Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Romans 10:5-15

10:5 The tense of the verb "graphei" is in the present, so Moses "is writing" the righteousness. Perhaps a slight hint by Paul that the reality of works-righteousness continues...and is a present reality.

10:6 and 10:7 The Greek is fairly straight forward here. The problem is figuring out what Paul is doing with these OT quotes, which he is cutting and editing...

One thing perhaps worth remembering is that the negative, aorist subjunctive prohibition "meh eipehs" means "Don't even thinking about starting to say..." (Ie, the action had not yet begun)

10:9 The word "confess" in Greek is: "homologeoo," which means same+word. Our confession is never our own, but is made with others. This is also in the subjunctive mode after ean, which means it is a conditional. It is not a guarantee whether we make this confession or not.

10:9 Paul discusses the heart here -- heart in the Greek world does not simply mean the center of emotions but also includes the the entirity of the "inner" person. (Luke 16:15 -- "God knows your hearts." does not simply mean God knows if you are in love or feeling sad...or both!)

10:11 Here we have the word (in the future passive) of the word for "ashamed." It is worth looking at where else Paul uses this word in his ministry...God will make the wise ashamed (1 Cor 1:27)

10:12 The word for "distinction", "diastoleh" is the same from Romans 3:22. The word for generous here literally means to make wealthy.

10:13 In both verse 9 and 13, the verb save is in the future tense (passive).

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