There is an athlete/coach I know and I used to mountain bike with her. She’s gone on to work and compete for real and doesn’t have time for social rides, but I remember when we were on a 30 mile, 4000′ elevation-gain ride, she asked the question “Still having fun?” (Yes, level 2 fun!) Whenever we rode and my spirit flagged, she’d ask the question, “Still having fun?” I haven’t ridden regularly with her for years, but that question pops into my head when my legs are getting weary. Like on my little ride yesterday.
Which makes me wonder how you’re doing. Are you flagging in your strength and will to continue? Or are you “still having fun?” Getting into the Word is work, I know. As we put the work in, the efforts get easier. Even as I started meeting with you, it was sleepless-night stressful. “I haven’t written for anyone else for years. Decades! What am I thinking? Jeremy! What am I doing?”
But as the weeks have passed, it has become less arduous and more fun. Some topics are still terrifying to try and explain when I know I don’t know enough but I want you to know some of it, like textual criticism. But some things are fun like talking about our God and how he relates to us. Trying to smith words for concepts that are beautiful and infinite, knowing that my awesome Dad is pleased with my little “crayon drawings” because honestly, who has words?
My prayer for you (I’m a tiny bit like Paul in that I’m praying for you and I don’t know you!) is that you are not just spectating but truly participating and that your spirit is encouraged to continue. Whether you are taking ponderous steps or you’re lightly bouncing over the rocks without much effort.
Today, we are going do some marking of the text on our observation worksheet. Do you have colored pencils? If you have some, grab those. If you don’t and you don’t want to get any, you can use symbols instead. We are going to identify key words and concepts.
Since we’ve created 4-5 lists while observing this passage, we’ve read through it 4-5 times at least. As you’ve read through multiple times, did you notice words that were used over and over? I’m not saying words such as and or the, but a word that would be considered a key word? Starting with the basics, often God is a good place to start. He isn’t always a key word by virtue of usage, but it’s a good word to start with to get your eyeballs in the mood to look for repeated words.
When we look for repeated words, we want to include pronouns. Which introduces a difficulty I had with this passage, trying to unravel all of them. We will attempt to wade through the snarl of pronouns and determine which one is who without bringing our theology into the process. Remember:
- Observation
- Interpretation
- Application
Observation through key words doesn’t mean we get to decide who’s who based on what we’ve heard before. Theologically, we always try to approach the text empty-handed, letting the text speak to us. Not the other way round. We will use grammar, common sense (I’ll explain in a few minutes), and if needed, experts when it gets particularly snarled .
Choosing a color to mark God on my worksheet, I read through the passage once more, coloring every occurrence of God or reference to God.
Here is part of my observation worksheet with the concept of God marked in orange so I can clearly see how many times he’s mentioned. If I weren’t using colored pencils, I would mark God with a triangle (△). I’ve used symbols for years, however I’ve found the colors make it more obvious than symbols that look the same as my other notes.
When I note all the places a key word or concept occurs, I do not simultaneously mark another key word. For instance, I do not color God at the same time as I mark Jesus. Focusing on one at a time will prevent missing occurrences and keeps us from being distracted.
In this section of scripture, there are instances where it is difficult to leave our theology at the door and accomplish marking. Here is how I handled it:
I make notes about what I don’t understand immediately. Here I noted that I think these are fuzzy pronouns. Once I start to unravel it, I can color who’s who, but I try not to make assumptions. At the point we begin to need to apply grammar and ask experts, we are crossing the line into a little interpretation because there are decisions about what something means as we are observing. Just so we are aware of what we are doing.
A moment ago, I mentioned that I use common sense to help discern who’s who. If you look at verse 4, it says, “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him”.
Since I subsequently highlighted Jesus in blue, I have blue smudges on my worksheet. The common sense comes in when there are these situations in the English where the pronoun usage isn’t clear. At least to me, without some consideration. When I try to make sure I go back to the proper antecedent, sometimes it isn’t obvious. My common sense comes into play when I ask questions.
Who is the he who chose us? Antecedent is God from verse 3.
Who is the him that we we were chosen in? I don’t see a clear antecedent, probably because I don’t know as much as I’d like to know about grammar. However, I can also look at it and say that we can’t both be chosen by God and be chosen in God. Otherwise the translators would’ve used the word himself instead of him and I wouldn’t have a question. Therefore I concluded that the only other option for an antecedent in the passage was Christ.
Perhaps this seems elementary and obvious to you, but as I study, I want to be diligent to leave my opinions and previous knowledge out of my study as much as possible. Additionally, maybe you have the same questions I do about how to unravel these pronouns and since it seems obvious to everyone else, no one talks about it.
I will. I want us to be growing into the best students we can be. Sometimes that means we discuss the “obvious”.
If we continue to try and determine who is who in this passage, I found another fuzzy place in verses 7-10.
Ephesians 1:7–10 (ESV)
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In verse 7, we have in him, his blood, and his grace. In verses 8 and 9 then, we have which he lavished, his will, his purpose, he set forth. And finally in verse 10 there is one more in him. As you read through that, without thinking about the theology you think you already know, can you tell who’s who? Because I cannot! And I think for me to understand and know theology for myself, I need to know which him goes with who.
