Exploring the Well

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Something’s been bothering me from my word study

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Something about my word study on Philippians 4:19 has been bothering me for a few days.

I referred to the Greek word plouton (or more accurately, ploutos, πλοῦτος, both translated typically as “riches” or “wealth”), and made an association to Pluto and Ploutos, the Roman and Greek gods of wealth.

The cultural shift in the reference to Pluto as an association to a Greek word – has been a gadfly for me.

Was I incorrect in making the association at all? Wouldn’t Ploutos – the Greek reference, not the Roman – be the right reference to use?

Well, maybe… but probably not.

I think of two “ages” in culture from the Hellenistic era in Roman antiquity: a time when Greek culture ruled from Greece, and then the time when Greek culture ruled from Rome.

The Romans took Greek mythology and translated it, occasionally importing names directly but usually equating Greek gods to generally Roman equivalents. Therefore, Zeus became Jupiter, Hera became Juno, Heracles (the son of Zeus, named “Heracles” to mollify the endlessly jealous Hera) became Hercules, Odysseus became Ulysses, etc. etc. etc.

The Greek Hades became the Roman Pluto.

Pluto sounds roughly like ploutos does, and one aspect of Pluto was that he was the god of wealth in addition to the lord of the realm of death. (Mythological tradition around his exact role is horribly confused; generally it depends on what source you pull from and in which era, because his role and identity shifted quite remarkably over time.)

Why, though, would I think a sentence in Greek would have a reference to the Roman god of wealth?

Well… because it probably did. Paul was writing in a time that was not Greek, but definitely Roman; Greek was simply the lingua franca, the language of commerce and culture at the time.

Paul wouldn’t have cared about the names of the Greek gods when writing to a Roman audience (an audience under Roman authority) in Greek. He would have used references and associations that made sense for the time and audience. (Even the writer of the book of Hebrews used Greek, despite writing to a distinctly Hebraic audience.)

So my thought is this: while I still dislike the reference to Pluto, a Roman name for a Greek god, as an associated word to plouton, a purely Greek word referring to riches, the etymology of the name “Pluto” validates the reference – Pluto is a Romanization of the original Greek word, and therefore is less Roman than Greek in the first place.

My concerns over an invalid association are not as valid as I feared.

Incidentally, the study of Pluto is a fascinating exercise in and of itself. Apparently the Roman equivalent was Dis pater and Orcus, and Pluto was used because it was a positive reference to the god, as opposed to one that caused fear (as “Hades” did as well). The poor mythological guy – he never really seems to have been understood.

(Originally published January 31, 2012.)

Philippians 4:19: God will supply our needs…

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We had an interesting study in Sunday school, on the end of Philippians – 4:19 through 4:23.

The class focused on 4:19:

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

The teacher asserted that this verse was used to justify a “prosperity gospel,” in that people asserted that “all your needs” was the same as “all your wants.” I never really thought of this verse in terms of a prosperity gospel, so I was arriving at it with what I thought were neutral biases – and wanted to find out more about what the words being used were, since translations seem odd to me when they’re so easily misapplied.

First off, I’m definitely not a student of Greek – go figure – so I’m more or less trying to build an understanding out of nothing.

I zeroed in on the word “riches” – or “wealth,” as it was in my NT – as the focal word. What got me thinking was that “riches” and “wealth” were underspecific in terms of the verse, because wealth is such a simple concept compared to what we were talking about.

Yet the word used is plouton – which is accurately translated as “riches” or “wealth,” specifically worldly riches and wealth. “An abundance of worldly possessions” is one definition, even, and this fits with the usage in Greek and Roman myth, too, as the god Pluto (Hades in Greek) is a god of wealth along with the similarly-named Ploutos. (Apparently Ploutos was the god of wealth, but Hades – as a cthonic god, a god associated with things under the earth – became associated with wealth as well, as gold and other valuable minerals were found under the earth.)

Anyway, with “plouton” in mind, apparently there isn’t a key word as much as the entire phrase needs to be understood as a whole: ‘according to his riches in Christ Jesus’ is a concept that isn’t simply expressed. The evaluation I expressed was that “riches” was contextual, and what God values is not worldly riches, but those things He values (i.e., obedience), but the word study itself doesn’t expose that. The contextual study does, but not the word study.

