[B-Greek] Matt. 28:19

Andrew Rowell andrew at orego.com
Mon Jan 17 06:53:57 EST 2005


Andrew (Birch),

You said:

"Regarding Matt. 28:19, a fairly literal translation would be:
"Going, then, disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the
Father..."
Surely the word "them" is masculine for the simple reason that you can't
actually baptize nations - only people! If we expand MAQHTEUSATE to mean
"make disciples of", then AUTOUS could naturally refer to the the people of
"all the nations" who are willing to become disciples."

If this is true then...
Can we generalise this into a principle?

The first imperative verb focuses on the whole human race divided into its
different groups.
The second and third dependent verbs use the masculine gender as an implicit
acknowledgement that there will not be a 100% success rate.
Can we say that Jesus clearly intended us to understand that from the use of
the masculine gender?

Is the sense "make disciples out of" (in the sense of some will be willing
and some will not) implicit in the greek of the verse

(I am not sure if I am using the correct terminology here....)
So ...whereever there is a change of gender for the object pronoun of a
dependent verb it signifies something different about the subject of the
dependent verbs as opposed to the antecedent verbs subject...???
Do you understand what I am asking?

Every blessing,

Andrew Rowell




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