Let’s wrestle with it. Beginning with verse 7, it says in him. I looked in the NET Bible at the notes and found a “tn” which tells me there is a translator note. Here’s the note:
This is how I ask one of those experts. The translators here say the original Greek means “in whom” and that the grammar of the text means the him we are discussing refers to Christ.
Clarity! Yippie! A pronoun unraveled. But then all the remaining questions about pronouns continue to be fuzzy. Continuing on.
Looking at the verses, the next time someone is concretely mentioned is at the end of verse 9 where it says which he set forth in Christ. Maybe we’re getting somewhere. If there’s a he who set forth and it was set forth in Christ, then the he in question can’t be Christ and for understandability, the previous pronouns (after Jesus’ blood) must all have the same antecedent. God the Father.
Unsure of my musings, I looked in the NET Bible again to see if the translators had any information for these pronouns.
It looks like the translators had to make a decision about how to translate for clarity because the Greek means “in him”. As you can see from the note, they decided to translate the “in him” as Christ so we could understand.
Based on the language experts I asked, it looks like all the pronouns in verses 8 and 9 have God the Father for the antecedent. Then Christ is mentioned as the one in whom God’s purpose was set forth and we are back to have Christ as the antecedent for the one in whom all things will be united in verse 10 and 11a.
At the end of verse 11, there are a couple more: of him and of his. “Of him who works all things according the the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory”.
Since Christ is mentioned later in the verse, grammatically it seems like the translators were making it clear that the one in whom we hope is different than the one who is working and has a will.
Have you noticed I’m skimming over the three phrases like to the praise of his glory? I don’t know who’s who there yet. We will come back to those and see if we can sort those out. Continuing on, we will look at verse 13 and 14.
I’m not sure if you can see that; I have the two him‘s colored blue. I think the antecedent is Jesus. Because I don’t want to trust my feeble scholarship, I asked the translators of the NET again for any help. For note 33, there is a translator note explaining that they chose to replace the Greek “in whom” with the antecedent Christ to improve clarity. Their note is below.
Good. That helps me feel more comfortable with my assessment of the pronouns here.
Now to go back and address the repeated and related phrases of verse 6, 12, and 14. Verse 6 reads to the praise of his glorious grace and both 12 and 14 read to the praise of his glory.
I have looked at these over and over. Since verses before are talking about God the Father, I’m comfortable coloring his in verse 6 orange. Verses 12 and 14? I just can’t tell. With my limited grammar knowledge in English and my virtually non-existent (SO FAR!) knowledge of Greek grammar, I can see the possibility for all of them being God the Father, and I can see the possibility for verse 12 being Jesus’ glory and verse 14 being the Spirit’s glory.
It is repeated, so it’s important. But I do not have the tools to unravel it and the translators of the ESV and the NET do not address it, so I will have to leave it as a question for now. Perhaps as we interpret, we will unearth some additional information and be able to sort it out. At this point, what we can observe is that God in general and potentially each person of the trinity get praise to his/their glory.
God is glorious. In all of who he is. That is what I can observe and delight in.
Thank you for hanging in there with me while we had a ball of yarn that was tangled in knots to straighten out. Years ago, I knitted and my son Kyle was very good at untangling those horrible skeins of yarn that came from the factory pre-tangled. Even as a youngster, he would patiently take it apart and help me wind it gently into a usable ball.
That is the image I have in my head as I try to solve the riddles of who’s who in the text. Kyle didn’t concern himself with what the yarn was going to be used for, he simply was helping me unravel.
If you see other key words or concepts, go ahead and color those so you can see them and be aware they exist. For example, I noticed the word will came up three times. I circled that in green.
Our Bible Study Bite for today is definitely a challenging one. Leaving your established theology behind as you consider a passage, attempting to rely on internal support (just what the scripture says) for identifying who is who is more than challenging. At about verse 13-14, I was ragged from trying to reason it out. But leaving your theology behind is the same thing as leaving anything else you think you know behind. The effort is necessary in order to learn truth.
You’ve had the experience, I’m sure, where you are trying to teach someone a new concept. Each time you attempt to explain an aspect, the one with whom you are communicating says, “oh yes, I know that…” and fails to hear you for all the noise of the information they have in their head that they think is pertinent. But isn’t. And they never hear what you have to say.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m also studying Mark with a few ladies. Mark likes to relate the accounts of Jesus where he surprises his audience. Jesus regularly takes tradition and previously understood “truths” and flips it around. Let’s not have our minds full of what we “know” and miss what Paul (so ultimately God) wants to teach us. Even if what we thought we knew gets flipped.
Exercising our minds in this way for a relatively simple project like who gets colored blue and who gets colored orange is a good place to start. Because it gets a lot harder when we start to learn things like the Sabbath doesn’t mean what we thought it meant, for example. We will work through these processes together.
Next time we, will move firmly into the realm of interpretation.
