Philippians 1:9-11

Michael Haggett michael at michaelhaggett.freeserve.co.uk
Sun Sep 19 09:31:31 EDT 1999


> >3. How would you classify the use of the participle TA DIAFERONTA and its
> >function in this sentence?
>
> I wouldn't classify it at all. Since it has an article, it is clearly
> substantival; since DIAFERW, among its common senses, means "be better
> than," this has to mean in this instance, "what is better."

HAS TO MEAN?  I'm not at all sure that DIAFERW ever means "be better than"
except by a tortuous route.  Apart from the fairly obvious "carry across"
meaning, the other meaning is either "to be different" or "to make a
difference".  This comes out well in Gal 2:6

hOPOIOI POTE HSAN OUDEN MOI DIAFEREI
whatever they once were makes no difference to me

Here in Philippians, TA DIAFERONTA means "the things that make a difference"
i.e. the things are important, or the things that matter.

In the gospels, where DIAFERETE is used when comparing us with birds, the
meaning is surely that we matter more, or are more important than they are.
OK, that just about equals the "better than" that we have in most
translations, but can only do so as part of a comparison.  But in
Philippians, no comparison is being made, so I would translate:

EIS TO DOKIMAZEIN hUMAS TA DIAFERONTA
for you to test out what matters
or, for you to test out what is important

Of course, the end result of such testing is that you come to know what
matters, so you might even stretch so far as to translate it as, "for you to
know what matters"

this would then be almost identical to Romans 2:18
KAI DOKIMAZEIS TO DIAFERONTA
and you know (i.e. as a result of testing) what matters
KATHCOUMENOS EK TOU NOMOU
(because you are) being instructed from the Law.

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