Musings... Dr. Black's BLOG
Comments on Translation Issues Affecting the ISV®
[Introductory Thoughts]
[The ISV Heritage: Where We Got our English Bible]
[The Poetry of the International Standard Version]
[Zechariah 12:10 — Look Upon Me Whom They Pierced]
[The Disciple Whom Jesus Kept on Loving?]
[John 3:16 — God Loved the World So Much!?!]
[John 18:4 — Whom Sweet Whom]
[John 21:15-17 — Sloppy Agape]
[Acts 2:38 — Baptism for Forgiveness?]
[1 Corinthians 13:4-7 — An Ode to Love]
[Ephesians 5:32 — Mustering Mystery out of Musterion]
[Philippians 1:27-30 — Good Citizens]
[1 Timothy 3:2 — "Teachable" or "Able to Teach"]
[Titus 1:12 — On Poets & Liars: When is Poetry Poetry?]
[Hebrews 1:1 — Alliteration in the Bible]
[Hebrews 6:1 — "Press on" or "Be Carried Along"?]
[Hebrews 12:1-2 — Too Much Lettuce?]
[James 1:17 — Good Giving?]
[James 2:14 — Can Faith Save?]
On Pressing On
In Hebrews 6:1, the readers are told to leave
elementary things and advance to maturity. The verb often translated "go on"
(NRSV) or "press on" (NASB) is pherometha, from the common New Testament
word meaning "bring" or "carry" (phero). Here it appears in the
passive voice and pictures the Christian as "continually being carried along" to
maturity. There is nothing here of "going on," or of "pressing on," or
of self-effort, or of struggling to make progress in the Christian life. The author is
saying, as it were, "lift your sails and allow yourselves to be borne along to
maturity by the Holy Spirit of God." He also uses a tense that implies a process
rather than a single act. Hence the ISV rendering:
Therefore, leaving behind the elementary
teachings about Christ, let us continue to be carried along to maturity, not laying again
a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith toward God
This same idea of being carried forward by
God is found in Romans 8:14, where Paul declares that "all who are led by God’s
Spirit are God’s children," and in 2 Peter 1:21, where Peter, using the same
Greek verb as our author uses here, asserts that the prophets "were carried along by
the Holy Spirit." It is the power of the Holy Spirit that is the true dynamic of
Christian growth! |
