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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman One
Little Comma I'd like to show how one
little comma can influence our understanding and application of a Bible
passage. Read Ephesians 4:11
and 12 in the King James Bible. "And
he [Jesus] gave
some, apostles;
and some,
prophets; and
some, evangelists;
and some,
pastors and
teachers; For
the perfecting
of the saints,
for the work
of the ministry, for
the edifying of
the body of
Christ:" You should know that
today's Biblical scholarship has a much better grasp of the Koine Greek
language of the New Testament than did the scholarship of the King James
Bible translators. This helps
us understand the New Testament better than previous generations.
With this in mind, Paul appears to have listed five leadership
ministries in church in the above quotation.
They are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
Due to the literary construction of the Greek text there are
actually four ministries listed. Pastors
and teachers are one and the same ministry, as in pastors/teachers.
First-century Greek
literature had no capital letters or punctuation marks.
Translators, then, must figure out what words to capitalize and
where to insert punctuation marks that best fit the meaning of the text,
and that is not always easy. Inserting
or not inserting a comma, for example, can have important implications as to
how we understand any given text, as is clearly the case with one specific
comma in the above passage. I
realize that there is more than one comma in the above passage but I want
to make one specific point, so I zero in on just one.
As seen in the KJV
above, Paul wrote that Jesus gives leadership ministries to the church
"for the
perfecting of
the saints, for
the work of the
ministry..." When you
consider the comma after the phrase "for the perfecting of the
saints" in the KJV, you might easily conclude that these ministries
do two things. They are
involved in the perfecting of the saints, and, they also do the work of
serving. This has been the
common thinking throughout much of church history.
Now
read the NIV where Jesus gives ministries to the church "to
equip his people for works of service..."
If you compare the KJV with the NIV, you will notice a major
difference. The KJV says that
these leadership ministries perform two duties.
They are perfecting the saints and they do the work of ministry.
The NIV, like most newer versions of this text say these ministries
perform one duty. They equip
people for works of service. This
difference is due to that one little comma inserted into the KJV that does
not appear in the Greek text that has no commas. This
comma has helped to form an unbiblical view of our placement in church,
something that has inflicted the church for centuries.
So what does all this
comma stuff have to do with you and I?
It makes it clear that church leaders do not do all of the works of
service in church, as the KJV suggests and as many think today.
Leaders equip those under their care to assist them in doing works
of service. Far too often
Christians simply attend a Sunday meeting, leaving the works of service up
to their leaders, and that is not what 1 Corinthians 12 says church is all
about. I also point out that
the word "perfecting" in the KJV and the word "equip"
in the NIV and other newer translations are translated from a Greek word
that suggests "being prepared," as in preparing those in church
to do works of service. Yes, one little comma
makes a difference at times, and in this case the difference is important
to the success of church where each believer is to be joined to a few
others in supportive relationships as they function together to accomplish
God's will (1 Corinthians 12). Obviously,
success in this matter is only possible when we experience church to be
more than a meeting in a building that we, in my opinion, mistakenly
call church.
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