[b-greek] Re: John 21 - the significance of the OTHER synonyms (per AGAPAO/PHILEO)

From: One of the McKays (musicke@ozemail.com.au)
Date: Sat Jan 06 2001 - 21:52:33 EST


I've just come home from church, where we had a sermon on John 21. The
preacher took the line that the story of the huge catch of fish and
breakfast with Jesus, and the reinstatement of Peter are both meant to teach
the same thing: that we should love Jesus and spread the message of his
love. He didn't once say "Now, in the Greek..." but preached entirely from
the 1984 edition of the NIV, English edition. [You will notice that the
earlier version of the text twice translates AGAPAW as "truly love" whereas
the later edition only once uses "truly love" and the rest of the time
translates FILEW and AGAPAW the same.]

It is the practice in our church to allow for questions after the sermon.
The questions were all about Greek words for love. A hearing-impaired woman
got someone else to ask about "the four words for love" in the NT, a man
dogmatically stated that FILEW [couldn't catch the word, but it was meant to
be this word, I think] means "friend" and a native Greek speaker began to
talk about modern Greek words for love and got us all out of our depth.

It seems to me that the preacher was on the right track, whereas his
listeners were all sidetracked with issues which obscure the main meaning of
the chapter.

He answered questions by saying dogmatically that the conversation was
originally in Hebrew or Aramaic and that the nuances were not present in the
original conversation.

I kept my mouth shut.

David McKay
musicke@ozemail.com.au



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