Thursday, December 14, 2023

1 Thessalonians 5:23

 I wrote a few times that most of the people were not trained to recognize the literary patterns in the Bible. That's why I do my best to point them out - on a large scale (the outline of the books as a whole), or on a micro-level (a short passage or a single sentence). 

Here is an example of the beauty of Pauline writings. A single sentence is structured chiastic. 

Here is the text: Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ.

I noticed that in the middle of the sentence there are two synonyms that even sound similar (in Greek): completely and whole. Then everything began to fall into its rightful place. Here we go: 

a. God 
 b. sanctify
  c. you 
   d. completely 
   d'. whole
  c'. spirit, soul, body
 b'. be kept 
a'. our LORD Jesus Christ

St. Paul was a prolific writer. No very often English or Russian or any other language can fully express his thought - not only the meaning, but beauty of a structure... Yet, in this case ESV translation team did a great job picking up the proper words in a correct order. SDG!     
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

PSALM 117

All nations praise the L ORD . Only two lines – but such a deep meaning. Allow me to walk you through. v. 1a. Praise the L ORD , all nat...