From: George Blaisdell (maqhth@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 14:34:35 EDT
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George Blaisdell
Roslyn, WA
"Be not troubling of you the heart..."
>DIO BASILEIAN ASALEUTON PARALAMBANONTES ECWMEN CARIN...
>"So since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom,
>let us give thanks..." (NET Bible)
>What first occurs to me when reading ECWMEN is that the
>author is encouraging the readers to "have" or "possess"
>something. What is the justification for taking ECWMEN
>in the sense of "giving" something.
Iver and Carl have already argued for the idiomatic understanding. I would
instead argue for a more literal one that has the thankfulness as implicit
but includes what Carl calls the "notion of reciprocity". I would argue for
translating it as "let us be having grace", where the meaning is not the
idiomatic 'giving thanks', but the literal having of grace. This for the
following reasons:
1. The sentence continues with DI hHS, which I take to make of CARIS a
cause of LATREUWMEN, and it is easier for me to see grace as the cause of
service than to see gratitude as the cause for serving. One would be
grateful to serve, doubtless, but is gratitude, not grace, the cause?
2. DIO BASILEIAN ASALEUTON PARALAMBANONTES is itself an ongoing reception
of grace, so that being in ongoing reception of this grace, we should be
appropriating it unto ourselves - eg we should be having [ECOMEN] it - And
what is it? CARIN - Grace. And what should we be DOING with it?? DI hHN
LATREUOMEN... Through it we should be serving.
3. The apostle seems clearly to be drawing a distinction between
PARALAMBANONTES and ECWMEN - Between receiving [alongside] and taking in, or
HAVING... He is telling us [them, actually!] what to DO with what is being
received... That we might serve God acceptably etc.
4. This understanding does not deny gratitude as a built-in part of this
usage of ECWMEN CARIN, but goes well beyond the limitation imposed by MERELY
understanding it as gratefulness.
geo
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