As a corollary, the rendering of “the grace of the Lord Jesus be with your spirit” doesn’t show up well in the word study either – although, again, remember my understanding of Greek, which is beyond laughable and well into “moronic.”

The phrase ‘with your spirit’ is meta pantOn in the Greek (and one thing I do appreciate about Greek is that it’s generally read left-to-right.) pantOn is “all things,” so perhaps “with all things about you” would be a good rendering as well.

I don’t know.

I don’t usually enjoy zeroing in on word studies, because there’s a cultural transition that doesn’t get communicated well with them. You can’t just study words, you have to consider all of the context – which means “with your spirit” and “according to his riches” becomes a history lesson of Roman culture, Hebrew culture (esp. as applied to a diasporic Hebrew mindset), and regional history around Philippi.

That said, that doesn’t mean they’re not worthwhile – they just tend to yield an opened can of worms!

Wait, all that and no explanation of Phi 4:19?

Argh! Okay, here’s a quick rundown of what the verse actually means: it means that God does, in fact, supply all that is needed by the believer according to His will. The concern is in what “all that is needed” means.

The prosperity gospel focuses on what is wanted; “I need new shoes, I need to eat the finest foods, I need a large house, I need a nice car…” and none of those are needs. They’re not even physical needs, much less spiritual needs.

God fills those needs in accordance with His riches.

What does God consider wealth?

Well… wealth is created by a shortage of an item. Gold is rare, so it is a measure of wealth, for example, if you don’t mind a very simple example.

This may surprise you, but God doesn’t lack much gold. Or silver. Or livestock. Or land. Or anything else which we can measure in material goods.

What God desires more of is not livestock or land or precious metals, but fulfillment of His inestimable Will.

So fulfilling a need, in accordance with His wealth and not our pitiable measures of it, means that God fulfills our need to be able to fulfill our lives in Him.

This may mean we get food – perhaps fine food. It may mean we receive the ability to acquire shoes, or shelter, or cars. However, these things are secondary to His desire.

God works to the fulfillment of His will, through us. (We’re not necessary for this process, but God does as He will.) This is what this verse is telling us will be supplied, not material wealth.

Shalom.

(Originally published on January 24, 2012)

Paul and Slavery

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Yikes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything at all! My apologies; I’ve been a little busy.

Sunday, our class was talking about Philippians 2:19-30, where Paul talks about sending Timothy and Epaphroditus, both with some glowing words in their favor.

The lesson was actually pretty good, centering on a topic Paul discusses often: slavery to Christ (rather than slavery to sin.)

The thing that stood out to me was Philippians 2:22.

But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. (ESV)

The NASV has another example of a common rendering:

But you know of his proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. (NASV)

Paul often described his condition as bondservitude or slavery, edouleusen (transliterated from the Greek), base doulos. Some verses translate it as bondservant, or servant, but usually he seems to use doulos. (See 1Cor 7:21-22, for example.)

The statement of Timothy serving as a son would with a father, in light of slavery, is an interesting one. Perhaps not entirely relevant, of course (you can use multiple meanings and still come away with the impression that Paul thinks of Timothy as a son) but the implication of the inheritance (or assumption, in Christianity’s case) of his condition of slavery is intriguing.

Biblical slavery and bondservitude were different, of course, and also one’s status as a Hebrew factored in. The Law protected all servants, but some more than others. In a (very) truncated list of examples:

  • Hebrew bondservants were offered freedom after a period of six years, but only if male. (Lev 25:39-43)
  • Forced enslavement of Israelites was forbidden. (Deu 24:7)
  • Foreign slaves had fewer rights, but were still protected; slavery was an inherited condition for foreigners. (Lev 25:44-46)

That said, the Law was still an ancient near east code: slavery still had the potential for brutality, and the term “slavery” was still accurate: the slave was property (although with some protections, a humane addition to the normal treatment of slavery in the near east.) A slave (עַבֵד, abed) was not of the same worth as a bondservant (שָׂכיר, sakar).

