Subject: Gift of speaking in tongues for all? |
Bible Note: Greetings Mitch! The number of times is only important in several ways. 1) The more often a word or term is used the easier it is to define it's meaning. There are some words in the NT that never occur anywhere else (as far as we know) in Greek literature. In those cases, it is very difficult to even know what the word means. 2) Secondly, different authors can use words in different ways. So, examining how a word is used in different books can be very enlightening. 3) The number of times a word is used can indicate it's importance to a particular author. This doesn't mean that less frequent words are unimportant, but that the themes behind them simply may not be used as often by one author as opposed to another. However, if a word or phrase is used seldom, it would certainly be one indicatation that it was not as important as other concepts. For instance, the various forms of 'repent', 'repentance', ect..., occur 74 times in the NIV. So, it would be an important word. But, Kalos' point was simply that the concept of 'tongues' is not mentioned in Romans at all (though some would argue that Rom. 8:26 is a possible exception). Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |