Title: Revealing God
Scripture: John 17:1-11
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
I've long been told that words matter much less than actions when it comes to communicating our values and what we believe. The contrast between what we say and do was Mohandas Gandhi's main critique of Christianity. "I love your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." On the flip-side of that, he also said, "If Christians would all act like Christ, all of India would be Christian today." He had read about Jesus, but what he had seen by those who claimed Jesus did not reveal Jesus in them. What do our lives reveal? Where do they point those who watch us?
Karen was reading today's text for me on the road home from a seminar. The text surprised her, because the rendition was very formal, archaic, and stilted. The translators had chosen to follow a much more archaic, highbrow English, apparently because in this passage Jesus is praying to the Father. There is nothing in the Greek to call for a shift in vocabulary, structure, or to any greater formality. Instead, we find a liturgical tradition often elevating the language of prayer to some higher level, as if communicating with God requires we not use language the way we use it in our day-to-day. In passages tending to be used more liturgically, translators are often concerned not to shock people by straying too far from liturgical norms and traditional readings. The Greek holds no such expectations or norms.
The only special vocabulary in this whole passage is a word we often see without knowing what to do with it. I had a Greek professor liken this term, glory (doxa, d??a), to revealing one's essence, nature, or splendor. It has to do with making known one's identity or illuminating before all the true character of the one being so glorified. It makes what is hidden seen. In reference to God, it moves past our human limitations to glimpse a greater realit ...
Scripture: John 17:1-11
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
I've long been told that words matter much less than actions when it comes to communicating our values and what we believe. The contrast between what we say and do was Mohandas Gandhi's main critique of Christianity. "I love your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." On the flip-side of that, he also said, "If Christians would all act like Christ, all of India would be Christian today." He had read about Jesus, but what he had seen by those who claimed Jesus did not reveal Jesus in them. What do our lives reveal? Where do they point those who watch us?
Karen was reading today's text for me on the road home from a seminar. The text surprised her, because the rendition was very formal, archaic, and stilted. The translators had chosen to follow a much more archaic, highbrow English, apparently because in this passage Jesus is praying to the Father. There is nothing in the Greek to call for a shift in vocabulary, structure, or to any greater formality. Instead, we find a liturgical tradition often elevating the language of prayer to some higher level, as if communicating with God requires we not use language the way we use it in our day-to-day. In passages tending to be used more liturgically, translators are often concerned not to shock people by straying too far from liturgical norms and traditional readings. The Greek holds no such expectations or norms.
The only special vocabulary in this whole passage is a word we often see without knowing what to do with it. I had a Greek professor liken this term, glory (doxa, d??a), to revealing one's essence, nature, or splendor. It has to do with making known one's identity or illuminating before all the true character of the one being so glorified. It makes what is hidden seen. In reference to God, it moves past our human limitations to glimpse a greater realit ...
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