands the language. In other words, my failure to understand does not nullify the intrinsic meaning of the passage. The passage has meaning whether I understand all of it, part of it, or none of it. ....... When someone on this Forum steps up to argue a point of doctrine, he may state to another user that "this passage doesn't mean this but it does mean that," and when he makes such a statement, I have to ask myself what he is really saying? Is he saying he doesn't agree with what the doctrine or the passage intrinsically means, or is he saying that, to him, it doesn't seem to be the right meaning? And if this be so, then I have to ask myself whether the user understands all of the doctrine or the passage, or only part of it, or nothing at all about it. Is he saying that the passage means so and so TO HIM because, in a sense, it falls on ears as deaf as mine would be were I hearing the passage read to me in Japanese? How much of his agreement or disagreement is objectively based on his true understanding of the intrinsic and contextual meanings of the passage and how much on subjective "what it means to me" nonsense? --Hank |