House Church Talk - Hope our effort or concept? or a Person?

[Dan Beaty]

Mike,

While I have only a small knowledge of NT Greek, and probably as David
stated only enough to be dangerous as well, I was encouraged by your post.
Even if the original Greek could not bear out your point, I could not help
but rejoice in that He is our Faith, Hope, Love, Joy, Mercy, Wisdom,
Strength etc, etc. etc.

A Christ-centered life is among other things a life centered around the Hope
that has been instilled in us through His promises in His Word. Being the
source of our Hope connects our clinging to His promises with our clinging
to HIM! Wow!

Thanks for the sharing.

Dan B.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "SameSpecies" <samespecies at charter.net>
To: "House Church Talk" <House Church Talk  at housechurch.org>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 1:06 PM
Subject: House Church Talk -  Hope our effort or concept? or a Person?


Hi Brothers,

Here's a verse that I came across in my bible study today, that may help
explain what I am trying to point out.
Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for
what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?  25 But if we hope for that we
see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

In verse 24 it says "we are saved by hope", now we all know who saved us,
and that we are saved in His life, Rom 5:10 below.  Now, in verse 25 above
in Rom ch. 8, the KJ's translates the Greek into English as "But if we hope
for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it."  The first thing
we can see in this verse by the Italic type, is the words "then" and "it"
are not in the Greek.  Now, if we look up the Strong's definition for the
word translated "that" in verse 25, we will see the word can be translated
"Whom" or "Who".  It is translated "Whom" 262 times, see the Strong's
definition below.  If we go to the Greek manuscript and translate the Greek
to English in a literal manner this is what the verse says; "If but, whom
not we see, hope, thought patience we await."  Of course I have added my
punctuation and the word "we" to help clarify the meaning, as the KJ
translator above did, they added we to the Greek words for clarity.  But,
hopefully what we can see from all of this, is that Paul is not using the
word "hope" as a concept, but an actual, person, the Lord, our Hope whom
through patience (the fruit produced by the Spirit) we await, patience also
being again the fruit of the Spirit.  So that is why when I talk of our
hope, I would capitalize the word "Hope", to point help the deity of our
Hope.  There are hundreds of examples in the Bible of this, and we don't
even have to know Greek or have a Strong's Concordance to see it.  We just
need to see it is all about the Lord, that He is really everything to us, He
is our Hope, our Grace, our Truth, our Life, etc., etc.  It can give you a
whole new understanding of what the Lord is actually saying to us in the
written word.  Well, you all discern, I may just be a little nutty.

Rom 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the
death of his son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be
saved by his life? 11 Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

3739 ὅς, ὅσγε [hos, he, ho /hos/] pron. Probably a primary word (or perhaps
a form of the article 3588); GK 4005 and together with Strongs 1065 as GK
4007; 1393 occurrences; AV translates as “which” 395 times, “whom” 262
times, “that” 129 times, “who” 84 times, “whose” 53 times, “what” 42 times,
“that which” 20 times, “whereof” 13 times, and translated miscellaneously
430 times. 1 who, which, what, that. Additional Information: Wigram’s count
is 1310 not 1393. Strong, J. (1996). The exhaustive concordance of the Bible

Grace to us,

Mike



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