GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
I didn't accuse you, I was asking a question. Here is what I wrote:
But now that I know there are really people like Hopeful 2 who deny that they commit any sins, I do concede that your comments could be in line with the false doctrine of sinless perfection. Maybe you could clarify.
Since I didn't mention anything about sinless perfection, I have nothing to clarify.
Actually, I have not read or referenced a commentary in many years, maybe decades. But I do use several theological dictionaries and lexicons to better understand the original languages of the NT. In my Logos Bible software I have the difinitive Greek dictionary titled "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament". It can get very wordy because it goes into a great deal of detail. So sometimes I rely on the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon that I referenced in the post you are objecting to. In case you don't know, a Lexicon is not a commentary. Wikipedia says that a lexicon is "essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock)". So, what I gave you was not someone's commentary, but an explanation of what the Greek words in John 3:36 mean. I quoted the experts ver batim to make it easy to see that my opinions were in line.
Your opinion was in line with what you seem to believe to be the truth.
Your opinion is not in line with EITHER the New Testament OR what the Apostles passed on to the next generation of Christians.
Thanks for explaining what a lexicon is.
It's much appreciated....
You have no idea to what extent I have studied the word. To give you a flavor for it, I wrote this a decade ago...
Through faith, we accept and treasure His communications. Through faith, we speak back to Him knowing that He hears us. Through faith, we know His will. Through faith, we discern whether we are in rebellion against Him. Through faith, we know what it feels like to experience His correction. Through faith, we know the peaceable fruit of righteousness that comes from being trained by Him. Through faith, we know these things and experience these things in spite of the fact that we can’t see Him with our eyes, hear Him with our ears, or touch Him with our hands (Heb. 11:27).But what exactly is faith? To find out, let’s consider the Greek word in the New Testament that we translate faith. That word is πιστις. Don’t worry if you can’t read it. Just look at the first four letters, πιστ-. This is the stem, and it carries the meaning of the word. In this case, the stem means “faith”. The last two letters, -ις, form the ending. Greek endings differentiate parts of speech. In this case, the ending tells us that Πιστις is a noun. The same stem with the ending, -ευω, is a verb. With -ος as its ending, it is an adjective. In Greek, to form the negative of a word they may add an alpha-prefix (α-). This is like our word atypical, which means “not typical.”
I thought we were speaking of the word BELEIVE.....not faith.
I stated that TO BELIEVE implies TO OBEY.
You don't seem to know this.
It sounds as if you think that believe just means to have some kind of belief in Jesus and that nothing further is necessary from you.
Sorry if I misunderstood.
It sure sounds like you believe the above.
Basic Form Negative Form Noun πιστ-ις: “confidence,”
“trust,” “faith” α-πιστ-ια: “unfaithfulness,” “distrust,”
“doubt” Verb πιστ-ευω: “to trust,”
“to rely on,” “to believe” α-πιστ-εω: “to refuse to believe,”
“to be distrustful,” “to be unbelieving” Adjective πιστ-ος: “trusting,”
“faithful,” “trustworthy” α-πιστ-ος: “distrustful,” “unfaithful,”
“unreliable”
Look at the noun, verb, and adjectival forms of the Greek word for faith in the table above.https://christianforums.net/#_edn1 Notice that the stem (πιστ-) is the same in each instance, and that the negative forms all have the alpha-prefix (α-).
I am showing this table, in spite of the fact that most readers probably do not know the Greek language, in order to help clarify the meaning of faith. Faith can be mysterious and hard to understand, or twisted, and made even harder to understand. But this table makes it clear that if a person has faith, it simply means that he has confidence or trust in someone or something. To be without faith means that he lacks confidence or that he refuses to believe. And a faithful person is someone who trusts someone or something, or one who is trustworthy. He is the opposite of one who is distrustful or unreliable.https://christianforums.net/#_ednref1 Theological dictionary of the New Testament. 1964–c1976. Vols. 5–9 edited by Gerhard Friedrich. Vol. 10 compiled by Ronald Pitkin. (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (6:174). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
I truly appreciate the Greek lessons.
I speak 3 languages myself and have a theologian friend that speaks and teaches both Hebrew and Greek.
Plus, I kind of take if for granted that the persons who translated the manuscripts of the New Testament were at least as smart as I am and I have some trust in them that they did a pretty good job.
I'm not expecting to be having to learn a new language to know what God expects from me.
Thanks for the translations (I couldn't keep them becusause of length). Please note that every translation you gave translates "πιστεύω" the same way, and in the manner that I showed above (i.e., “to trust,” “to rely on,” “to believe”). But they are not consistant in their translation of "οὐκ ἀπειθέω". Translations vary... "does not obey", "rejects", "does not believe", and "refues to believe". All of the translations, however, are consistent with what I said in my post (repeated here for convenience):
If you say so New Life.
Be happy.
Sincerely, I don't know what you're talking about in your last paragraph.The second instance of "believe" is "ἀπειθέω". In a general sense, it can mean "unwillingness or refusal to comply with the demands of some authority—‘to disobey, disobedience’" [Louw-Nida]. But, simply applying the general sense of the word does not do justice in this context because in the NT the word specifically means, "to refuse to believe the Christian message—‘to refuse to be a believer, to reject the Christian message, to refuse to believe’" [Louw Nida].
You must really like the Greek language.
I like, instead, to know what God wants from me.
BTW, my theologian friend, the one who knows Greek, he agrees with me.
I think I trust him.