So: Slavery was a condition that was entered into voluntarily for the Hebrew, potentially nonvoluntarily for the Gentile.

If Paul was referring to slavery in the Hebrew context, then he entered into it to pay off a debt (which was a neat point made by the teacher, actually). Timothy’s assumption of that debt would have been a greater credit to him than I previously thought.

On the other hand, the Roman context was a good bit more cruel; the Romans would have condemned the son to the state of the father, until formal release (manumission) was made.

In this context, Paul would have been inverting the traditional view of the slave, as he did often in his other writings. “See! Timothy, as a slave’s son, is also a slave, yet we serve in joy,” might be a way of reading his statement.

Of course, the third possibility is quite possible (and likely): Paul might have simply been saying “He’s been like a son to me,” including the communication of the work of the father as was common in the times. This is the common assertion, I think, and is well worth considering as having primacy… yet the possible implications work well too.

Romans 6:1-14: Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

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The Bible study this week in Romans focuses on the first part of chapter 6 of Romans, a pretty well-known piece of scripture if memory serves. (It was one of the parts of Romans I could quote before I really started getting into the New Testament, which is the best barometer I have for such things.)

It contains an interaction Paul had with a hypothetical question in response to the closing of the previous parts of the letter to the Romans, in what we see as chapter 5, in which Paul says that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Romans 5:20, ESV).

You see this a lot in Christian circles, especially in affluent circles, where people point out the spirituality of oppressed people in third world countries: “They trust in God and see His work among them! Even in their oppression, they are blessed!”

The problem with this expression isn’t that it’s not true – it’s that it tends to engender a question of why the one offering that expression hasn’t gone to be oppressed themselves, such that they can experience God more authentically.

“Should we not also consider ourselves oppressed, such that we can force ourselves to depend on God all the more?”

…except the answer is, typically, “No, of course not.” We might want the hand of God in our lives, but we are rarely willing to offer ourselves suffering in order to see that hand.

Is that proper? I don’t think so – I think the key is to remember to thank God for our circumstances, even in our pleasant circumstances. We feel guilty that we do little to alleviate the suffering of others, and that’s probably a good thing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are to punish ourselves for the riches that God has granted us… as long as we remember that God has granted us those riches.

So: back to Romans 6! Paul offered a statement that where sin was multiplied, grace was multiplied also, creating the question of whether one should sin more such that grace would grow even that much more. (“Grace is a good thing; if sin increases grace, is sin therefore not ‘good’ as well?”)

We don’t know if Paul was literally asked this question or not. He may have been, but the form of Romans is as a letter, not as a series of responsum. Paul was a thorough and rather nitpicky thinker (I don’t have any experience with this, personally! Oh, wait…) and more likely anticipated the question as a logical extension of his previous wording, so responded to the potential question.

And what was the response? The response goes back to a condition, a status. Paul says in the first part of Romans 6 that we are dead and raised with Christ:

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:5-7, ESV)

We are united with Christ in His resurrection, and united with Him in His death as well.

The metaphor is one of baptism: baptism, or the mikveh (מִקְוֶה), is given as a picture of death to what wasis.

It’s a transition: the mikveh is a transition from impurity to purity. Baptism is a transition from a former state to a new, pure state. We enter the water as Yona did, in defiance of God and dying in our sin, to enter the great fish, the דג גדול, which symbolizes death. We leave death behind, and enter a new life of obedience.

(A crucial difference is that a mikveh is a continual immersion; an Orthodox adherent to Judaism undergoes a mikveh regularly, and women use it based on their menstrual cycle, as it’s part of the purification post-menses. Few Christians undergo repeated and/or constant baptism. Your mileage may vary on the metaphor’s appropriateness; personally, I see the mikveh as part of repentance.)

So Paul constructs the picture of death and life, with life freeing us from the bonds that held us before our deaths to our old selves: as those bonds are sin and the result of sin, we are to act as if we are no longer held to our sinful natures.

Does that mean we never sin? No. Yet it means our master is Christ, and we should strive to let Him lead our lives, repenting our trespasses and living in such a way that we honor Him, and not sin.